ecumenism summary

Second Vatican Council, (1962–65), 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, as a means of spiritual renewal for the church and as an occasion for Christians separated from Rome to join in a search for Christian unity. Vatican II, as the

Jesuit, member of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 and officially established by papal approval in 1540. Noted for their educational, missionary, and charitable works, the Jesuits are regarded by many as having been the

Michael VIII Palaeologus was the Nicaean emperor (1259–61) and then Byzantine emperor (1261–82), who in 1261 restored the Byzantine Empire to the Greeks after 57 years of Latin occupation and who founded the Palaeologan dynasty, the last and longest-lived of the empire’s ruling houses. A scion of

Innocent IV was one of the great pontiffs of the Middle Ages (reigned 1243–54), whose clash with Holy Roman emperor Frederick II formed an important chapter in the conflict between papacy and empire. His belief in universal responsibility of the papacy led him to attempt the evangelization of the