Pope Adrian II
| Pope Adrian II | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Rome | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Papacy began | 14 December 867[1] |
| Papacy ended | 14 December 872 |
| Predecessor | Nicholas I |
| Successor | John VIII |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | 14 Dec 867 by Donatus of Ostia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 792 Rome, Papal States |
| Died | 14 December 872 (aged 79–80) Rome, Papal States |
| Spouse | Stephania |
| Children | 1 |
| Other popes named Adrian | |
Pope Adrian II (Latin: Hadrianus II; also Hadrian II; 792 – 14 December 872) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 867 to his death on 14 December 872. He continued the policy of his predecessor, Nicholas I. Despite seeking good relations with Louis II of Italy, he was placed under surveillance, and his wife and daughters were killed by Louis' supporters.
Family
Adrian was a member of a noble Roman family, related to Popes Stephen IV and Sergius II.[2] In his youth, he married a woman named Stephania and had a daughter with her. Adrian later became a priest after having already been married.[3]
Adrian was selected to become pope on 14 December 867. He was already at an advanced age (75), and objected to assuming the papacy.[3] His wife, Stephania, and daughter moved with him to the Lateran Palace, but were soon kidnapped by Eleutherius, who had wed the latter, and murdered both upon being discovered.[4][5]
Pontificate
Adrian II maintained, but with less energy, the policies of his predecessor, Nicholas I. King Lothair II of Lotharingia, who died in 869, left Adrian to mediate between the Frankish kings with a view to secure the imperial inheritance to Lothair's brother, Louis II of Italy.[6] Adrian sought to maintain good relations with Louis, since the latter's campaigns in southern Italy had the potential to free the papacy from the threat posed by the Muslims.[7]
Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople, shortly after the council in which he had pronounced sentence of deposition against Pope Nicholas I, was driven from the patriarchate by a new Byzantine emperor, Basil the Macedonian, who favoured Photius' rival, Ignatius. The Fourth Council of Constantinople was convoked to decide this matter. At this council, Adrian was represented by legates who presided at the condemnation of Photius as a heretic, but did not succeed in coming to an understanding with Ignatius on the subject of jurisdiction over the Bulgarian Church.[6]
Adrian supported the work of Cyril and Methodius in Moravia, and authorized the use of the new Slavic liturgy. He subsequently ordained Methodius a priest. In 869, he consecrated Methodius archbishop and Metropolitan of Sirmium.[8]
Like Nicholas I, Adrian was forced to submit in temporal affairs to the interference of Emperor Louis II, who placed him under the surveillance of Bishop Arsenius of Orte, his confidential adviser, and Arsenius' nephew, Anastasius the Librarian.[6] Arsenius' son Eleutherius married Adrian's daughter, having withheld the fact that he was already espoused to another. In 868, he abducted and murdered Adrian's wife and daughter.[4] Eleutherius was condemned to death for his crimes.
Adrian died on 14 December 872, after exactly five years of pontificate.[6]
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Pope Adrian II, Pope (867–872).—After the death of St. Nicholas I, the Roman clergy and people elected, much against his will, the venerable Cardinal Adrian, universally beloved for his charity and amiability, descended from a Roman family which had already given two pontiffs to the Church, Stephen III and Sergius II. Adrian was now seventy-five years old, and twice before had refused the dignity. He had been married before taking orders, and his old age was saddened by a domestic tragedy. As pope, he followed closely in the footsteps of his energetic predecessor. He strove to maintain peace among the greedy and incompetent descendants of Charlemagne. In an interview at Monte Cassino he admitted to communion the repentant King Lothair of Lorraine, after exacting from him a public oath that he had held no intercourse with his concubine since the pope's prohibition, that he would take back his lawful wife Theutberga, and abide by the final decision of the Roman See. He upheld with vigour against Hincmar of Reims the unlimited right of bishops to appeal to the Sovereign Pontiff. At the Eighth General Council, which he convened at Constantinople in 869, and presided over through ten legates, he effected the deposition of Photius and the restoration of unity between the East and the West. He was unsuccessful in retaining the Bulgarians for the western patriarchate; that nation unwisely determined to adhere to Constantinople, a course which was destined to bring upon it ruin and stagnation. Adrian saved the western Slavs from a similar fate by seconding the efforts of the saintly brothers, Cyril and Methodius. Of enduring influence, for good or evil, was the endorsement he gave to their rendering of the liturgy in the Slavonic tongue. Adrian died towards the close of the year 872.
Liber Pontif. (ed. Duchesne), 173–190; Jaffé, Regesta RR. PP. (2d ed.), I, 368–375, II, 703, 704, 745, 746; Mansi Coll. Conc., XV, 819 sq.; Watterich, Vitæ Rom. Pont., 631 sq.; Lapotre, Hadrien II et les fausses décrétales, in Rev. des Quest. Hist. (1880), XXVII, 377–431; Artaud de Montor, Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs (tr. New York, 1867), I, 225, 226; Gorini, Defense de l'Eglise (1866), III, 20–38, 160–176; Alex. Natalis, Hist. Eccl. (1778), VI, 399–409.
References
- Back to citation "Adrian II, The Holy See".
- Back to citation Mann, Horace K., The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. II: The Popes During the Carolingian Empire, 795–858 (1906), p. 110
- Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Loughlin, James (1907). "Pope Adrian II". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Riche, Pierre (1993), The Carolingians, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 9780812213423
- Back to citation Dopierała, K. (1996). Księga Papieży. Pallotinum. p. 106.
- Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Back to citation occurrence 6.2 Back to citation occurrence 6.3 Chisholm 1911.
- Back to citation Kleinhenz, Christopher (2 Aug 2004). "Hadrian II, Pope". Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 9781135948795. “Hadrian sought to alienate no one in Rome, while also maintaining good relations with Louis II, whose campaigns in the south might free the papacy from the threat posed by the Muslims.”
- Back to citation "The Life of Methodius", Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes (Marvin Kantor) [Michigan Slavic Translation 5]. University of Michigan. (1983) p. 117. ISBN 0-930042-44-1
Further reading
- Dvornik, Francis (1948). The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Siecienski, Anthony Edward (2010). The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195372045.
External links
- Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes (in Latin)
- Loughlin, James Francis (1907). "Pope Adrian II". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.