CRISTOVAL ROJAS DE

SPINOLA (d. 1695)  , Spanish ecclesiastic, was general of the Franciscan order in Madrid . He went to Vienna as confessor to theSpanish wife of Leopold I., and became bishop of Wienerisch-Neustadt in 1685 . He endeavoured to reconcile the Protestant churches with the Roman Catholic, and at a conference at Hanover in '683 presented his Regulae circa Christianorum, omnium ecclesiastzcum reunionem . The Helmstedt theologians, represented by Gerhard Molanus (1633-1722), at the same time put forward their siifethodus reducendae unionis . The discussions were approved by the pope and the emperor, but had no popular feeling behind them, and though the negotiations were continued for ten years, especially between Molanus on the one side and Bossuet on the other, no agreement was reached, for the Protestants could not accept the Council of Trent as authoritative or surrender the matter of communion under both species . Spinola died on the 12th of March 1695 .