Avignon Papacy: Babylon the Great in Revelation 17
Short answer: The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1377 when the popes ruled from Avignon in southern France rather than Rome, followed by the Western Schism until 1417. Revelation 17:1-6 describes a harlot sitting on many waters, a woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, drunk with the blood of the saints. Many Reformation-era and later interpreters identified that Babylon with the medieval papacy, and they saw the Avignon years as evidence. The text itself is a vision of judgment on a great city and its empire, not a dated chronicle. Revelation places the harlot in the first century and in the future consummation at once. The historical record at Avignon is not in dispute; what the passage authorizes us to say about it is. Readers should weigh the comparison carefully and hold conclusions with humility, since faithful Christians differ on how such prophecy maps onto history.
What happened at Avignon between 1309 and 1377
In 1309 the papal court moved from Rome to Avignon, then a possession of the Kingdom of Naples bordered by French territory. Clement V, elected in 1305, took up residence there, and six more popes followed him in sequence until Gregory XI returned the court to Rome in 1377. The interval was not a brief visit but nearly seven decades of papal administration conducted in France.
The move was entangled with politics from the start. The conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France had made Rome unsafe for a pope who had clashed with the French crown. Avignon offered proximity to the French court, security, and a functioning administrative base. Critics at the time, including the poet Petrarch, complained that the papacy had become a French institution rather than a universal one.
Avignon was not a wasteland. The papal court there organized finances, law courts, and diplomatic correspondence with real efficiency. It also became wealthy. That wealth, combined with the absence of the pope from Rome, generated grievances that outlasted the period itself and prepared the ground for the criticisms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The facts are plain and are not seriously disputed by historians of any tradition.
Reading Revelation 17:1-6 on its own terms
Revelation 17:1 says, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters,” and the passage goes on to describe her dress, her golden cup, her title on her forehead, and her drunkenness with the blood of the saints. The imagery is drawn from Old Testament descriptions of cities and empires that had turned against God and his people.
The angel explains the waters in verse 15 as peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages. The harlot is therefore not merely one localized congregation or one period of church history. She sits over a global population, and she is judged as a city that exercises dominion over the kings of the earth. The vision is corporate and political, not idiosyncratic.
Crucially, she is also described as sitting on the beast and as being destroyed by it. That internal contradiction is part of the vision. The harlot and the beast are not identical; the beast turns on her. This matters for any interpretation that wants to collapse the harlot into one institution and the beast into another. The symbols are layered, and the passage resists a single flat equation.
Why interpreters connected Avignon with Revelation 17
Reformation-era readers looked at Rome, its wealth, its claims of authority over rulers, and its entanglement with state power, and they heard Revelation 17 in the background. The woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, the golden cup, the title written on her forehead, and the blood of the martyrs on her hands all seemed to fit a church that had grown rich and had used coercive power against dissenters.
Avignon sharpened the case for some of them because the papacy appeared to be subordinated to a monarchy. A church claiming universal jurisdiction was operating from a French city, at French convenience. Critics asked whether such a church could still be the pure bride of Christ, or whether it had become something the prophets had warned about.
It is important to be precise here. The historic Protestant reading of Revelation 17 is a substantial tradition, not a fringe view, and it has been held by serious scholars and pastors. It is also contested by other faithful interpreters who read the harlot as Rome of the first century, or as a future end-time system, or as a symbol of worldly power generally. The passage does not name Avignon, and no honest teacher should say it does.
The problem of empire and the church's entanglement
The deeper issue Revelation 17 raises is not a single address but a pattern: religious authority allied with political and commercial power, exercising dominion over many peoples, and eventually persecuting the faithful. Whether one identifies this pattern with medieval Rome, with a modern institution, or with something still to come, the warning stands.
Avignon is a case study in the pattern rather than a proof text. During those decades the papacy functioned as a European power among powers, negotiating treaties, taxing dioceses, and maintaining a court. Whether that was corrupt or simply the ordinary administration of a large religious body is a judgment call. What is not a judgment call is that the New Testament consistently warns against the love of money and the misuse of authority in the church.
That warning applies to every tradition, not only to Rome. Protestant bodies have also allied themselves with state power, accumulated wealth, and silenced dissenters. The harlot imagery is not a denominational weapon. It is a mirror held up to anyone who would confuse the kingdom of God with an earthly empire.
A related warning in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 warns that a falling away comes first and that a man of sin is revealed, one who opposes and exalts himself against God and takes his seat in the temple of God. Many interpreters who link the papacy with Revelation 17 also link it with this passage, reading the medieval church's claims as a fulfillment of that warning.
The point of the passage is not to identify one man but to steady a congregation that had been unsettled by false reports. Paul writes so that the Thessalonians will not be shaken by claims that the day has already come. He describes a pattern of rebellion and a figure who usurps what belongs to God.
