What was indulgence in the 16th century. Sale of indulgences
QUESTION: It is often said that in the Catholic Church the forgiveness of sins can be bought with money, meaning or remission. The question is that people just don't know what it really is?
ANSWER: we will immediately note that the forgiveness of sins cannot be bought for any money. To receive it, one must proceed to the Sacrament of Penance -. This is the only way. The doctrine of indulgences and the practice of indulgences in the Church are closely connected with the consequences of the Sacrament of Penance.
According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, indulgence is the remission before God of a temporary punishment for sins, the guilt for which has already been blotted out. What does it mean?
Sin has a double effect. Serious sin deprives us of fellowship with God and closes access to eternal life; its deprivation is called "eternal punishment for sin." But any sin, even a small one, leads to an unordered attachment to creatures, from which it is necessary to cleanse either on earth or after death, in a state called Purgatory. This cleansing frees from what is called the "temporary punishment" for sin. Both of these punishments are not to be understood as God's vengeance; for they flow from the very nature of sin. The forgiveness of sin and the restoration of fellowship with God results in the remission of the eternal punishment for sin. But there is a temporary punishment. Indulgence, therefore, is liberation from temporary punishment. An indulgence can be offered for the dead who are in Purgatory and need help. We will talk about this below.
There have been moments in the history of the Church when the practice of granting indulgences has led to considerable abuse. In the time of Martin Luther, the Saxon monk Tetzel handed out indulgences for money. This has nothing to do with the doctrine of indulgence and the principles that are written in the documents of the Catholic Church.
It is interesting that the beginning of indulgence must be looked for in the Old Testament. The ancient Jews had customs at certain periods, for example, in memory of the creation of the world, to give indulgence in today's understanding to the poor or slaves - to forgive debts, return lands or free slaves, remembering the mercy of God, who led the Israeli people out of Egypt.
In the New Testament, Jesus himself gave the first "indulgence" to the thief who was crucified next to Him. He said: "You will be with Me in paradise." Christ not only forgave the thief of his sin, but also the punishment for the guilt that the thief atoned for by his suffering on the cross. Relying on this event, Christianity formed its understanding of God's mercy and justice.
In the first Christian communities, people who committed serious sins could return to the bosom of the Church only through the rite of repentance, as well as through suffering, which they had to atone for their guilt. Patiently enduring pain and various trials, the Christian tried to accept this temporary punishment for sin as a blessing. The period of repentance sometimes lasted several years. It was associated with fasting, wearing special clothes and signs that symbolized punishment for sin. Such people were banned from performing various public and church services. And only after such a long repentance were believers admitted to Communion.
As time passed, the penances that were imposed on the sinner became easier. For example, in order to receive an indulgence, one could make a pilgrimage to one of the shrines, fast, pray, or sleep on a hard floor. Suffering was to contribute to the greater holiness of the believer who committed the sin. It happened that the indulgence was issued for participation in the Crusades, pilgrimages to Rome or visits to the Papal basilicas.
A believer could offer an indulgence not only for himself, but also for the people in Purgatory. It is interesting that for a long time Purgatory was perceived as very ordinary. Suffering in it was measured in days and years. For one sin, one had to suffer 100 days, for another 40, and for some sins all one's life. By receiving an indulgence, believers allegedly shortened this period. However, this understanding was wrong. In this regard, in 1967, Pope Paul VI revised the teachings of the Catholic Church and eliminated the indulgences outlined by a specific time. He established only two types of indulgences that exist to this day: partial and full.
To receive indulgence, certain conditions must be met: to be in a state of grace - to proceed to the Sacraments of Confession and the Holy Eucharist, to be free from any attachment to any sin, to pray for the needs of the Holy Father with the prayers "", "Hail Mary", "I believe into God." In addition, it is necessary to perform certain practices that provide for partial or complete indulgence. They are indicated in church documents, and can also be established by local bishops: this can be the worship of the Holy Gifts, participation in recollections, visiting a cemetery at a time determined by the Church, praying the Rosary, visiting the Church at a parish celebration, and others.
