Attempts to reform the church

• Early changes:

  • Pluralism abolished
  • Payments of annates ended
  • The tithe abolished
  • Separate church assemblies abolished
  • All church property nationalised
  • Full citizenship granted to Protestants
  • All religious orders dissolved
• The Civil Constitution of the Clergy:

  • Administrative structure of the Church was reorganised - every department was to have a bishop
  • Clergymen were it become paid state officials
  • Papal power to accept or reject bishops was to be outlawed
  • Bishops and priests were to be elected
• The Oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy:

  • Only 7 out of 160 bishops were prepared to swear the oath
  • The pope Suspended those who took the oath
  • The Assembly occupied Avignon and after a plebiscite (a direct vote) annexing it to France
  • all non-jurying or refractory priests were declared counter-revolutionaries. Their income was stopped and they were forbidden from using religious buildings.
• Large numbers of the clergy fled abroad. Those that stayed feared that the Assembly was trying to change their faith.
• The Civil Constitution of the Clergy attempted to align the church with the revolution and create a national religion. However, it created a schism in the French church and created a source of counter-revolutionary sentiment.
• Louis XVI was a deeply religious man who was deeply affected by the Civil Constitutio. The king had tolerated the revolutions political reforms and the erosion of his own power, but he could not tolerate this.