Whatever one concludes about specific fulfillments, the pastoral aim is clear: do not be deceived. The warning is against any authority, religious or otherwise, that puts itself in the place of God. Applied to Avignon, that means examining whether papal claims exceeded what Scripture permits, not simply whether the pope lived in the wrong city.
Daniel 7:23-25 and the shape of prophetic fulfillment
Daniel 7:23-25 describes a fourth kingdom that devours the whole earth, and a ruler who speaks against the Most High, wears down the saints, and intends to change times and law. The imagery of a beast, a kingdom, and persecution of the holy ones is exactly the register Revelation 17 picks up and develops.
This is why interpreters who connect prophecy with history look for a long-running power that altered religious practice and pressured the faithful. The Avignon papacy is one chapter in a longer story of the medieval church, and that story includes councils, crusades, inquisitions, and the reforming movements that answered them.
But Daniel does not name Rome, France, or Avignon either. He describes a pattern with historical consequences. The most responsible reading sees in these visions a theology of power and judgment, not a coded map that names one city and one century. If the pattern recurs, the warning recurs with it.
What 1 Timothy 4 and Matthew 24 contribute
1 Timothy 4:1-3 speaks of later times when some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, and it names specific practices. Matthew 24:24 warns that false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones. Both passages affirm that deception inside the community of faith is a real danger.
These texts do not identify a particular century. They tell the church to expect counterfeit spirituality, stricter-than-Scripture rules, and impressive signs attached to false claims. History supplies instances, and Avignon supplies one set of them by the reckoning of those who criticized it.
The pastoral application is not to become suspicious of every institution. It is to test teaching against Scripture, to hold leaders accountable, and to remember that the sheep are known by the Shepherd's voice. The church survives such periods, as it survived the fourteenth century, not because its institutions were pure but because Christ preserves his people.
Biblical fidelity check
Revelation 17:1-6 does establish that God judges a great prostitute who sits on many waters, who is dressed in purple and scarlet, who holds a golden cup, and who is drunk with the blood of the saints. It establishes that this figure will be destroyed, and that the peoples and kings of the earth are implicated. Those are the text's claims, and they are serious.
The passage does not establish that the harlot is the Avignon papacy specifically, that 1309 to 1377 is her date, or that any individual pope is the beast. It does not name Avignon, France, or a calendar year. It also does not establish that every criticism leveled at the medieval church was correct, or that the Reformers' identifications were beyond dispute. A common misreading takes the harlot as a one-to-one code for a single institution in a single era, so that the vision is exhausted once that institution is named. That reading is wrong because the angel himself interprets the waters as many peoples and nations, and because the beasts and kings of Revelation 17 belong to the same global and final frame as the rest of the book. The symbols are broad enough to critique recurring patterns, and narrow enough to be fulfilled in God's own time. Readers may legitimately see Avignon as one historical instance of the pattern the vision condemns, provided they do not claim the text says more than it says.
Other passages that speak to Revelation 17:1-6
New Testament letters help frame how the church should think about faithfulness, perseverance, and the return of Christ, which are the pastoral concerns behind the harlot vision. See 1 Thessalonians 1: Thanksgiving for Faith, Love, Hope, which grounds a congregation's identity in election and steadfastness. Then 1 Thessalonians 2: Paul's Gentle Care for the Thessalonians models the contrast between a self-serving religious leader and a faithful shepherd. Continue with 1 Thessalonians 3: Paul's Comfort in Timothy's Good Report, which shows how a faithful worker strengthens a church under pressure. Finally, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18: The Lord Descends and Believers Gather sets the hope of the church on Christ's return rather than on the reform of earthly empires. Read together, these passages shift the question from which institution is Babylon to how the church remains faithful while Babylon rises and falls.
Frequently asked questions
Was the Avignon Papacy the Babylon of Revelation 17?
No faithful reading can say the text names Avignon, because it does not. Many Reformation-era interpreters identified the medieval papacy with the harlot of Revelation 17, and they saw Avignon as one expression of that pattern. Other interpreters read the harlot as first-century Rome, or as a future end-time system, or as worldly power generally. The historical facts of 1309 to 1377 are not disputed. The identification with Revelation 17 is an interpretation, and it should be presented as one, not as something the text itself states.
Why did the popes move to Avignon in the first place?
The immediate cause was political conflict. Pope Boniface VIII had clashed sharply with King Philip IV of France, and Rome had become unsafe for a pope facing that king's hostility. Clement V, elected in 1305, moved the court in 1309 to Avignon, which was secure, close to France, and administratively workable. The papacy remained there for nearly seven decades until Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377. The move reflected the realities of European politics more than any doctrinal decision.
How should Christians apply Revelation 17 today?
The vision calls for discernment rather than speculation. It warns against religious authority that is entangled with empire, enriched by commerce, and willing to shed the blood of the faithful. That warning should be applied first to one's own tradition before being pointed at another. Believers should test all teaching against Scripture, avoid the love of money and power, and keep their hope fixed on Christ's return. Whatever historical fulfillments one sees, the pastoral aim is the same: remain faithful, and do not be deceived.