Thus, indulgence is in no way connected with monetary payments, but only with the performance of spiritual practices that help the believer become more holy, free him or his loved ones from temporary punishment on earth or in Purgatory.
Indulgence- in the closest way means permission from the penance imposed by the Church.
Initially, church punishments consisted of public, mostly year-long repentance, through which the sinner and expelled from the community had to prove the sincerity and firmness of repentance. Already at the Council of Nicaea (), the bishops received the right to shorten the time appointed for repentance, to those excommunicated, whose sincere repentance was proved. Good deeds, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, travels to St. places, etc., committed voluntarily or previously imposed for minor offenses revealed in a secret confession to a priest. Very great importance was attributed to these "good deeds", to the detriment of the doctrine of God's grace. There was only one step left to recognize "good deeds" as satisfaction for the sin committed; this is what happened in the Western Church under the influence of German legal concepts.
According to pagan-Germanic concepts, it was possible to atone for harm caused to someone, even murder, by retribution (Busse), that is, by a voluntary act that would be equivalent to the dignity of the victim or the importance of the crime. The injured party thus received satisfaction and renounced her right of revenge. This civil legal custom, transferred to religious relations, gave rise to the idea of God's satisfaction as the injured party. The ancient German legislation, remaining true to its civil law nature, allowed not only the transfer of punishment to another person, but even its replacement with monetary vira (Wergeld) at a certain rate.
The Church, itself suffering from outward formalism and unable to change the crude popular outlook, found support in it in order to achieve at least outward recognition of its disciplinary power. The barbaric cruelty of the ecclesiastical punishments customary in England and other countries clearly showed the need for their mitigation by some kind of replacement. At the end of the 7th century from England the so-called confessional books came into circulation, which were recommended to priests as a guide for confession. They contained a table of reliefs or replacements for church punishments; e.g. fasting - by singing psalms or alms, as well as a monetary donation in favor of the church and clergy. There was also a replacement of faces upon repentance; the rich could finish the seven-year period of repentance in three days by hiring the appropriate number of people who would fast for him. Against such an innovation, a cry of indignation was raised throughout the Western Church: the view that the forgiveness of sins can be bought for money seemed to be as early as c. so blasphemous that many provincial councils ordered the burning of confessional books. But the growing formalism of the church and later the ever-increasing greed of the clergy turned the abuse into a dominant custom. Donations to churches and monasteries for the atonement of sins became commonplace. Episcopal and papal charters generously endowed churches with privileges, which freed anyone who donated to their establishment or support from the third or fourth part of the punishment, sometimes even gave complete cleansing from all sins.
In the century, under Pope Alexander II, the name indulgentia first appears. To encourage participation in the crusades, at the Council of Clermont (1095-1096) it was announced to the crusaders and persons who supported the crusade with monetary assistance, full or partial forgiveness of the canonical and even divine punishment, both for them personally and for their close relatives, living and the dead.
This method of promotion survived the Crusades. There was a habit of a light attitude towards the forgiveness of sins: they began to give it, for example, for visiting a well-known church on certain days, for listening to a sermon; it even came to the point that for a well-known pious deed it was possible to obtain the forgiveness of future sins and pardon for sinners suffering in purgatory. Partly flagrant abuses of the use of indulgences, partly hierarchical interests, prompted Pope Innocent III (1215) to limit the right of absolution of bishops, and complete forgiveness (indulgentiae plenariae) passed little by little into the hands of one pope. But on the other hand, Rome herself practiced this method of remission of sins all the more shamelessly, so that little by little it turned into a tax on Christians; so, for example, at the Nuremberg Diet (1466) absolution was offered in order to raise money for the war with the Turks.
Scholastic philosophy hastened to theoretically substantiate the right of the church to indulgences. It was argued that the enormous merits of Christ, the Mother of God and the saints before God formed an inexhaustible treasury of good deeds (opera superrogationis), which was placed at the disposal of the church for the distribution of grace from it to the worthy. Clement VI in the middle of the XIV table. He approved this doctrine, and recognized the Apostle Peter and his deputies, the Roman bishops, as the guardians of the accumulated treasure. In this way, abuse became even more widespread.
