Pope Hormisdas
Kingdom of the Ostrogoths | |
---|---|
Children | 1 Pope Silverius |
Sainthood | |
Feast day | 6 August[1] |
Pope Hormisdas (
Family and early career
Hormisdas was born in
Before becoming a deacon, Hormisdas was married and had a son, Silverius, who later became pope. During the Laurentian schism, Hormisdas was one of the most prominent clerical partisans of Pope Symmachus. He was notary at the synod held at St. Peter's in 502.[6] Two letters of Magnus Felix Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, survive addressed to him, written when the latter tried to regain horses and money he had lent the Pope.[7]
Pontificate
Unlike that of his predecessor Symmachus, the election of Hormisdas lacked any notable controversies. Upon becoming pope, one of Hormisdas' first actions was to remove the last vestiges of the schism in Rome, receiving back into the Church those adherents of the Laurentian party who had not already been reconciled. "The schism had lingered on largely out of personal hatred to Symmachus," writes Jeffrey Richards, "something with which Hormisdas was apparently not tainted."[8]
The account of his tenure in the
The emperor Anastasius took the first steps to resolve this schism pressured by
Anastasius wrote to Hormisdas on 28 December 514, inviting him to a synod that would be held 1 July of the following year. A second, less courteous invitation, dated 12 January 515, was also sent by Anastasius to the pope, which reached Rome before the first. On 4 April Hormisdas answered, expressing his delight at the prospect of peace, but at the same time defending the position of his predecessors and welcoming a synod, but believing it unnecessary. The bearers of the emperor's first letter at last reached Rome on 14 May. The pope guardedly carried on negotiations, convened a synod at Rome and wrote to the emperor on 8 July to announce the departure of an embassy for Constantinople. Meanwhile, the two hundred bishops who had assembled on 1 July at Heraclea separated without accomplishing anything.
The pope's embassy to the imperial court consisted of two bishops, Ennodius of Pavia and Fortunatus of Catina, the priest Venantius, the deacon Vitalis, and the notary Hilarius.
An imperial embassy of two high civil officials came to Rome bringing one letter dated 16 July 516 for the pope, and one dated 28 July for the Roman Senate; the aim of the latter was to convince the senators to take a stand against Hormisdas. However both the Senate, as well as King Theodoric, stayed loyal to the pope. Meanwhile, Hormisdas reported to Avitus of Vienne that an additional number of Balkan bishops had entered into relations with Rome, and Bishop John of Nicopolis, who was also the archbishop of Epirus, had broken communion with Constantinople and resumed it with Rome.[12]
A second papal embassy consisting of Ennodius and Bishop Peregrinus of Misenum was as unsuccessful as the first. Anastasius even attempted to bribe the legates, but was unsuccessful.[10] Secure now that Vitalian had been defeated outside Constantinople, forced into hiding, and his supporters executed, Anastasius announced on 11 July 517 that he was breaking off the negotiations. But less than a year later the emperor died; the Liber Pontificalis claims he was struck dead by a thunderbolt.[10] His successor, the Catholic Justin I, immediately reversed Anastasius' policies. All the demands of Pope Hormisdas were granted: the name of the condemned Patriarch Acacius as well as the names of the Emperors Anastasius and Zeno were stricken from the church diptychs, and the Patriarch John II accepted the formula of Hormisdas. Some maintain that he did so with some qualifications. This argument is based on the following quote:"I declare that the see of apostle Peter and the see of this imperial city are one."[13]
However, the East continued to disregard papal demands by not condemning Acacius.[14] On 28 March 519, in the cathedral of Constantinople in the presence of a great throng of people, the end of the schism was concluded in a solemn ceremony.
Hormisdas died in AD 523 and was buried in Old St. Peter's Basilica; his tomb was destroyed during the construction of the new basilica.[15]
References
- ^ "Saint Hormisdas". Patron Saints Index. Archived from the original on 2010-05-30.
- ^ a b "Hormisdas, St." in William Darrach Halsey, Collier's Encyclopedia Volume 12, Macmillan Educational Company, 1984, p. 244.
- ^ a b Kirsch, Johann Peter (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
- ^ Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 242
- ^ Hormozod, A. Shapur Shahbazi, Encyclopaedia Iranica (March 23, 2012).
- ^ John Moorhead, "The Laurentian Schism: East and West in the Roman Church," Church History 47 (1978), p. 131
- ^ Ennodius, Epistulae 5.13; 6.33
- ^ Richards, Popes and the Papacy, p. 100
- ^ Richards, Popes and the Papacy, p. 101
- ^ a b c Raymond Davis (translator), The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), first edition (Liverpool: University Press, 1989), p. 47
- ^ "Hormisdas, bp. of Rome" Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies, edited by Henry Wace (London, 1911)
- ^ Epistulae 2; translated by Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood, Avitus of Vienne (Liverpool: University Press, 2002), pp. 129–133
- ^ Dvornik, F., (1966) Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, (Fordham University Press, NY), p. 61
- ^ Meyendorff 1989, p. 215.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-1527-4
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-88-141056-3.
- "ORMISDA". Retrieved 7 February 2019.
External links
- Media related to Hormisdas at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by or about Hormisdas at Wikisource