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'''Pierre Leclerc''' (1706-1781) was a French Catholic radical [[w:Jansenism|Jansenist]] émigré priest, living in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, who was censured by the Jansenists themselves at the Council of Utrecht in 1763.

Leclerc had also maintained a correspondence with Orthodox Archbishop [[Eugenios Voulgaris]] at some point, but this dialogue in the end did not bear any fruit. ==Correspondence with Eugenios Voulgaris==Dr. Constantine Cavarnos has written that the eminent eighteenth century Greek monk and scholar (later Archbishop of Cherson) [[Eugenios Voulgaris]] had corresponded<ref>Andreas Koromelas. ''Epistle of Eugenios Voulgaris to Pierre Leclerc''. First Edition. Athens, 1844.</ref> with Pierre Leclerc.<ref>Constantine Cavarnos. ''[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/Modernism.pdf Orthodox Tradition and Modernism].'' Transl. from the Greek by Patrick G. Barker. Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, California, 1992.</ref> Because French Jansenism in the eighteenth century had antipapal tendencies, holding to the ecclesiology that bishops are not despots, and that they have to consult their cathedral chapter and the curés in synod, their council of second instance,<ref>John McManners. ''Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: Volume 2: the Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion''. Oxford University Press, 1999. pp.671.</ref> this ecclesiology recalls the notion of [[w:Conciliarism|Conciliarism]] as understood in the Orthodox Church, as well as the previous [[w:Conciliarism|Conciliar Movement]] in the Roman Catholic church as expressed at the Councils of Constance in 1414-18, and of Siena in 1423-24.  It is natural therefore that Voulgaris and Leclerc had corresponded seeking common ground. In witnessing to Leclerc about Orthodoxy, possibly with the aim of establishing Orthodoxy in the West, he speaks about the miracles, martyrs and other saints of the Orthodox Church from the time of the Schism up to his days; Voulgaris stresses that Orthodoxy has shown forth countless saints, equal to the ancients, and that throughout this whole period she possessed the bounty of miracles unceasingly, so that, as he says, ''"Our Church is continuously glorified and made wondrous by God, no less after the Schism than before it, and up to our times."''<ref>Constantine Cavarnos. ''[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/Modernism.pdf Orthodox Tradition and Modernism].'' Transl. from the Greek by Patrick G. Barker. Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, California, 1992.</ref>  However, although the dialogue with Leclerc did not bear any fruit. Although the Jansenists in general had in fact assailed the [[w:Society of Jesus|Jesuits]] as those responsible for introducing doctrinal novelties, such as the doctrine of papal infallibility, Molinist views of limitless grace, and the devotion to the Sacred Heart<ref>Douglas Bradford Palmer (M.A.). ''[http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?osu1090415628 The Republic of Grace: International Jansenism in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution]''. (Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University). The Ohio State University, 2004. pp.104-105</ref>, Pierre Leclerc's theology and criticism from within the Jansenist movement went furtherthan this, and was in fact closer to the Dutch Protestant Reformed tradition of [[w:Calvinism|Calvanism]] instead.

The cause of the Second Council of Utrecht<ref>The first Synod of Utrecht had been held by Frederick Schenk, in August of 1565.</ref>, a provincial council, was to enforce ecclesiastical discipline on a French émigré living and preaching in Utrecht, Pierre le Clerc, who took Jansenism where the Jansenists themselves always feared it would go, to the brink of Protestantism.  Le Clerc’s errors included denying the authority of the papacy and the traditional foundations of the church by advocating the rejection of anything not found directly in Scripture. Therefore, the council met to condemn Le Clerc’s doctrinal errors, but it also offered the Jansenists in Utrecht an opportunity at the same time to establish the veracity of their church by proclaiming their Catholic orthodoxy – but through the means of an ''open council'' that represented both the clergy and the episcopacy of the Dutch church.<ref>While acknowledging the pope's ‘primacy’ by ‘divine right’ against Le Clerc, the council made it clear that it fell short of infallibility, by denying the pope the title of ‘universal’ bishop as well as by locating infallibility in the whole church, as had the Gallican Assembly of 1682. ([[w:Dale K. Van Kley|Dale K. Van Kley]]. ''[http://past.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/200/1/77 Civic Humanism in Clerical Grab: Gallican Memories of the Early Church and the Project of Primitivist Reform 1719-1791]''. Past & Present Society, Oxford, 2008, 200(1):77-120.)</ref><ref>Douglas Bradford Palmer (M.A.). ''[http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?osu1090415628 The Republic of Grace: International Jansenism in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution]''. (Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University). The Ohio State University, 2004. pp.92.</ref>