The shamelessness with which Leo X in and gg. under the pretext of waging war with the Turks, in fact, for the construction of the church of St. Peter in Rome and to cover the costs of his court, gave at the mercy of indulgences and imposed an indemnity on almost all of Europe, was one of the main reasons for the German and Swiss Reformation. In Luther's controversy against the predominantly Dominican trade in indulgences, scholastic theory was discussed at length. The famous theses, nailed by Luther on October 31 to the door of the palace church at Wittenberg, were directed not against indulgences, but against their abuse, i.e., against what Luther then considered only abuse. Papal indulgences, he argued, cannot forgive sins or deliver from God's punishment, but can only free from ecclesiastical punishment imposed by canon law, and then only in relation to the living, since indulgences are not able to free from purgatory. Luther went even further in his soon published "Speech on forgiveness and grace", where he rejected the scholastic doctrine of satisfaction as the third part of the sacrament of repentance or the need to atone for sins by "good deeds", which undermined the theoretical foundation of indulgences. The Dominicans Konrad Vimpina and Sylvester Prierias, on the contrary, tried to give a theoretical justification for the practical use of indulgences. Essentially, their teaching is the same as that developed by Alexander Gales († 1245) and Thomas Aquinas († 1274). This doctrine, rejected by the Reformation, was approved by the bull of Pope Leo X (November 9) and preserved unchanged by the Council of Trent. According to his decrees, the sacrament of repentance should consist of three parts: repentance, confession and satisfaction (contritio cordis, confessio oris, satisfactio operis). At confession, with the permission of the priest, sin is forgiven and deliverance from the eternal torments of hell is given; but in order to be released from temporal punishment, the sinner must give satisfaction which is determined by the church. Under the name of temporal punishments is meant not only church repentance, imposed according to canon law, but also God's punishment, partly on earth, partly in purgatory, for those souls who, having been saved from hell, are subject to purification after death. The power of the church to forgive ecclesiastical and divine punishments is based on the innumerable merits of Christ and the saints and the treasury of good deeds gathered in this way, which the church has at its disposal. From this treasury, through the medium of indulgences, the Church can distribute blessings to those who need them. But forgiveness extends each time as long as the indulgence releases it; the sinner does not receive it free of charge, because that would be contrary to God's justice; some pious feat is required of him, which the church could consider equivalent to forgiveness, even if it in itself was very insignificant. Since the nature and extent of the feat is not taken into account, along with participation in brotherhoods, travels to holy places, visits to churches, worship of relics, etc., there may be monetary donations for pious deeds. The contribution of a small amount proves, at least, that the one who has sinned in faith is moving towards the grace-filled action of the church. If, at the same time, absolution is given under the condition of participation in a pious enterprise, then the donor, according to the size of his gift, participates in the merit of a good deed and in the reward for it, and this merit, with the help of indulgence, can remove the punishment imposed on earth. The Church also has the power to release from punishment in purgatory if those living on earth receive an indulgence for the deceased. On the same basis that funeral masses are considered valid for reducing the torment of Christians in purgatory, indulgences should also have power; although the deceased cannot himself stretch out the "begging hand", it is replaced by the merits of the saints, which are at the disposal of the church, and the good deeds of those left on earth. The indulgences which the Church gives to the living by virtue of the power that belongs to it (per modum absolutionis) to those in purgatory can only be given as a powerful intercession (per modum suffragii), which makes no difference in the result, since the Church never asks in vain.
How deliverance from repentance turned into remission of sin, and how the opportunity to buy forgiveness for oneself is connected with the good deeds of the Mother of God
Prepared by Svetlana Yatsyk
Indulgence issued on May 13, 1345 in Avignon to 12 archbishops and bishops for the parish of the Holy Cross, the hospital and all the churches and chapels of the city of Schwäbisch Gmünd Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart
The word "indulgence" comes from the Latin indulgentia ("mercy", "forgiveness") and means the complete or partial release of the believer from punishment (poena) and, accordingly, from a redemptive act or repentance for sins.
