Pieter Codde also known as Petrus Codde (27 November 1648, in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

– 18 December 1710, in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

) was

apostolic vicar Apostolic may refer to: The Apostles An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission: *The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles *Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Chur ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's Vicariate Apostolic of Batavia, also known as the

Dutch Mission The Holland Mission or Dutch Mission ( or ') (1592 – 1853) was the common name of a Catholic Church missionary district in the Low Countries during and after the Protestant Reformation. History Pre-reformation diocese and archdiocese of ...

, from 1688 to 1702. He served as the

Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht The Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands ( nl, Oud-Katholieke Kerk van Nederland), sometimes known as the Dutch Roman Catholic Church of the Old Episcopal Order, the Church of Utrecht (Ultrajectine Church), or Jansenist Church of Holland, is an ...

from 1688 to 1710.

Life

Codde studied in Leuven, taught by the

Oratorians An Oratorian is a member of one of the following religious orders: * Oratory of Saint Philip Neri (Roman Catholic), who use the postnominal letters C.O. * Oratory of Jesus (Roman Catholic) * Oratory of the Good Shepherd (Anglican) * Teologisk Orator ...

, and was ordained priest in 1672. In 1688 he was named Vicar Apostolic for the nation, although the Jesuits suspected and accused him of

Jansenist Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...

sympathies. He had to justify himself to Rome against these accusations in 1694 and, after being charged with them a second time, in 1697. On the second occasion he went to Rome in person, but his ''apologia'' did not satisfy his critics and he was finally suspended from his office in 1702 by Pope Clement XI (with his definitive discharge from the post coming in 1704, thanks to the intervention of Giovanni Battista Bussi).

Jacques Forget The abbé Jacques Forget (6 January 1852 – 1933) was a Belgian priest, biblical scholar and professor of Arabic at the Catholic University of Louvain.Urbain Vermeulen, Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants. Congress, J. M. F. van Ree ...

wrote, in the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

'', that since the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

was for the most part

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

, Catholics there lived under the direction of vicars apostolic. These representatives of the pope were soon won over to the theological position of

Jansenism Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...

Johannes van Neercassel Johannes Baptista van Neercassel (Gorinchem, 1626 – Zwolle, 6 June 1686) served as Archbishop of Utrecht from 1661 to 1686. Life Neercassel was born in Gorinchem, where his father was a wealthy brewer and city alderman. He probably received h ...

, who governed the whole church in the Netherlands from 1663 to 1686, made no secret of his intimacy with the party. Under Neercassel the country began to become the refuge of all whose obstinacy forced them to leave

Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period ...

and

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

as well as a number of priests,

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s, and

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s who preferred exile to the acceptance of the pontifical Bulls. Codde, who succeeded Neercassel in 1686 went further than his predecessor and refused to sign the formulary. He was summoned to Rome, defended himself so poorly that he was first forbidden to exercise his functions, and then deposed by a decree of 1704. Codde died obstinate in 1710. Gerard Potkamp was appointed as Codde's replacement, but Potkamp and those that followed were rejected by some of the clergy, to whom the States-General lent their support. The conflict lasted a long time, during which the episcopal functions were not fulfilled. In 1723 the Chapter of Utrecht, in this case a group of seven or eight priests who assumed the name and quality in order to put an end to the situation, elected on their own authority the

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop' ...

, Cornelius Steenhoven, as archbishop of Utrecht. This election was not canonical, and was not approved by the pope.

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

emeritus Paul-Werner Scheele and

emeritus Fritz-René Müller wrote, in the preface to the International Roman Catholic–Old Catholic Dialogue Commission's report ''The Church and Ecclesial Communion'', that these "differences regarding the relationship of the local church and papal primacy" were one of the "major grounds for the separation" of the churches. But the "Old Catholic churches have however never questioned the special position of the pope in the church as a whole," according to Scheele and Müller.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Codde, Petrus 1648 births 1710 deaths Clergy from Amsterdam Dutch Old Catholic bishops Alumni of Oratorian schools Old University of Leuven alumni Apostolic vicars of the Holland (Batavia) Mission 17th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the Dutch Republic 18th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the Dutch Republic