'''Трентският събор''' е Римокатолическата църква, продължил с прекъсвания от 13 декември 1545 до 4 декември 1563 и организиран като реакция на Реформацията. Провежда се в град Тренто, днес в италианската част на Тирол, под председателството на трима поредни папи: Павел III, Юлий III и Пий IV. Съборът поставя основите на Контрареформацията.

От доктринална гледна точка Трентският събор е най-важният в историята на Римокатолическата църква, разграничавайки ясно религиозната теория и практика на католицизма от тези на протестантството. Съборът ясно формулира католическите доктрини за спасението, тайнствата и библейския канон и стандартизира богослужението в цялата църква, забранявайки местните вариации.

Категория: История на римокатолицизма
Категория: История на Европа

frame|A session of the Council of Trent, from an engraving.{{Infobox Ecumenical council
| council_name = Council of Trent
| council_date = 1545-1563
| accepted_by  = Catholic Church
| previous     = Fifth Council of the Lateran
| next         = First Vatican Council
| convoked_by  = Pope Paul III
| presided_by  = Pope Paul III, Pope Julius III, Pope Pius IV
| attendance   = about 255 in the last sessions
| topics       = Protestantism, Catholic Reformation
| documents    = seventeen dogmatic decrees, covering all aspects of Catholic religion
}}

The '''Council of Trent''' was the 19th Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods. Council fathers met for the first through eighth sessions in Trent (1545-1547), for the ninth through eleventh sessions in Bologna (1547) during the pontificate of Pope Paul III. <ref>Hubert Jedin, Konciliengeschichte, Herder Freiburg, 138 </ref> Under Pope Julius III, the council met  in Trent (1551-1552) for the twelfth through sixteenth sessions. Under Pope Pius IV the seventeenth through twenty-fifth sessions took place in Trent (1559-1563). 

The council issued condemnations on what it defined as Protestant heresies and defined Church teachings in the areas of Scripture and Tradition, Original Sin, Justification, Sacraments, the Eucharist in Holy Mass and the veneration of saints. It issued numerous reform decrees. <ref>Jedin, 138</ref>  By specifying Catholic doctrine on sacraments, and the Roman Breviary, and in 1570 a revised Roman Missal, thus initiating what since the twentieth century has been called the Tridentine Mass (from the city's Latin name ''Tridentum''), and Pope Clement VIII issued in 1592 a revised edition of the Vulgate.<ref name ="ODCC">Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article ''Trent, Council of''</ref>

The Council of Trent, delayed and interrupted several times because of political or religious disagreements, was a major reform council and the most impressive embodiment of the ideals of the next Ecumenical Council. Its teachings continue until today. Pope John XXIII stated that when announing Vatican II. Pope Paul VI said the same.  <ref>What was, still is, quoted in http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church]</ref>

==Before the Council ==
===Obstacles and events before the Council===
240px|thumb|left| Pope Paul III invoked the Council of Trent
On March 16, 1517, the Fifth Council of the Lateran closed its activities with a number of reform proposals (on the selection of bishops, taxation, censorship and preaching) but not  on the major problems that confronted the Church in Germany  and other parts of Europe. A few months later, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther issued his 95 Theses in Wittenberg. Luther’s position on ecumenical councils shifted over time. In a disputation with Johannes Eck, he stated that councils may err. <ref> Hubert Jedin, Konziliengeschichte, Herder, 1959, 80</ref>

===A general, free Council in Germany ===
But in 1520 Luther  appealed to the German princes to reform the Church, if necessary with a council<ref> An den Adel deutscher Nation, 1520</ref> in Germany, open and free of the papacy.  After the Pope condemned in Exsurge Domine forty-one sentences of Luther as heresy,  German opinion considered a council the best method to reconcile existing differences. German Catholics, diminished in number, hoped for a council to clarify matters  <ref>Jedin  81</ref>  