The first indulgences appeared in the 11th century in France; in them, popes and bishops officially, in the form of a legal act, announced their intercession for the faithful before God and on this basis partially or completely relieved them of the need for repentance. Remission of guilt (culpa) for a sin committed was considered subject only to God; indulgences were perceived as a concession to the imperfection and weakness of the laity, incapable of hard redemptive work, and the "effectiveness" of letters was explained by the special intercessory prayer of a high church hierarch for those who had sinned. However, then the indulgence gave only the deliverance of the believer from temporary punishment - that is, reconciliation with the Church, and not complete forgiveness.
Catholicism in the Middle Ages was characterized by mystical legalism and a peculiar quantitative approach: all sins were classified according to their severity, for each of them (not counting mortals) a punishment was established. It was believed that the pope had the right to determine the degree of grace of this or that action and this or that holy place, as well as the strength of this or that patron saint. Based on this, certain deeds were recognized as the basis for indulgence - for example, pilgrimage or prayer in a particular church.
The turning point in the development of indulgences was the beginning of the Crusades: to everyone who went to the Holy Land, the pope granted indulgentia plenaria ("total forgiveness"). Later, approximately from the middle of the 13th century, in the works of learned theologians and in the minds of people, the idea was established that indulgences can deliver "from guilt and punishment" (a culpa et poena), that is, forgive sin itself. In the mass consciousness, this idea extended to all indulgences, which was greatly facilitated by the priests who sometimes abused their office - the distributors of indulgences (the so-called Questaria).
The next turning point came in 1343, when the so-called doctrine of the treasury of the church acquired official status: the good deeds of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints constitute a kind of reserve, a “treasury”, from which other Christians can draw. The holiness of some representatives of the Christian community exceeds the sinfulness of others, and this is what makes indulgence possible.
The move towards the abuse of pardon trade that led Martin Luther to write his famous 95 Theses was gradual. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the payment of a certain amount to the Church was universally considered sufficient grounds for an indulgence. At the beginning of the 16th century, Pope Leo X granted indulgences to those who donated money for the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, and the Dominican Johann Tetzel sold the same type of indulgences to everyone - as it is believed, without caring at all whether the buyers of these letters repented of their sins.
The practice of using indulgences as a means of replenishing the treasury was condemned by the Catholic clergy at the Council of Trent in 1563. However, the Council prohibited only the sale of indulgences, but not the practice of giving them, describing in detail how a person can receive a letter of forgiveness. Indulgences exist in the Catholic Church today, but in a different form: now they are regulated by the bull of Paul VI Indulgentiarum Doctrina (“The Doctrine of Indulgences”), published in 1967.
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Vladimir Dal
indulgence
and. lat. pardons issued by the pope, indulgence of past and sometimes future sins; our Uniates called it simple; get forgiveness.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov
indulgence
indulgences, g. (Latin indulgentia - forgiveness) (historical church). In the Catholic Church - a papal letter of absolution, issued for payment to believers.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova.
indulgence
And, well. For Catholics: absolution of sins, as well as a letter of such absolution, issued for a special fee by the church on behalf of the pope. Give out, give indulgence to someone. (also trans.: to give permission for some actions, deeds; bookish). Get an indulgence (also trans.: get permission for some actions, deeds; bookish).
New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.
indulgence
and. Letter of absolution, issued by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Pope for money or for any. service to the church.
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
indulgence
INDULGENCE (from Latin indulgentia - mercy) in the Catholic Church, full or partial remission of sins, as well as a certificate of this. The widespread trade in indulgence (from the 12th-13th centuries) was a means of enriching the clergy.
