In a message dated 12/13/1999 12:26:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
<< Can you
explain that a little bit? Which Churches exactly excommuniated the Pope of
Rome? References? >>
Father Bill will get to the Fifth Ecumenical Council shortly, which will
explain why the Pope fell out of favor. As for the references to the
papacy's fall from grace, I cannot locate the paper (with all the necessary
citations) I wrote some years back but _Oxford Dictionary of Popes_ does sum
the case quite well (from p.63):
"On Vigilius's death [the pope who caved into Justinian] Pelagius returned to
Rome as the emperor's nominee . . . . There seems to have been no election
but the Liber Pontificales suggests Justinian may have obtained the grudging
assent of the Roman clergy in Constantinople. Not surprisingly P had a
hostile reception, many religious and nobles withdrawing from communion with
him. His consecration had to be postponed [until Apr. 556] . . . since no
bishop would officiate . . . [until] carred out by two bishops (of Perugia
and Ferentino) while a presbyter represented the bishop of Ostia, normally a
papal consecrator.
. . . he was execrated for his betrayal, as the west regarded it, of the
Three Chapters [see Oriens forthcoming post].
. . . By efficient administration and pastoral care P speedily conciliated
opinion in Rome but elsewhere in the west with certain notable exception
(Suburbican Italy: the seven diocese of Rome, and Ravenna) he had an uphill
and largely unsuccessful struggle to secure recognition for his authority as
pope. In Gaul, . . . he continued to be hated and distrusted in spite of
repeated humiliating assurances of his orthodoxy. Hostility to his
condemnation of the Three Chapters was most obdurate in north Italy where the
great sees of Aquileia and Milan renounced communion with him."
(from p. 64, under John III):
"John's reign . . . saw the invasion (568) of large parts of Italy by the
Lombards . . . .
The invasion assisted the ending of the schism between Rome and the great
churches of the west caused by . . . the condemnation of the Three Chapters.
Relations with North Africa became easier after Justinian's death and in 573
the new bishop of Milan, Laurentius II . . . deemed it prudent to renew
communion with Rome . . . . Aquileia, however, continued obdurate."
The schism with Aquileia, apparently did not come to an end until the year
630 or so (see page 70) by which time monophysitism had given way to
monothelitism (conjured up as another imperial compromise), and all would be
rendered moot by the Arab invasion.
mark
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