ZACHARY, Pope, Saint. - Son of a Greek father living in Calabria, he was elected on 3 Dec. 741, d. 15 March 752.

Unlike his predecessor Gregory III, with regard to Liutprand, king of the Lombards, he judged it the better course to inaugurate friendly relations with him. He went himself to Terni (742) and concluded a very advantageous agreement by which Liutprand promised to restore the four fortresses of Amelia, Orte, Bomarco and Bieda, which he still unjustly held; he handed back the patrimonies usurped some thirty years earlier and stipulated a twenty-year truce with the Duchy of Rome. The Pope also intervened in favor of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which the Lombards wanted to take from the Byzantines (743), but he succeeded only in postponing the undertaking, later carried out by King Aistulf in 751. Z. knew how to make the emperor Constantine V favorable to the Roman Church and received as a gift the massae of Norma and Ninfa. In reality this was only compensation for the loss of other domains in Sicily and Calabria. In 747, Z. approved the change of regime in France with the accession of Pepin the Short (v.). The Pope also proved a good administrator of the lands of the Church, which were cultivated by means of well-organized agricultural establishments (v. PATRIMONY OF ST. PETER). In Rome he restored the Lateran Palace, much damaged, and beautified, at the foot of the Palatine, the church of S. Maria Antiqua, where his portrait is still preserved, executed while he was alive. Feast day 15 March.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Lib. Pont., I, pp. 426-39; L. Duchesne, Les premiers temps de l'Etat pontifical, 3e ed., Paris 1911; Ph. Lauer, Le Palais du Latran, ibid. 1911; Fliche-Martin-Frutz, V, nos. 490-94; O. Bertolini, Roma di fronte a Bisanzio e ai Longobardi, Bologna [1941], pp. 479-513 and passim. For the portrait, cf. W. de Grueneisen, I ritratti di papa Z. e di Teodoro primicerio nella chiesa di S. Maria Antiqua, in Arch. R. soc. rom. di stor. pat., 30 (1907), pp. 479-85; G. Ladner, I ritratti dei Papi nell'antichità e nel medioevo, I, Città del Vaticano 1941, pp. 99-106; Martyr. romanum, p. 98.

Guglielmo Mollat

@incollection{ec12_zaccaria_papa_santo, author = {Mollat, Guglielmo}, title = {Zaccaria, papa, santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1760--1761}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/zaccaria-papa-santo} }

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Zachary, Pope, Saint

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