Pope Nicholas I
6 December (until 1883) | |
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Venerated in | Catholic Church |
Other popes named Nicholas |
Pope Nicholas I (
Nicholas refused King
Since the seventeenth century, Nicholas has been venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, with his feast on 13 November.[2]
His claims of supremacy over territories outside his jurisdiction, the incorporation of the filioque in the Constantinopolitan Nicene creed, and his pressure on Bulgaria to remain under Roman rule, provoked tensions between Rome and Constantinople, leading to his excommunication by the Greeks at the fourth Council of Constantinople.
Early career
Born to a distinguished family in Rome, son of the Defensor Theodore, Nicholas received excellent education. Distinguished for his piety, benevolence, competence, knowledge, and eloquence, he entered the service of the Church at an early age. Pope Sergius II (844–847) made him a subdeacon and Pope Leo IV (847–855) a deacon. After the death of Pope Benedict III on 7 April 858, Louis II of Italy came to Rome to influence the papal election. On 24 April Nicholas was elected pope, consecrated, and enthroned in St. Peter's Basilica in the presence of Emperor Louis.[3] Three days later, Nicholas held a farewell banquet for the emperor and afterward, accompanied by the Roman nobility, visited him in his camp before the city, on which occasion the emperor met the pope and led his horse for some distance.[4]
Papacy
To a spiritually exhausted and politically uncertain Western Europe beset by Muslim and Norse incursions, Pope Nicholas appeared as a conscientious representative of
Bishops
Archbishop John of Ravenna oppressed the inhabitants of the Papal States, treated his suffragan bishops with violence, made unjust demands upon them for money, and illegally imprisoned priests. He also forged documents to support his claims against the Roman See and maltreated the papal legates. As the warnings of the pope were without result, and the archbishop ignored a thrice-repeated summons to appear before the papal tribunal, he was excommunicated. Having first visited the Emperor Louis at Pavia, the archbishop repaired with two imperial delegates to Rome, where Nicholas cited him before the Roman synod assembled in the autumn of 860. Upon this John fled from Rome.[4]
Going in person to Ravenna, the pope then investigated and equitably regulated everything. Again appealing to the emperor, the archbishop was recommended by him to submit to the pope, which he did at the Roman Synod of November 861. Later on, however, he entered into a pact with the excommunicated
Marriage laws
Nicholas showed the same zeal in other efforts to maintain ecclesiastical discipline, especially as to the marriage laws. Ingiltrud, wife of Count Boso, had left her husband for a paramour; Nicholas commanded the bishops in the dominions of
The pope was also involved in a desperate struggle with the bishops of Lotharingia over the inviolability of marriage. King
Another matrimonial case in which Nicholas interposed was that of
Relations to the Eastern Church
In the East, Nicholas was seen as trying to extend his papal power beyond what was canonical authority by asserting a "rulership" over the Church instead of the position of "highest honor among equals" accorded to the pope of Rome by the East. He contended that
According to the Church of Constantinople, Photius was elected lawfully and canonically by the will of the Byzantine Emperor
For a variety of reasons, Prince Boris I of Bulgaria became interested in converting to Christianity and undertook to do that at the hands of western clergymen to be supplied by King Louis the German of East Francia in 863. Late in the same year, the Byzantine Empire invaded Bulgaria as it suffered famine and natural disasters. Boris was forced to sue for peace. Because the majority of his people were still opposed to Christianity, he was secretly baptized according to the Byzantine rite. The Byzantine Emperor who became his godfather conceded territory in Thrace to him.
Unhappy with Byzantine influence and desiring an
Legacy
Nicholas encouraged the missionary activity of the Church. He sanctioned the union of the sees of
In Rome, Nicholas rebuilt and endowed several churches, and constantly sought to encourage religious life. He led a pious personal life guided by a spirit of Christian asceticism.
A question that is important in judging the integrity of this pope is whether he made use of the forged pseudo-Isidorian papal decretals. After exhaustive investigation, Heinrich Schrörs concluded that the pope was neither acquainted with the pseudo-Isidorian collection in its entire extent, nor did he make use of its individual parts. He perhaps had a general knowledge of the false decretals, but did not base his view of the law upon them and owed his knowledge of them solely to documents that came to him from the Frankish Empire.[10]
Nicholas decreed that the figure of the rooster should be placed on every church. The rooster has served as a religious
Perhaps the most impactful act of Pope Nicholas was, in the year 866, he ordered that all Christians should abstain from eating the "flesh, blood, or marrow"[12] of warm-blooded animals on Wednesdays and Fridays.[13] This led to the tradition still widely followed by Roman Catholics in the modern day of abstaining from eating meat on Fridays during the liturgical season of Lent, but the meat of cold-blooded animals (such as fish) still being eaten. While there is a theory that this tradition was instituted solely to benefit the fishermen of Europe, there is no evidence for this.[14]
See also
References
- 9th edition (1880s) of the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Will Durant. The Age of Faith. New York, New York, USA: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Chapter 21: Christianity in Conflict, p. 517-51
- ISBN 978-88-209-7210-3), p. 587. Nicholas was added to the list of saints by Cardinal Lambertini - see F. Bougard, 'Anastase le bibliothécaire ou Jean Diacre ? Qui a récrit la vie de Nicolas Ier et pourquoi ?', Vaticana et medievalia. Études en l’honneur de Louis Duval-Arnould, Jean-Marie Martin, Bernadette Martin-Hisard e Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (ed.), Firenze, Sismel, 2008 (Millennio medievale, 71 ; Strumenti e studi, n.s., 16), pp. 27-40, p. 8 (online http://www.rmoa.unina.it/333/1/RM-Bougard-Diacre.pdf)
- ^ a b O'Malley, John W., A History of the Popes, New York, New York, USA, Sheed & Ward, 2010
- ^ a b c Johann Peter Kirsch, "Pope St. Nicholas I", The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 11 (New York, New York, USA: Robert Appleton Company, 1911), accessed 6 September 2014
- ISBN 9781476794679.
- ISBN 9781134259588.
- ^ Bougard, François (1993). "ENGELBERGA (Enghelberga, Angelberga), imperatrice" ‘’Treccani’’.
- ^ a b Gallagher 2019, p. 90.
- ISBN 9781400855612.
- ^ Schrörs, Johann Heinrich. "Papst Nikolaus I. und Pseudo-Isidor" in Historisches Jahrbuch, XXV (1904), 1 sqq.; Idem, "Die pseudoisidorische 'Exceptio spolii' bei Papst Nikolaus I" in Historisches Jahrbuch, XXVI (1905), 275 sqq.
- ^ Adler, Jerry; Lawler, Andrew. "How the Chicken Conquered the World". Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2012-06-01.
- ^ Dick, Preston (February 24, 2023). "Beyond the Trivia-Fish Fridays". KRCG. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
- ^ "How Did the Roman Catholic Tradition of Eating Fish on Fridays Begin?". 15 March 2019. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
- National Public Radio. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope St. Nicholas I". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Further reading
- Dvornik, Francis (1948). The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Gallagher, Clarence (2019). Church Law and Church Order in Rome and Byzantium: A Comparative Study. Taylor & Francis.
- Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Siecienski, Anthony Edward (2010). The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195372045.