Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/812

 ZACHART

744

ZACHARY

dus. Still the papal envoys do not seem to have come into close relations with the usurper at Constanti- nople, although the latter re-established the worship of images. After Constantine V had overthrown his rival, the envoys of the pope presented to him the papal letter in which Zachary exliorted the emperor to restore the doctrine and practice of the Church in respect to the worship of images. The emperor re- ceived the envoys in a friendly manner and presented the Roman Church with the villages of N>-m]3ha and Normia (Norba) in Italy, which with their terri- tories extended to the sea.

When Zachary ascended the throne the position of the city and Duchy of Rome was a very serious one. Luitprand, King of the Lombards, was preparing a new incursion into Roman territory. Duke Trasa- mund of Spoleto, with whom Pope Gregory III had formed an alliance against Luitprand, did not keep his promise to aid the Romans in regaining the cities taken by the Lombards. Consequently Zachary abandoned the alliance with Trasamund and sought to protect the interests of Rome and Roman territory by persona! influence over Luitprand. The pope went to Terni to see the Lombard king who received him with every mark of honour. Zachary was able to obtain from Luitprand that the four cities of Ameria, Horta, Polimartium, and Blera should be returned to the Romans, and that aD the patrimonies of the Ro- man Church that the Lombards had taken from it within the last tliirty years, should be given back; he was also able to conclude a truce for twenty years be- tween the Roman Duchy and the Lombards. A chapel to the Saviour was built in the Church of St. Peter at Rome in the name of Luitprand, in which the deeds respecting this return of property were placed. After the pope's return, the Roman people went in solemn procession to St. Peter's to thank God for the fortunate result of the pope's efforts. Throughout the entire affair the pope appears as the secular ruler of Rome and the Roman territory. In the next year Luitprand made ready to attack the territory of Ra- venna. The Byzantine exarch of Ravenna and the archbi.shop begged Pope Zachary to intervene. The latter first sent envoys to the Lombard king, and when these were unsuccessful he went himself to Ravenna and from there to Pavia to see Luitprand. The pope reached Pavia on the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. He celebrated the vigil and the feast of the princes of the Apostles at Pavia, and was able to in- duce the king to abandon the attack on Ravenna and to restore the territory belonging to the city itself. Luitprand died shortly after this and after his first successor Hildebrand was overthrown, Ratchis be- came King of the Lombards. The pope was on the best of terms with him. In 749 the new king con- firmed the treaty of peace with the Roman Duchy. The same year Ratchis abdicated, with his wife and daughter took the monastic vows before the pope, and all three entered the monastic life.

In 743 Pope Zachary held a synod at Rome which was attended by sixty bishops. This synod issued fourteen canons on various matters of church discip- line. On this occasion the pope took up the question of the impediments to marriage of relationsiiip in the fourth degree, in regard to which the Germans claimed to have obtained a dispensation from Pope Gregory II. The year jirevioiis Zachary had written on this point to the bishojis and kings of that province. An active correspondence was kc])! u]t between Zachary and St. Boniface. The latter in liis zealo\is labours had organized the Church in the German territories, and while doing this had kept in dose connexion \yith the Pa))al See. Early in 711?, soon after his elevation, Zachary received a Idler from Boniface in which the saint expressed his full suliniisr<ion to the posses.-^or of the Chair of Peter and re<|iieHled the eonlirnialion of the three newly established Bishoprics of WUrzburg,

Buraburg, and Erfurt; Boniface also sought authority to hold a synod in France and to suppress abuses in the lives of the clergy. The pope confirmed the three dioceses and commissioned Boniface to attend, as papal legate, the Prankish synod which Karlmann wished to hold. In a later letter Zacharj- confirmed the metropolitans of Rouen, Reims, and Sens ap- pointed b}' Boniface, and also confirmed the con- demnation of the two heretics Adelbert and Clement. Various questions in which the pope and Boniface disagreed were discussed in letters. In 74.5 was held the general sjmod for the Prankish kingdom called by Pepin and Carloman. Here decrees were passed against unworthy ecclesiastics, and the two heretics, Adelbert and Clement, were again condemned. Boni- face sent a Prankish priest to Rome t« make a report to the pope, and the latter held on 2.5 October, 745, a synod at the Lateran at which, after exhaustive investigation, an anathema was pronounced against the two heretics. Zachary forwarded the acts of the synod with a letter to Boniface. Pepin and the Prankish bishops sent a list of questions respecting the discipline of the clergy and of the Christian popu- lation to Pope Zachary, and the latter answered in a letter of 746 in which decisions respecting the various points are given. These decisions were communi- cated to Boniface so that he might make them gener- ally known at a Prankish sjmod. The following year, 747, Carloman resigned his authority and the world, went to Rome, and was received by Pope Zachary into a monastic order. At first he lived in the monas- tery on the Soracte, later at Monte Cassino. Thanks to the efforts of St. Boniface all the Prankish bishops were now agreed in submission to the See of St. Peter. Zachary sent still other letters to the bishops of Gaul and Germanj', and also to Boniface as the papal legate for the Church of this region. Boniface was constantly in intercourse with Rome both by letters and envoys and sent important questions to the pope for decision. An important proof of the recognition by the Franks of the high moral power of the papacy is shown by the appeal to papal authority on the occasion of the overthrow of the Merovingian dy- nasty. Pepin's ambassadors, Bishop Burkard of Wiirzburg and Chaplain Fohad of St. Denis, laid the question before Zachary: whether it seemed right to him that one should be king who did not really possess the royal power. The pope declared that this did not appear good to him, and on the authority of the pope Pepin considered himself justified in having himself proclaimed King of the Franks (cf. Boniface, Saint; and Pepin the Short). The ecclesiastical activity of the pope also extended to England. Through his efforts the Synod of C^loveshove was held in 747 for the reform of church discipline in accordance with the advice given by the pope and in imitation of the Roman Church.

Zachary was very zealous in the restoration of the churches of Rome to which he made costly gifts. He also restored the Lateran palace and established several large domains as the settled landed posses- sions (ilomuf: cidta-) of the Roman Church. The pope translated to the Church of St. George in Velabro the liead of the martyr St. George which was found during the re])airs of the decayed Lateran Palace. He was very benevolent to the poor, to whom alms were given regularly from the papal palace. When merchants from Venice bought slaves at Rome in order to S(-ll them again to the Saracens in Africa, the pope bought in all the .slaves, so that Christians should not liecome the iiroperty of heathens. Thus in a troubled era Zachary i)roved himself to be an excellent, callable, vigorous, and charitable successor of Peter. He also (■arried on theological studies and made a translation of the I>ialogues of Gregory the Great into Greek, which was largely circulated in the East. Aft.er his death Zachary was buried in St. Peter's.

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