It took a generation for the council to materialize, partly because of Papal reluctance—the Lutherans demanded his exclusion from the Council—and partly because of ongoing political rivalries between France and Germany and the Turkish dangers in the Mediterranean. <ref>Jedin 81</ref>  Under sacked Papal Rome in 1527,  “raping, killing burning, stealing, the like had not been seen since the Vandals”.  Saint Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel were used for horses.  <ref>Hans Kühner Papstgeschichte, Fischer, Frankfurt 1960, 118</ref>   This, together with the Pontiff's ambivalence between France and Germany,  led to his hesitation. Charles V strongly favoured a council, but needed the support of France, which attacked him militarily. Faced with a Turkish attack, Charles needed the support of the Protestant German rulers, all of which delayed the opening of the Council of Trent. <ref>Jedin 79-82</ref>

===Failure in Mantua-Vicenza===

The council was ordered by the Emperor and Pope to convene in Mantua on May 23, 1537. It failed to convene, after another war broke out between France and Charles V, resulting in a non-attendance of French prelates. Protestants, just defeated by Charles V, refused to attend as well. Financial difficulties in Mantua led the Pope  in the fall of 1537 to move the council to Vicenza, where participation was poor. The Council was postponed indefinitely on May 21, 1539. Pope Paul III then initiated several internal Church reforms while Emperor Charles V  convened a meeting with Protestants in Regensburg, seat of the German diet, to reconcile differences. Unity failed between Catholic and Protestant representatives “because of different concepts of ''Church'' and ''justification''”. <ref>Jedin 85</ref>

==Occasion, sessions and attendance==
thumb|right|The Council, depicted by Cati da Iesi
In reply to the diets joined in the appeal, with Charles V seconding and pressing for a council as a means of reunifying the Church and settling the  Reformation controversies. Pope Clement VII (1523–34) was vehemently against the idea of a council, agreeing with Francis I of France. After Pope Pius II in his bull ''Execrabilis'' (1460) and his reply to the University of Cologne (1463) set aside the theory of the supremacy of general councils laid down by the Council of Constance, it was the papal policy to avoid councils. 

Pope Paul III (1534–49)—seeing that the Protestant Reformation was no longer confined to a few preachers, but had won over various princes, particularly in Germany, to its ideas—desired a council. Yet when he proposed the idea to his cardinals, it was unanimously opposed. Nonetheless, he sent nuncios throughout Europe to propose the idea. Paul III issued a decree for a general council to be held in Mantua, Italy, to begin May 23, 1537.  Martin Luther wrote the Smalcald Articles in preparation for the general council. The Smalcald Articles were designed to sharply define where the Lutherans could and could not compromise.  

However, the council was delayed until 1545, and convened right before Luther's death. Unable, however, to resist the urging of Charles V, the pope, after proposing Mantua as the place of meeting, convened the council at Trent (at that time a free city of the Holy Roman Empire under a prince-bishop), on December 13, 1545; the Pope's decision to transfer it to Bologna in March, 1547 on the pretext of avoiding a plague<ref name="ODCC"/> failed to take effect and the Council was indefinitely prorogued on 17 September 1549. 

Reopened at Trent on 1 May 1551 by convocation of Pope Julius III (1550–1555), it was broken up by the sudden victory of Maurice, Elector of Saxony over the Emperor Charles V and his march into surrounding state of Tyrol on 28 April 1552.<ref></ref> There was no hope of reassembling the council while the very anti-Protestant Paul IV was Pope.<ref name="ODCC"/> The council was reconvened by Pope Pius IV (1559–65) for the last time, meeting from 18 January 1562, and continued until its final adjournment on 4 December 1563. It closed with a series of ritual acclamations honouring the reigning Pope, the Popes who had convoked the Council, the emperor and the kings who had supported it, the papal legates, the cardinals, the ambassadors present, and the bishops, followed by acclamations of acceptance of the faith of the Council and its decrees, and of anathema for all heretics.<ref>[http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct25.html Acclamations of the Fathers at the Close of the Council]</ref>

The history of the council is thus divided into three distinct periods: 1545–49, 1551–52 and 1562–63. During the second period, the Protestants present asked for renewed discussion on points already defined and for bishops to be released from their oaths of allegiance to the Pope.<ref name ="ODCC"/> When the last period began, all hope of conciliating the Protestants was gone and the Jesuits had become a strong force.<ref name ="ODCC"/>

The number of attending members in the three periods varied considerably. The council was small to begin with.<ref name ="ODCC"/> It increased toward the close, but never reached the number of the First Council of Nicaea (which had 318 members) nor of the First Vatican Council (which numbered 744). The decrees were signed by 255 members, including four papal legates, two cardinals, three patriarchs, twenty-five archbishops, and 168 bishops, two-thirds of whom were Italians. The Italian and Spanish prelates were vastly preponderant in power and numbers. At the passage of the most important decrees not more than sixty prelates were present.

