250px|right|thumb|The Synod of Pistoia held in the church of S. Benedetto, Pistoia, 1786.

The Synod of Pistoia was a 1786 diocesan synod in the Catholic diocese of Pistoia, then part of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It was convoked by its bishop Scipione de' Ricci under the patronage and urging of the Habsburg-Lorraine Grand Duke Leopold. The synod adopted a series of decrees of Febronian or Gallican tendency, against the background of Enlightenment thinking. Leopold hoped the synod's resolutions would be taken up by a "national" council and increase state autocratic control over the Church in Tuscany.

Circular letter

On January 26, 1786 the Grand Duke issued a circular letter to the bishops of Tuscany, suggesting certain "reforms", especially in the matter of the revival of the holding of diocesan synods, the purging of the missals and breviaries of legends, the assertion of episcopal as against papal authority, the curtailing of the privileges of the monastic orders, and improved education for the clergy. De' Ricci, deprived of the personal support of the Grand Duke (who had in the meantime become Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II), under pressure from Rome, and threatened with mob violence as a suspected destroyer of holy relics, resigned his see in 1791, and lived in Florence as a private gentleman until his death. In May 1805, upon the return of Pope Pius VII from Paris, he signed an act of submission to papal authority.

References

  • Papal Bull Auctorem Fidei condemning the Synod of Pistoia