Indulgence
(from Latin indulgentia ≈ indulgence, mercy), in the Catholic Church, the full or partial forgiveness of "sins" given to the believing church (possessing, according to the teachings of Catholicism, a reserve of "divine grace" by virtue of the merits of Christ and the saints), as well as a certificate issued church on the occasion of "absolution of sins". From the 12th-13th centuries. the Catholic Church began large-scale trade in India, which took on the character of shameless profit, which subsequently provoked a stormy protest by humanists; the abolition of I. trade was one of the main requirements of the Reformation. The sale of I. by the papacy has not been completely stopped at the present time.
Lit .: Lozinsky S. G., Papal “Department of Repentant Affairs”, in the book: Questions of the History of Religion and Atheism, Sat. 2, M., 1954; Papal rates of absolution, prepared for publication by B. Ya. Ramm, ibid.
Wikipedia
Indulgence
Indulgence- in the Catholic Church, exemption from temporal punishment for sins in which the sinner has already repented, and the guilt for which has already been forgiven in the sacrament of confession, in particular, permission from the penance imposed by the Church.
In the Renaissance, an erroneous understanding of indulgence as the remission of sins for money, and regardless of the sacrament of confession, became widespread. In 1567, Pope Pius V completely banned the granting of indulgences for money and other donations. According to Catholic theology, Catholics receive the remission of temporal punishment through the action of the Catholic Church from the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints. An indulgence may be partial or complete, depending on whether it releases partially or completely from temporary punishment for sins. Every Catholic can receive indulgences both for himself and for the dead.
Examples of the use of the word indulgence in the literature.
In other words, the denial of the most important church dogmas and basic sacraments, the rejection of the worship of saints and the non-recognition indulgences, the liquidation of the catholic hierarchy squandering huge amounts of money, the announcement of the pope as the vicar of Satan, the abolition of church tithes and the abolition of the clergy's landholdings, the rejection of Catholic churches - these are the main features of the Albigensian heresy, which reflected the protest of the masses against the feudal church order.
On the contrary, most buyers saw in indulgences opportunity to commit crimes with impunity.
They listen to the instructions of this erring man, Peter Poundtext, who was once the most worthy preacher of the word of the Lord, and now became an apostate and for a salary to support himself and his family, left the righteous path and followed this black indulgence.
In the first draft of the manifestos, in which they wished to explain the many reasons which had prompted them to resort to arms, this difficult question was carefully passed over in silence, but it was brought up again in the absence of Belfour, who, returning, saw to his great annoyance that both sides were furiously bicker about this, that McBrayer, Timpane and other creeds of the persecuted wanderers, foaming at the mouth, press on Peter Poundtext, who accepted indulgence pastor in the Milnwood parish, and although he girded himself with a sword, nevertheless, before going out for a just cause on the battlefield, he courageously defends his views in the council of war.
Lopukhin, in a strange attack of scientific fanaticism, which easily swept away moral and social barriers, implicated, like almost everyone, in vanity, love for who knows whom, self-interest and selfishness, spitting on criminal conventions, in an unclear but desperate hope of obtaining an outstanding scientific result, which will serve indulgence, forgetting the promises given to Fret, together with Vavila, on the same night, she sewed a vascular pedicle with the uterine artery and vein of the excised muscular-endometrial flap of the human uterus, together with the embryo that is still undifferentiated, into the corresponding incisions in the walls of the internal iliac vessels of the actor, declaring the operation as the imposition of a new arterio- venous shunt for hemodialysis instead of thrombosed.
He analyzed the apostolic bulls and decrees, indulgences, the merits of man in relation to grace and salvation, deaf confession, and many other points in which Lutherans differed from Catholics.
Having said this, he dragged Moz after him in order to prepare for new wanderings in search of shelter, and for a long time her tongue could not calm down and words flew from her angry lips: rattling, covenant, insidious, indulgence.
The Pope, who was always at the mercy of those who strove to piously fool the human race, contributed to the goals of the monks, supplied them with an abundance of relics and distributed indulgences those who, out of their piety, visit them and pay homage to them.
indulgence, scholasticism, asceticism, dogmatism, sectarianism, religious wars, Jesuitism, monasteries - as the antithesis of life, etc.
