BENEDETTO II, POPE, saint. — Upon the death of St Leo II (3 July 683), B., a Roman, was chosen to succeed him; but he was not consecrated until 26 June 684, owing to the delay in the confirmation by the emperor of the East. To remedy the excessively long vacancies of the Apostolic See, he obtained that the emperor renounce confirmation of the elected pope and that the exarch of Ravenna be entrusted with the confirmation. Evidence of the good relations between the Pope and the emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus is provided by the fact that the latter wished B. to adopt his sons Justinian and Heraclius and, following the custom of the time, sent him locks (mallones) of their hair. As soon as he was elected, B. confirmed to the notary Peter, who was traveling to Spain, the commission entrusted to him by Leo II: to obtain the adherence of the Visigothic episcopate to the definitions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the Third Council of Constantinople, of 680–81, which condemned Monothelitism. This adherence was subsequently given at the Fourteenth Council of Toledo (November 684). Before that council convened, Julian, bishop of Toledo, entrusted Peter with his Apology of the Faith, in which B. found expressions that were too audacious. He justified himself with a second apology, which B. did not have time to read and which was approved by the Fifteenth National Council of Toledo (May 688; cf. Denz-U, 294–95). Even before his consecration, B. had intervened on behalf of Wilfrid, archbishop of York, who had been unjustly deposed. He did not succeed in obtaining the recantation of Macarius, the Monothelite patriarch of Antioch,
deposed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council. He restored the churches of St Peter and St Lawrence in Lucina and embellished St Valentine on the Via Flaminia and St Mary ad Martyres, the ancient Pantheon. He died on 8 May 685 and was buried in St Peter’s. The Church venerates him on 7 May.