it openly before the whole Church. There were to be no sacraments except baptism and the I,ord’s Supper. In baptism, there were to be no sponsors, the priest performing the ceremony without any promise on the part of the parents. As they could find no proof in the Bible for the existence of purgatory, there were no prayers for the dead. They went to the farthest extremity with the Lord’s Supper, bread and wine being administered daily to both adults and children.
The people holding these views were afterwards known as the Taborites, while the more moderate reformers were called Utraquists or Calixtines.
While these parties or sects were developing their doctrines in Bohemia, the Council of Constance finally succeeded in securing unity in the Church by the election of a new Pope. John XXIII, having been tried for his crimes and misdemeanors, and found guilty, was deposed; Gregory XII, fearing defeat, resigned of his own accord; Benedict XII gave up his honors when Spain, his last support, entering into a treaty with Sigmund, deserted him. Thus the Council was at length enabled to remedy the monstrosity in the Church by providing it with a single head instead of three; but in the other objects for which it had assembled—to reform the Church in “head and members"—it was not so successful.
Indeed, the longer the Council was in session, the more loath were the prelates to interfere in the existing state of affairs; and the extremes to which the reform party went in Bohemia were used as a warning to let well enough alone. As soon as the new Pope, Martin V, was elected (1418), he dissolved the Assembly, promising to call another in five years in Pavia.
