Pope Sergius I (c. 650 – 8 September 701) was thebishop of Rome from 15 December 687 to his death on 8 September 701, and is revered as asaint by theRoman Catholic Church. He waselected at a time when two rivals,Paschal andTheodore, were locked in a dispute about which of them should becomepope. His papacy was dominated by his response to theQuinisext Council, the canons of which he steadfastly refused to accept. Thereupon EmperorJustinian II ordered Sergius' arrest, but the Roman people and the Italian militia of theexarch of Ravenna refused to allow the exarch to bring Sergius to Constantinople.
Sergius I came from anAntiochene Syrian family which had settled atPanormus in Sicily. Sergius left Sicily and arrived in Rome during the pontificate ofAdeodatus II. He may have been among the many Sicilian clergy in Rome due to theCaliphate's attacks on Sicily in the mid-7th century.[1]Pope Leo II ordained himcardinal-priest ofSanta Susanna on 27 June 683, and he rose through the ranks of the clergy. He remained cardinal-priest of Santa Susanna until he wasselected to becomepope.[2][3][4]
Pope Conon died on 21 September 687 after a long illness and a reign of less than a year. His archdeacon,Paschal, had already attempted to secure the papacy by bribing the exarch of Ravenna,John II Platyn. A more numerous faction wanted the archpriestTheodore to become pope. The two factions entered into armed combat, each in possession of part of theLateran Palace, which was the papal residence. To break the deadlock, a group of civic authorities, army officers, clergy, and other citizens met in the Palatine imperial palace, elected Sergius, and then stormed the Lateran, forcing the two rival candidates to accept Sergius.[3][5]
Though pretending to accept Sergius, Paschal sent messengers to Platyn, promising a large sum of gold in exchange for military support.[5] The exarch arrived, recognised that Sergius had been regularly elected, but demanded the gold anyway. After Sergius'sconsecration on 15 December 687, Platyn departed. Paschal continued his intrigues and was eventually confined to a monastery[3][5] on charges of witchcraft.[5] Sergius's consecration ended the last disputedsede vacante of theByzantine Papacy.[6]
Sergius I did not attend theQuinisext Council of 692, which was attended by 226 or 227 bishops, overwhelmingly from thePatriarchate of Constantinople. The participation of Basil of Gortyna inCrete, belonging to thePatriarchate of Rome, has been seen in the East as representing Rome and even as signifying Roman approval, but he was in fact not apapal legate.[9] Sergius rejected the canons of the council as invalid[10] and declared that he would "rather die than consent to erroneous novelties".[11] Though a loyal subject of the Empire, he would not be "its captive in matters of religion".[11] Writers such asAndrew J. Ekonomou have speculated on which canons, in particular, Sergius found objectionable. Ekonomou excludes the anathemising ofPope Honorius I, the declaration of Constantinople as equal in privileges but second in honour to Rome.[11] All popes sinceLeo the Great had adamantly rejected the 28th canon of theCouncil of Chalcedon, which on the basis of political considerations tried to raise the ecclesiastical status of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to equality with that of old Rome.[12] Ekonomou mentions rather the approval by the Quinisext Council of all 85Apostolic Canons, of which Sergius would have supported only the first 50.[11]
Many of the regulations that the Quinisext Council enacted were aimed at making uniform the existing church practices regarding ritual observance and clerical discipline. Being held under Byzantine auspices, with an exclusively Eastern clergy, the council regarded the customs of the Church of Constantinople as the orthodox practice.[13] Practices in the Church in the West that had got the attention of the Eastern patriarchates were condemned, such as: the practice of celebratingMass on weekdays inLent (rather than havingpre-sanctified liturgies); offasting on Saturdays throughout the year; of omitting the "Alleluia" in Lent; of depicting Christ as alamb. In a step that was symbolically important in view of the council's prohibition of depicting Christ as a Lamb, Sergius introduced into the liturgy the chant "Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us" at the breaking of the Host during Mass, and restored the damaged facade mosaic in the atrium of Saint Peter's that depicted theWorship of the Lamb.[4] TheAgnus Dei would have been chanted in both Greek and Latin during this period, in the same manner as the other liturgical changes of Sergius.[14] Larger disputes were revealed regarding Eastern and Western attitudes towardcelibacy for priests anddeacons, with the Council affirming the right of married men to become priests and prescribingexcommunication for anyone who attempted to separate a clergyman from his wife, or for any cleric who abandoned his wife.
Enraged, EmperorJustinian II dispatched hismagistrianus, also named Sergius, to arrest Bishop John of Portus, the chief papal legate to theThird Council of Constantinople, and Boniface, the papal counsellor.[4] The two high-ranking officials were brought to Constantinople as a warning to the pope.[4] Eventually, Justinian ordered Sergius's arrest and abduction to Constantinople by his notoriously violent bodyguardprotospatharios Zacharias.[4] However, the militia of the exarch of Ravenna and theDuchy of Pentapolis frustrated the attempt.[3][15] Zacharias nearly lost his own life in an attempt to arrest Sergius.[3][16] Rather than seizing upon the anti-Byzantine sentiment, Sergius did his best to quell the uprising.[15]
Pope Sergius rejected theApostolic Canons approved by the Eastern Church'sCouncil in Trullo in 692, which made3 Maccabees part of the Biblical canon.[17] This remains a difference between the Catholic and Orthodox canon to today.
^Stephens, W. R. W.; Leyser, Henrietta (revised) (2004). "Berhtwald (c. 650–731)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3430
Ekonomou, Andrew J. 2007.Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes: Eastern influences on Rome and the papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, A.D. 590–752. Lexington Books.ISBN978-0739119778
