Council of Trent Closes

December 4, 1563

After eighteen years and three sessions, the Council of Trent concluded with sweeping decrees on the sacraments, seminaries, clerical discipline, and the veneration of images. Catholicism emerged clarified and militant. The Protestant-Catholic schism was now permanent, and both sides would spend a century trying to prove otherwise. Tridentine reforms standardized Catholic worship across the globe, creating institutional culture that persisted until the Second Vatican Council.