Alberic of Ostia

Alberic started in Beauvais in France but went everywhere once he became a papal legate. Born in 1080, he entered Cluny and became a Benedictine monk, becoming prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs in Paris. Cluny's abbot, Peter the Venerable, brought him back in 1126 to help restore Benedictine discipline.

In 1135, he attended the Council of Pisa, called by the newly (and suspiciously) elected Pope Innocent II. This brought him to Innocent's attention, and Alberic was named Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia in 1138. Innocent immediately sent him as a papal legate to England.

This was important because papal legate authority had been given to the Archbishop of Canterbury at the strong request of King Henry II. The recent Archbishop, William of Corbeil, had died, and the post was vacant due to the ongoing period called the Anarchy. Alberic helped negotiate a resolution to the war between Stephen of Blois and David I of Scotland (who supported Empress Matilda). Afterward, Alberic visited abbeys and churches and convened a council that elected Abbot Theobald of Bec as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Alberic brought Theobald and others back to Rome in January 1139 where they attended the Second Lateran Council. He was then sent to repeat his English success in Bari on the Adriatic, where the citizens refused to accept Roger II of Sicily as their ruler. He failed that time: the citizens wouldn't allow him into the city.

Still, Innocent relied on him to build deeper ties to the Armenian Church, that had split centuries earlier from Rome over doctrinal differences. There he met with the Armenian Catholicos (leader) Grigor III Pahlavuni. The two traveled on pilgrimage to Jerusalem where, at the Templum Domini, the Dome of the Rock, Grigor pledged to improve relations with Rome.

In the summer of 1144, Alberic was in France, traveling round and resolving ecclesiastical disputes. While there, he persuaded Bernard of Clairvaux to preach against heresy in the Southwest of France. Alberic then returned to Rome in time to help plan the Second Crusade.

Alberic died on 20 November 1148 and was buried in Verdun Cathedral. Bernard of Clairvaux said Mass at his grave, calling Alberic "the venerable Bishop of Ostia, a man who has done great things in Israel, through whom Christ has often given victory to His Church."

It's nice to be considered venerable, even nicer when you are so respected that Venerable becomes part of your name, such as the Venerable Bede. Another person so highly respected was Peter the Venerable, and I'll tell you more about him tomorrow.

Armenian-Roman Relations

When Pope Innocent II decided to try to reconcile the Roman Catholic Church with the Armenian Apostolic Church, he wrote to its current head, the Catholicos Grigor III Pahlavuni (1093 - 1166).

The Armenian Church had split in its doctrine from the Roman Church after the Council of Chlcedon in 451 over monophysitism. At Chalcedon it was affirmed that, in the person of Jesus, there were two distinct aspects, both the human and the divine. Armeni embraced monophysitism, declaring that Jesus was wholly divine.

The two Churches remained in communication, however. Grigor, for instance, participated in a council at Antioch presided over by the papal legate Alberic of Ostia in November 1139. Grigor accompanied Alberic on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where, in April 1141, he attended a synod at the Templum Domini ("Temple of the Lord") at the Dome of the Rock. While there he vowed to reconcile the Armenian Church with Rome. Alberic reported this to Pope Innocent, who sent Grigor a letter and a pallium, conferring on Grigor a high rank.

With travel to the East becoming common due to the Crusades, envoys from Rome followed along and went to Armenia, continuing dialogue. According to the Armenian Church's own website:

Pontifical Envoys from Rome established continuous contact with the clergy of the Armenian Church, who were hoping to receive political and economic support from the Pope and the Western powers for the Armenian Kingdom. During this period, the Armenian Church adopted some Catholic Church ritual traditions, and Western culture left a tangible trace on Armenian science, art, miniature painting, literature, as well as in various spheres of public life. [source]

The "political and economic support" would have been helpful against enemies both foreign and domestic. Not only were there foreign invaders to contend with, but also the Armenian government could be a problem. The secular ruler of Armenia in 1037, King Hovhannes-Smbat, deposed the Catholicos Petros and appointed a replacement (we'll call him an "anti-catholics," since there were "anti-popes"). The rest of the clergy were so overt in their condemnation that Petros was re-instated.

By the 14th century, a reconciliation between the two entities had been firmly established, and doctrinal differences were being overlooked in order to maintain healthy relations. (The Second Vatican Council in 1962 - 1965 confirmed the reconciliation.)

The Dome of the Rock has been a important site for many groups over the centuries; next time, let's talk about the place and the temple there.

The Armenian Church

According to tradition, the apostles Bartholomew and Jude Thaddeus (the double name was to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot and from stories of Jude the brother of Jesus) preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Edom, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Libya. They were the first to bring Christianity to Armenia. Jude Thaddeus is said to have cured Abgar V of Edessa of leprosy by exposing him to the Image of Edessa.

There is also an "Apostle to the Armenians," Saint Gregory the Illuminator (pictured in a Constantinople mosaic), who converted the Armenian king in 301CE thereby stopping his persecutions of Christians. The king, Tiridates III, made Christianity the official state religion. This was not that radical a change, since Christianity had been growing steadily since the 1st century. Tiridates declared Gregory the Illuminator to be the first Catholicos, a term used to denote the head of a church in some of the Eastern Christian traditions.

In 325, at the First Council of Nicaea designed to create consensus among the Christian world (where Arianism was literally slapped down by Santa Claus), the Armenian Catholicos (Gregory's son Aristaces) attended. At that time, the Armenian Church was subordinate to the Bishop of Caesarea, where Tiridates had sent Gregory to be consecrated and where Gregory adopted the Byzantine rites. Over the following years, however, Armenia started adopting Antiocian/West Syriac rites, which blended with the Byzantine rites to create the Armenian Rite.

Translation of the Bible into Armenian in the early 400s helped Christianity spread faster. Over time, however, differences arose between what was being practiced/believed in Armenia and the West. The biggest difference was over monophysitism; that is, the divine nature of Jesus. Eastern Orthodox churches professed monophysitism, the idea that Christ had a single nature, that of the divine. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 approved that Christ had two inseparable natures: human and divine. The Armenian Church severed ties with Rome in 610 over this difference.

It was Pope Innocent II who tried to reconcile Rome and Armenia. To do that, he knew he could not simply order the Armenian Church to fall in line; he had to work with his contemporary, the Catholicos Grigor III Pahlavuni. We'll talk about that process tomorrow.