Date 20 June 1894 | Text In English | |
Argument The Reunion of Christendom Encyclical number 50 of 85 of the pontificate | ||
Praeclara gratulationis publicae (On the Reunion of Christendom) was an encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on June 20, 1894.
Contents
Content
It called for the reunion of Eastern and Western churches into the "Unity of the Faith". It also condemned Freemasonry. A previous letter on the same subject, entitled the epistle to the Easterners, had been written by Pope Pius IX in 1848.
Reactions and legacy
In 1895, it was criticized by Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VII.
The call for unity was re-asserted by the Second Vatican Council's Unitatis redintegratio, although the latter statement articulates a different kind of ecclesiology that is more in line with the Council's spirit of cooperation with fellow Christians.
Praeclara was cited in the encyclical Orientales omnes Ecclesias of Pope Pius XII on the topic of Eastern Catholic Churches.
Leo XIII has also been criticized by Protestant fundamentalists for having declared in the encyclical that "We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty", which was seen as a sign of the coming apocalypse.