One can name many phenomena that go against evolution: the inquisition, indulgence, scholasticism, asceticism, dogmatism, sectarianism, religious wars, Jesuitism, monasteries - as the antithesis of life, etc.
We have enough weight with our holy father, the Pope of Avignon, to add spiritual gifts to ordinary gifts, and he, of course, would not refuse you indulgences if we asked him for them for your community.
His hook-nosed profile took on a mocking expression, like that of Mephistopheles, who is slipped a fake indulgence.
In a word, nothing compares to the crimes, disorders, excesses that were committed during the centuries of ignorance and faith by superstitious savages, in whom blind piety replaced morality and to whom papal indulgences emboldened to commit crime.
She could buy better for money indulgence to his narcissism - a refrigerated bunker.
At the age of thirty-one, when Charles's father-in-law, the King of Naples, called him to pacify Tuscany, where the Guelphs and Ghibellines were waging internecine wars, Valois managed to get from the pope indulgences to the crusades, and for himself personally - the title of chief vicar of the Christian world and Count Romansky.
INDULGENCY (Latin indulgentia - indulgence, mercy, exemption from debt, punishment, tax relief), in the Catholic Church since the 11th century, exemption from penance, as well as from the temporary punishment imposed by God in purgatory for sins; a charter containing such an exemption (Latin littera indulgentialis).
The Council of Nicaea (325) permitted the bishops, in the case of the sinner's sincere repentance, to shorten the lengthy periods of repentance envisaged by the practice of the early Church. The institution of indulgence was formed on the basis of the practice of absolution (absolutio), which allowed in the Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages the possibility of replacing one penance with another (commutatio), as well as its mitigation under certain conditions (redemptio); this practice was reflected in confession books (poenitentiale). The term "indulgentia" in relation to the practice of absolution can be traced from the 11th century, in the early stages it appears simultaneously with "pax", "remissio", "donatio", "condonatio". At the Council of Clermont (1095), Pope Urban II (1088-99) issued an indulgence for the crusaders "with the remission of all sins" (pro omni poenitentia); this practice later became a tradition. Early episcopal indulgences from southern France and northern Spain (early 12th century) contained absolutions for a 20-day or 40-day period, later extended to several years. A common reason for issuing indulgences was church festivities associated with the cult of saints. Bishops and cardinals widely granted churches and monasteries the right to sell indulgences on church holidays to raise funds for church construction, assistance to the poor, maintenance of the church and clergy, and hospitals. The theoretical substantiation of the indulgence was based on the theory of the “treasury of the Church” (thesaurus ecclesiae) developed by theologians of the 13th century (Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventuroi) - an inexhaustible “stock” of grace at the disposal of the Church, accumulated by the sufferings of Christ and the exploits of saints and martyrs in the name of faith, from which the Church could, at her own discretion, draw grace for believers. The apostle Peter and his viceroy on earth, the Pope of Rome, were recognized as the guardians of the "treasury of the Church". The doctrine of the "treasury of the Church" was officially approved by Pope Clement VI (1342-52) with the bull "Unigenitus Dei Filius" (1343). According to church teaching, in the sacrament of repentance, the sinner was cleansed of guilt for sin, the eternal punishment for mortal sin was removed, but a temporary punishment was imposed that the sinner had to endure in earthly life or in purgatory and which could be removed through an indulgence that replaced personal penitential labors the merits of Christ and the saints from the "treasury of the Church". Indulgence was given in emergency circumstances, with permission from the confessor and signs of repentance, with a sufficient amount of donations (for the poor in some cases free of charge). The doctrine of papal full indulgence (indulgentia plenaria; for example, in relation to inquisitors, crusaders, pilgrims to the Holy Land, etc.) was developed. In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII (1295-1303) proclaimed a full indulgence for all Roman pilgrims on the occasion of the jubilee year (see "Annus sanctus"), Pope Clement VI repeated it in 1350. In the 14th century, the practice of indulgence was common for the souls of the dead in purgatory [officially established in 1476 by the bull "Salvator noster" of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84)]. In this case, the Church acted not by virtue of its jurisdiction, but through prayer, asking God to shorten the time the soul of the deceased was in purgatory (per modum suffragii - "through intercession" - litany). At the same time, in connection with the spread of the plague, the practice of indulgence with the absolution of sins on the deathbed arose.