==Objects and general results==
The main object of the council was twofold, although there were other issues that were also discussed:

#To condemn the principles and doctrines of Protestantism and to define the doctrines of the Catholic Church on all disputed points. It is true that the emperor intended it to be a strictly general or truly ecumenical council, at which the Protestants should have a fair hearing. He secured, during the council's second period, 1551-53, an invitation, twice given, to the Protestants to be present and the council issued a letter of safe conduct (thirteenth session) and offered them the right of discussion, but denied them a vote. Melanchthon and Johannes Brenz, with some other German Lutherans, actually started in 1552 on the journey to Trent. Brenz offered a confession and Melanchthon, who got no farther than Nuremberg, took with him the ironic statement known as the ''Confessio Saxonica''. But the refusal to give to the Protestants the right to vote and the consternation produced by the success of Bornfeld in his campaign against Charles V in 1552 effectually put an end to Protestant cooperation.
#To effect a reformation in discipline or administration. This object had been one of the causes calling forth the reformatory councils and had been lightly touched upon by the Fifth Council of the Lateran under Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X. The perceived corruption in the administration of the Church was one of the numerous causes of the Reformation. Twenty-five public sessions were held, but nearly half of them were spent in solemn formalities. The chief work was done in committees or congregations. The entire management was in the hands of the papal legate. The liberal elements lost out in the debates and voting. The council abolished some of the most notorious abuses and introduced or recommended disciplinary reforms affecting the sale of indulgences, the morals of convents, the education of the clergy, the non-residence of bishops (also bishops having plurality of benefices, which was fairly common), and the careless fulmination of censures and forbade dueling. Although evangelical sentiments were uttered by some of the members in favor of the supreme authority of the Scriptures and justification by faith, no concession whatever was made to Protestantism.
#The church's interpretation of the Bible was final. Any Christian who substituted his or her own interpretation was a heretic.  Also, the Bible and Church Tradition (not mere customs but the ancient Tradition that made up part of the Catholic faith) were equally authoritative.
#The relationship of faith and works in salvation was defined, following controversy over Martin Luther's doctrine of "justification by faith alone".
#Other Catholic practices that drew the ire of reformers within the Church, such as sacred music and religious art, though inexplicit, were subsequently amplified by theologians and writers to condemn many types of Renaissance and medieval styles and iconographies, impacting heavily on ther development of these art forms.

The doctrinal decisions of the council are divided into decrees (''decreta''), which contain the positive statement of the conciliar dogmas, and into short canons (''canones''), which condemn the dissenting Protestant views with the concluding "''anathema sit''" ("let him be anathema").

==The canons and decrees==
   
The '''doctrinal''' acts are as follows: after reaffirming the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (third session), the decree was passed (fourth session) confirming that the canon (against Luther's placement of these books in the his edition) and coordinating church tradition with the Scriptures as a rule of faith. The Vulgate translation was affirmed to be authoritative for the text of Scripture.

Justification (sixth session) was declared to be offered upon the basis of faith and good works as opposed to the Protestant doctrine of faith alone and faith was treated as a progressive work. The idea of man being utterly passive under the influence of grace was also rejected.

The greatest weight in the Council's decrees is given to the consecrated into the Eucharist (thirteenth and twenty-second sessions). The term Aristotelian explanation given by Christ is "really, truly, substantially present" in the consecrated forms. The sacrifice of the Mass was to be offered for dead and living alike and in giving to the apostles the command "do this in remembrance of me," Christ conferred upon them a sacerdotal power. The practice of withholding the cup from the laity was confirmed (twenty-first session) as one which the Church Fathers had commanded for good and sufficient reasons; yet in certain cases the Pope was made the supreme arbiter as to whether the rule should be strictly maintained.