FERRARA-FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF. The Council of Basel, convened in 1431 by Pope Mar tin V., having fallen into a series of disputes with Martin's successor, Eugenius IV., the lat ter in 1437 issued a bull transferring the ses sions to Ferrara. He was obeyed only by Car dinal Julian, the president, and four bishops; the council itself continued in session at Basel. (See BASEL, COUNCIL OF.) To the five delegates, how ever, who met at Ferrara. January 5. 113S, others fresh from their homes were added, so that at the second session seventy-two bishops were pres ent, over whom the Pope presided. The Emperor of Constantinople, John Pahrologus, was also present, and brought with him patriarchs, bish ops, and other ecclesiastics, amounting in all to seven hundred persons. his object in coming was to effect the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches, in the hope that lie could thus secure the aid of the West against the Turks, who were then pressing hard upon the Empire, and were destined (as afterwards shown) soon to over whelm it. The Pope also desired this union as a personal triumph over his adversaries in the Council of Basel, and he hoped that lie would be accepted as a leader of the crusade against the Turks. The points of difference between the Greek and Latin churches were (1) upon the doctrinal point whether the Holy Spirit pro ceeded, as the Greeks maintained, only from the Father, or, as the Latins held, from the Son also (see FILM() l'E ) ( 2 ) whether the bread used in the Lord's Supper should be leavened, as the Greeks held, or unleavened, as the Latins did; 131 whether the l'ope should be accepted as the head of Christendom, overriding the authority of the Greet; patriarchs; (4) whether the Greek doctrine of a middle state after death without the remedial pain of fire, or the Roman doctrine of purgatory in which punishment by fire as :in penalty and satisfaction for repented -in. was to be maintained. These and some
minor points were diseussed. in January. 1139, in consequence of the outbreak of the plague in Ferrara, the sessions of the conneil were uontinned in Florenee. and there an agree ment het wren the repre,eniativeg was arrived at —viz. the ,npreinney of the was neknowl edged, the spirit said to proceed from the Father through the Son, and the Latin views in general prevailed. But the union celebrated on July 6, 1439, was short•lived.