The sale of indulgences was entrusted to special preachers-questuaries. The IV Lateran Council (1215) regulated their activities and limited the rights of bishops to issue indulgences: for a period of one year in honor of a temple holiday or for 40 days on other occasions. Numerous abuses associated with indulgences caused criticism in the Church itself and in society (Walter von der Vogelweide, Dante), undermined the position of the Church and the papacy, and became one of the main objects of criticism in the Reformation era. Indulgences began to be perceived as permission to commit a sin sold for money, the forgiveness of future sins, the forgiveness of the sins of the dead in purgatory. Pope Clement V (1305-14) forbade the issuance of indulgences with the formula of exemption "from guilt and punishment" (a culpa et a poena). The Council of Constance declared invalid all indulgences with this formula (1418). Nevertheless, at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries in Western Europe, the trade in indulgences took on an increasingly large scale. Criticism of the abuses connected with this played an important role in the preparation of the Reformation, the beginning of which is considered to be the publication by M. Luther of 95 theses against indulgence (1517). The need for stricter regulation of the distribution of indulgences was also felt within the Catholic Church. In 1567, Pope Pius V (1566-72) revoked all indulgences issued in exchange for money or donations. The Council of Trent condemned the abuses associated with the issuance of indulgences, entrusted the fight against them to the local church authorities and the Pope of Rome (1563), contributed to the creation of the Congregation of Indulgences (finally took shape in 1669, reorganized in 1710), which regulated their issuance and fought against abuses. In 1904, Pope Pius X (1903-14) merged the Congregation of Indulgences with the Congregation of Rites.
The Codex Iuris Canonici (1917) provides a detailed classification of indulgences according to method, place, time of issuance, addressees, etc. The most significant is the distinction established between full and partial indulgences. A full indulgence completely frees from earthly punishment for sin and does not require further atonement in purgatory. A partial indulgence, issued for a certain number of days or years in accordance with the penitential practice of the early Church, removes only part of the punishment in purgatory. The right to issue a full indulgence is reserved exclusively for the Pope. Partial indulgences are issued by the highest church hierarchs, starting with bishops. Clerics, priests, vicars general, abbots, generals of religious orders may issue indulgences only with the special permission of the pontiffs. Mandatory conditions for obtaining indulgence are repentance and absolution; full indulgence also requires confession, communion, and doing good deeds (prayer, almsgiving, going to church, etc.). In contemporary ecclesiastical law, indulgences are regulated by canons 992-997 of the "Codex Iuris Canonici" (1983) and apostolic decrees. Pope Paul VI (1963-78) with the apostolic constitution "Indulgentiarum doctrina" (1967) abolished the distinctions of indulgence, except for full and partial, tightened the conditions for obtaining a full indulgence, formulated a modern interpretation of the doctrine of the "treasury of the Church". The Apostolic Penitentiary regulated the conditions for obtaining an indulgence by the decree "Enchiridion indulgentiarum" ("Guide to Indulgences", 1968). In honor of the jubilee year, the conditions for receiving a full indulgence are usually relaxed; The decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary "Il dono della indulgenza" ("The Gift of Indulgence", 2000) regulated the wide distribution of indulgences in connection with the celebration of the 2000th anniversary of Christianity.
Lit.: Paulus N. Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter. Darmstadt, 2000. Bd 1-2; Shcheglov A.D. Indulgence // Dictionary of Medieval Culture / Edited by A. Ya. Gurevich. M., 2003; Tseroh G., Gorelov A. Indulgence // Catholic Encyclopedia. M., 2005. Vol. 2 (bibl.); Hödl L. Ablaß // Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche. 3. Aufl. Freiburg u.a., 2006. Bd 1.