INNOCENT I, Pope, Saint. - According to the Liber Pontificalis he was a native of Albano, and he succeeded Pope Anastasius I in 401. His pontificate falls at a very critical time for the Western Empire, because of the raids of the barbarians. Rome itself, besieged for three years, was occupied on 24 Aug. 410 by the hordes of Alaric. I. was spared the sight of the devastation, since he had gone to Ravenna with an embassy of the Senate to implore aid and directives. His activity as supreme pastor and in the affirmation given to the primacy and to the privileged authority of Rome in the universal Church makes I. the Pope who, together with Leo I, contributed most to the theoretical and practical development of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. One may perhaps find a reason for this in the political crisis: seeing the impending disintegration of the Empire, I. wished to strengthen the ecclesiastical body and to reaffirm the unity of the Church under the successor of Peter.
One must first of all consider his action in the questions of the Western Church. The bishops of Italy, Gaul, and Spain requested from I. directives concerning the various points of ecclesiastical life: liturgy, the Sacraments, persons to be admitted to Holy Orders, the celibacy of clerics, the canon of Sacred Scripture, ecclesiastical litigation. I. replied to all, as the letters to Victricius of Rouen, to Exuperius of Toulouse, to the Spanish bishops who took part in the Council of Toledo, to Decentius of Gubbio, to three bishops of Apulia, etc., attest. He does not limit himself to indicating the solution of the cases submitted to him, but proposes as a model the usages of the Roman Church, demanding that all conform to them: "what was taught to the Roman Church by the Prince of the Apostles and is observed there, must be followed by all" (Epist. to Decentius of Gubbio), and he justifies this command by the fact, not entirely corresponding to the truth, that all the Churches of the West were founded by envoys of St. Peter and of his successors. Likewise, while he recognizes the competence of provincial councils for ecclesiastical causes, he requires that Rome's prerogative of receiving appeals be safeguarded, and he even demands that the more important causes, after the judgment of the bishops, be referred to the Apostolic See.
Closely united to the action carried out for the affirmation of the primacy in the West is that carried out in Illyricum. His predecessors, from Damasus onward, had established close relations and granted special faculties to the metropolitan of Thessalonica. I., from the beginning of his pontificate, confirmed this right, then in 412 created the vicariate of Thessalonica, constituting Bishop Rufus his vicar with special prerogatives over all the metropolitans of the prefecture of Illyricum. By this he affirmed the rights of the Apostolic See over those regions and at the same time turned the bishop of Thessalonica away from looking toward Constantinople.
The misfortune of St. John Chrysostom required his intervention in the East. To the first communications of Chrysostom and his adherents and of Theophilus of Alexandria he replied that he preserved his communion with both and proposed to examine the question in a Council of Easterners and Westerners. Then, having been informed, by new messengers of John's party and by those of Theophilus with the Acts of the Council of the Oak, of the grave injustices perpetrated, he convened a Synod in which the convocation of a Council at Thessalonica was decided, informed the emperor Honorius of this, and urged him to communicate this decision to Arcadius with a letter carried by Western and Eastern bishops. The embassy had no effect: when the bishops arrived in Eastern territory, they were imprisoned, the letter was taken from them, the Westerners sent back, the Easterners exiled. Then I. separated John's enemies from his communion and wrote to the latter various letters of comfort. After John's death, he made the inscription of his name in the diptychs a condition for the restoration of communion.
The pontificate of I. is finally important for the condemnation of Pelagianism. The rehabilitation obtained by Pelagius at the Synod of Diospolis (415) struck the African bishops keenly. In the summer of 416 these held two Councils, at Carthage and at Milevis, in which they confirmed the sentence pronounced in the Carthaginian Synod of 411 against the Pelagian errors and their authors. To give more force to their judgment, they invoked the Pope with three urgent letters, asking him to condemn the errors with his apostolic authority. On 27 Jan. 417 I. replied with as many letters, in which, while making the judgment of the Africans his own and excommunicating by virtue of the apostolic authority Pelagius and Celestius until they repent, he praises the Africans for having turned to the Apostolic See from which "as from a source responses emanate to those who ask." For "especially when the faith is in question, I think that all bishops, our brothers and colleagues, should turn only to Peter, the author of their name and of their dignity, as your beloved selves have just done" (Epist., 30, to the Council of Milevis). The letters filled the Africans with joy, so that Augustine in a discourse delivered at Carthage on 23 Sept. 417 could exclaim: "On this question the decrees of two Councils have been sent to the Apostolic See; from there the rescripts came. The case is finished. May God grant that the error also be finished" (Serm., 131, 10). But I. had already died on 12 March. The Church venerates him as a saint and celebrates his feast on 28 July.
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Vincenzo Monachino