Anastasius III, Pope

ANASTASIUS III, Pope. - A Roman, son of Lucianus, he succeeded Sergius III and was consecrated around the month of June 911. During his brief pontificate, which ended in 913, he was unable to exercise any political power, because at that time the family of Theophylact, "consul et senator," dominated Rome, along with Theodora who, if we are to believe Liutprand, governed the city with a certain energy: "romanae civitatis non inviriliter monarchiam obtinebat" (Antapodosis, 2, 48). When the emperor Alexander ascended the throne of Constantinople, A. received a letter from the Byzantine patriarch Nicholas the Mystic, who complained that Sergius III had authorized his legates to permit the fourth marriage of the emperor Leo VI, and sought to justify his own opposition to this marriage.

In fact the Eastern Church prohibited it, whereas the Western Church raised no difficulty about it. We do not know whether the Pope replied to the patriarch of Constantinople. Of A. there remains to us only one bull, by which he grants to Ragembert, bishop of Vercelli, the use of the pallium. The other bull, however, by which he confers upon Oger, archbishop of Hamburg, and his successors a very extensive jurisdiction over the bishops of northern Europe, is not authentic. A. was buried in the Vatican basilica; the inscription placed on his tomb still remains to us.

Pietro Goggi