EUGENIUS. – Bishop of Carthage, elected in 481 after a 24-year vacancy, quickly became the idol of the people through his virtue and charity, “so that there was no one in Carthage who was not ready to give his life for him” (Victor of Vita). Even the Arian Vandals came to hear him, despite the opposition of their bishops. Huneric (477–484) hoped to induce the Catholic bishops to accept Arianism and convened an assembly of bishops of both confessions in Carthage in February 484, excluding the bishops from overseas, especially that of Rome.
EUGENIUS then presented a profession of faith, subscribed to by all the Catholic bishops of Africa (CSEL, 7, 46–71). This act provoked a most cruel persecution against the Catholics: EUGENIUS, along with 302 other bishops, was exiled to Mauretania, at Turris Tamalleni. The jailer subjected him to cruel torments, so that he was struck with paralysis; yet he survived. Gunthamund (484–96) recalled him and allowed him to officiate in the suburban see of S. Azileus (487). Seven years later, he obtained the recall of all the bishops and the reopening of the Catholic churches. However, Thrasamund (496–523) exiled him to Albi in Aquitaine in 498. According to Tillemont, it was on this occasion that EUGENIUS left his faithful as a testament the *Epistola ad cives suos pro custodientia fide catholica* (MGH, *Scriptores rerum Adversingicarum*, I, 1, pp. 62–63). He died in exile in 505.
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**EUGENIUS I, POPE, saint.** – Son of the Roman Ruffinianus, he was elected by the clergy and people of Rome following the violent removal of Martin I and was acclaimed on 10 August 654, without the exiled pope having learned of the intrusion from Constantinople, where he had been taken; this shows how Martin considered him a worthy successor to his work. Indeed, EUGENIUS maintained his predecessor’s intransigence toward the Monothelite doctrine and imperial pretensions: when, having sent a legation to Constantinople to announce his election to Constans II, his legates proved too conciliatory, he rebuked and condemned them. He died in 657.
He was buried in St Peter’s Basilica. His feast is celebrated on 2 June.
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EUGENIUS II, POPE. – A Roman priest of the title of S. Sabina, he was elected pope on 11 May 824 at the death of Paschal I amid the strife provoked by factional rivalries, thanks to the pacifying intervention of Wala, monk of Corbie and counsellor to the emperor Lothar. To forestall further discord, Lothar promulgated a constitution regulating the nature of imperial protection, the personal rights of Roman citizens, the selection of officials under sovereign oversight, the institution of two *missi*: one for the emperor, the other for the pope, acting as arbiters in contentious matters; and the election of the pope to be conducted with the participation of the laity and the obligation for the electors to take an oath before the imperial *missus* and the people.
EUGENIUS accepted this constitution and in November 826 convened a council of 62 bishops, promulgating some forty disciplinary rules in response to current difficulties. He died in August 827.
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