A pupil of Origen from the Alexandrian school. His missionary endeavors among his people in Asia Minor earned him the nick-name "Wonder-Worker." A young law student, after five years of instruction under Origen, Gregory wrote a book praising him.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gregory-VII, history, Origen[/tags]

He was accused by Pope Gregory VII of simony and lay investiture in appointing his own choice to be the archbishop of Milan. Gregory accordingly summoned Henry to Rome to explain his conduct. Henry's answer was to convene in 1076 a synod of German bishops that declared Pope Gregory a usurper and unfit to occupy the Roman See. In retaliation, Gregory excommunicated Henry and deposed him, absolving his subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Eventually, Henry was driven to make peace with the Holy Father because of a revolt among the German nobles. Henry appeared before Gregory in January 1077 at Canossa, a castle in the mountains of Italy. Dressed as a penitent, the emperor stood barefoot in the snow for three days and begged forgiveness until he was received "into the lap of the Holy Mother Church."

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Emperor-Henry-IV, Gregory-VII, history[/tags]

Was Pope as Gregory VII from 1073-1085. He claimed unprecedented power for the papacy. Gregory held as his ideal the creation of a Christian commonwealth under papal control. He insisted that the spiritual power was supreme over the temporal. In his clash with emperor Henry IV, the pope accused Henry of simony and lay investiture and excommunicated Henry and deposed him. Henry eventually appeared before Gregory barefoot in the snow for three days begging forgiveness until Gregory relented and reconciled him.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gregory-VII, Hildebrand, history[/tags]

Pope from 1198-1216. Unlike Gregory VII and other earlier reform popes, who were monks, Innocent and other great popes of the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries were trained as canon lawyers, experts in church government. His most powerful weapons in exercising his spiritual power over the people of the land were excommunication and the interdict.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gregory-VII, history, Innocent-III[/tags]