BONIFACIO IV, PAPA, saint. — Originally from Abruzzo, after a vacancy of ten months he succeeded Bonifacio III and governed the Church for approximately seven years (608–15), years that were very troubled by famine, plague, and the victorious campaigns of the Persians against the Byzantine Empire. A pious and energetic pontiff, B. maintained good relations with the court of Constantinople and obtained from the emperor Phocas the ancient Pantheon of Agrippa, a temple of Cybele until 399, in order to make it a church dedicated to the Virgin and all the martyrs. It is the oldest known example in the West of a pagan temple being transformed into a church, and thereby saved from ruin. The event is rightly commemorated in B.’s funerary inscription.
The young Church of England was the object of B.’s pastoral concern. He received Mellitus, bishop of London, who came to Rome in 610 to confer with him, and entrusted him with letters to Laurence, archbishop of Canterbury, to the clergy, to King Æthelberht, and to the English people. St. Columban, the ardent Irish monk, wrote to B., pointing out to him with holy boldness, and not without a certain intemperance of language, the evils threatening the unity of the Church because of his conciliatory conduct in the dogmatic controversies. During his pontificate the Persians invaded the Byzantine Empire, reached as far as the Bosporus, devastated Syria, and occupied Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem (614), from which they carried off the Holy Cross. B. died on 8 May 615 and was buried in St. Peter’s; the Church venerates him as a saint on 25 May.