Paul I, Pope, Saint

PAUL I, Pope, Saint. - Of noble Roman family, died in Rome on June 28, 767.

He held various diplomatic missions, and on the death of his brother Stephen II (April 26, 757) he was elected to succeed him, while the pro-Byzantine party opposed to him the archdeacon Theophylact. P. notified his election to the king of the Franks, Pepin, without however asking him for any confirmation, and on May 29, having overcome the opposition of the adverse party, he was consecrated.

His pontificate was often chiefly occupied with the effort to consolidate the nascent Papal State against the encroachments of the Lombards. To this end P. kept in constant contact with King Pepin, repeatedly invoking his intervention, in order to overcome the obstinacy of Desiderius, who refused to hand over the cities of Bologna, Imola, Ancona and Numana promised to Stephen II. Pepin, rather than accept the effective protectorate over the Duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, intervened in the controversy with conciliatory intentions, hoping to ally Desiderius and P. I against the possibility of a Byzantine attack. In 760 an understanding between the Pope and the Lombard King seemed to have been reached, which was confirmed only at the Conference of Rome in 765, while Desiderius managed to evade almost all the commitments previously undertaken.

In the East, where the iconoclastic persecution raged ever more violently, P. I sent in 763 a legation to Constantine V Copronymus, who attempted to alienate Pepin from P. I, by means of the imperial secretary George and the Roman presbyter Marinus. But Pepin did not accept negotiations with the imperial envoys except in the presence of the pontifical legates, and at the Synod of Gentilly (Easter 767), in which « inter Romanos et Graecos » the Most Holy Trinity and the holy images were discussed, it appears that Pepin favored the Roman point of view. P. I, having withdrawn to St. Paul Outside the Walls to shelter from the excessive heat of the summer of 767, died there, and after three months was transported to the Vatican Basilica.

He had great merits in the field of sacred building: in the basilica of St. Peter he had two oratories to the Virgin built, and among other things he transformed the paternal Palace on the Via Lata into the monastery of Sts. Stephen and Sylvester, which he entrusted to Eastern monks who were refugees from the iconoclastic persecution. He also resumed the translations of the bodies of saints from the now abandoned suburban cemeteries, distributing them among the various churches of Rome. P. I is remembered for the charity that he exercised generously toward the poor and needy of every kind, but the excessive harshness of the « iniqui satellites » made his government burdensome to many. Feast on June 28.