Boniface III, Pope

BONIFACE III, Pope. - After the death of Pope Sabinianus, a year later the Roman B. was given to him as successor; he was consecrated on 19 February 607. He had held numerous and important offices under St. Gregory the Great: he had been designated to negotiate in Rome with foreign bishops on the questions of their dioceses, he was then sent to Antioch and to Corinth to administer there the patrimonies of the Church, and finally he had been sent as apocrisiary to Constantinople. The anonymous author of the Liber Pontificalis and Paul the Deacon (Hist. Langobard., IV, 36) inform us that he obtained from the emperor Phocas an edict which, against the claims of the patriarch of Constantinople to the title of "ecumenical patriarch," recognized for the see of Rome the title of "caput omnium ecclesiarum." This recognition is explained by B.'s good relations with the emperor, who at that time was instead in conflict with his patriarch. The same anonymous author, recalling a synod in which 72 bishops and numerous clergy took part, attributes to B. a decree issued at the conclusion of this synod to establish that, while the Pope or the bishop is still living, no candidacy must be put forward, nor any faction formed; the election must then take place three days after the funeral. B.'s pontificate was very brief: he died in November 607. The inscription placed on his tomb in St. Peter's calls him "guardian of justice, upright, patient, kindly, eloquent and pious."

Pietro Goggi