26 - The Popes and the Protestant Churches

Summary

Mutual estrangement characterised the relationship between the popes and the Protestant Churches for centuries after the Reformation. Despite occasional ecumenical stirrings, the creation of Protestant state Churches removed formal contact between popes and Protestants from a theological to a diplomatic plane. The concurrent development of Protestant ideas of history, which styled the pope as the Antichrist of prophecy and the consolidation of the Catholic understanding of him as the steward of an exclusive tradition, further eroded the space for dialogue. Only from the nineteenth century onwards did significant changes alter these patterns of understanding. The growth of developmental historicism began to relativise doctrinal differences; whilst the retreat of the confessional state created renewed possibilities for papal–Protestant contact. These shifts prepared the way for the twentieth-century ecumenical movement, which since the 1960s has transformed relations for the better. Whether formal reconciliation can proceed any further, however, remains to be seen.