FELICE III, POPE. — Strictly speaking, he should be called F. II, since his predecessor was an antipope. He was pope from 483 to 492. His father, also named Felice, was a priest of the title of Fasciola (SS. Nereo and Achilleo). From the very first year of his pontificate, he witnessed the storm unleashed in Africa by the Vandals against the Catholics, and after the persecution he established at a synod the norms for the readmission of the «lapsi» into the Church.
But the most important event of his pontificate was the consummation of the Eastern schism, called Acacian by the author. Having ascended the chair of St Peter, F. received news of the publication of the Enetica of the emperor Zeno, and of the intrigues to entrust the Church of Alexandria to the heretic Pietro Mongo. Giovanni Talaia, the Catholic bishop expelled from Alexandria, came to Rome to seek justice from the Pontiff. Without hesitation, F. immediately sent a mission with numerous letters to Zeno and Acacius, in order to defend the Council of Chalcedon and the dogmatic letter of St Leo the Great, summoning before his tribunal the patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, to answer the accusations brought against him by Giovanni Talaia. The mission was difficult and delicate: the two bishops sent as legates failed in their mandate, and for money and out of fear allowed themselves to be drawn over to the schismatics, attending the solemn liturgy celebrated by Acacius, during which the name of Pietro Mongo was solemnly inserted in the diptychs. Informed by the acemeti monks loyal to Rome of the legates’ defection, F. convened a synod of 77 bishops, at which he deposed the faithless men and excommunicated Acacius. The defender Tuto was entrusted with carrying the sentence of excommunication to Constantinople. Upon reaching the East, he established contact with the monks; having learned that Acacius refused to accept the papal document, they affixed it to his mantle as he was going to the temple. Several of those monks paid for their boldness with their lives, others with imprisonment. Tuto too later allowed himself to be corrupted and, having gone over to the schismatics, was deposed and excommunicated by the Pope. Acacius removed F. from the diptychs; the schism came to divide the Eastern Church from Rome. F.’s action was justified, since the machinations of the Eastern bishops—intriguing ambitious men and supporters of the Monophysite heresy—constituted a perpetual danger to universal peace. F. died on 1 March 492 and was buried in the basilica of St Paul, because of his family’s close ties with the basilica.