Adeodatus II (or I), Pope

ADEODATUS II (OR I), Pope. - A Roman, he received the tiara in 672, died in 676. The son of Jovinian, he succeeded St. Vitalian. Elected, perhaps, shortly after the latter's death (27 January 672), he had to wait for more than two months for the imperial confirmation before being consecrated (11 April 672).

He governed the Church for four years, two months and five days. The Liber Pontificalis relates few things about him, and not all of them accurate and rather generic. He increased the largesses that the popes were accustomed to make. He had been a monk in the Benedictine monastery of St. Erasmus on the Caelian: one understands therefore why, having become pope, he enlarged, embellished and enriched it. He also restored the church of St. Peter at Campo di Merlo on the via Portuense, between Ponte Galera and the Magliana: its ruins were found in the excavations of 1858. Two documents are attributed to him: a letter to Adrian, abbot of Sts. Peter and Paul of Canterbury, to confirm the exemption of that monastery, and a letter to the bishops of the Gauls to notify them of the privileges granted to the monastery of St. Martin of Tours. The authenticity of the latter was called into question, but on the authority of Mabillon (De re diplomatica, I, 3rd ed., Naples 1789, ch. 3, § 9) it can be accepted. He is the first Pope who dates his correspondence from the year of his pontificate. Some martyrologies mark his name on 26 June: nevertheless the Bollandists prove that he never had a cult in the Church.

Ireneo Daniele