AD 607.

Emperor of the East. Phocas, 602-610.

King of the Lombards. Agilulph, 590-615.

Exarch of Ravenna. Smaragdus, 602-611.

 

When Phocas usurped the empire he did not find a papal responsalis at Constantinople. Of this he wanted to know the reason from Pope Gregory, and at the same time asked that the vacancy might be filled up. In reply the Pope said that there was no apocrisiarius at the imperial city because he had no wish to force anyone to accept the post, and no one offered himself for it on account of what the papal envoys were often made to suffer there. Now, however, he continued, that they have heard of the accession of your clemency, many are willing to undertake the charge. Out of these he has picked out the first of his defensors, Boniface, whom he has ordained deacon for the purpose. “From long intercourse his life is favorably known to me, and he is of tried faith and character”. From what follows in the same letter Gregory evidently commissioned Boniface to do what he had himself when apocrisiarius been told to do, viz., to try to get help for Italy against the “daily swords” of the Lombards.

This Boniface, who again, like Gregory himself, was ordained deacon to be sent as apocrisiarius to Constantinople, and who appears as “the first of the defensors” some five years before he was thus selected by Gregory, is generally regarded as the one who became Boniface III. And in view of the fact that, as we shall see, Boniface III found some favor in the eyes of the tyrant Phocas, it seems not improbable that that favor was won when he was at the imperial city.

Besides begging for help against the incursions of the Lombards, Boniface had also to enter into negotiations with the emperor relative to the affair of Alcison of Corcyra, now Corfu. It appears that John, Bishop of Euria in Epirus, harassed by the inroads of the barbarians (Avars and Slavs), took refuge in Cassiope in Corcyra with his clergy, and then wished to withdraw that city from the jurisdiction of its proper bishop, Alcison. He contrived to get the Emperor Maurice to sanction his uncanonical endeavors. Of course, as Gregory pointed out to Boniface, such sanction was valueless, as it was against the canons. The matter was then put into the hands of the disputants’ metropolitan, Andrew of Nicopolis, who naturally decided in favor of Alcison. To still further strengthen his position, Alcison appealed to the Pope, who, of course, confirmed the decision of the metropolitan. In the meantime Andrew died, Maurice was murdered, Phocas came to the throne, and Boniface went to Constantinople. He can hardly have got there before he received a letter from Gregory, dated October 603, instructing him as to how far matters had proceeded in this affair; and, with his usual diplomatic foresight, telling him what he has to do to prevent a collision between his (Gregory’s) support of Alcison and the previous imperial edict against him. Boniface has to point out how unjust it was to favor the bishop, and how much against the canons, and to endeavor to bring it about that a rescript of Phocas in favor of Alcison be sent to him along with the Pope’s decision. Boniface seems to have had the requisite amount of skill to carry the affair to a successful issue.

When Boniface returned to Rome is not known. Possibly part of the year’s vacancy of the Holy See after the death of Sabinian may be accounted for by supposing that Boniface was elected Pope when he was at Constantinople. At any rate, a Boniface, who was a Roman and the son of John Cataadioce, a name that would rather suggest Greek origin had not names of many nationalities become indigenous in Rome, was consecrated on Sunday, February 19, 617.

During the very short pontificate of Boniface, he obtained from Phocas an edict setting forth that the See of Rome was the Head of all the Churches; because, continued the writer in the Book of the Popes, the Church of Constantinople had put itself down as the Head of the Churches. The immediate cause for the publication of this decree is sought by some historians in the disagreements between the emperor and the patriarch. According to them, Phocas was actuated by a wish to humble Cyriacus, by thus declaring that notwithstanding the mighty title of Universal Patriarch which he boasted, the Primacy in the Church was not his. It was not that he loved Boniface more, but that he loved Cyriacus less. In issuing this decree it must be borne in mind that he was not doing anything new. A similar statement as to the position of the See of Rome among the Churches had been made by Justinian eighty years before. As Muratori takes notice, Boniface asked for this decree, not because the primacy of the Roman pontiffs, which had been acknowledged in every preceding century, stood in need of it, but for the same reason that Phocas issued it, viz., to bring down the patriarch of Constantinople to his proper level.

In connection with this decree, there has been much wild writing by historians in this country. Bower, Milman, etc., quoting as reliable authorities writers who lived centuries after Boniface III, and who were either hostile to the popes, as the imperialist, Sigebert of Gemblours (d.c. 1113), or quite uncritical, as Platina (d.1481), give us a graphic picture of Boniface, as apocrisiarius, flattering the tyrant Phocas, and then, as Pope, assuming “that awful title before which Christendom bowed for so many centuries, that of Universal Bishop”. As a matter of fact, neither Boniface III nor any other pope ever assumed that title, as we have already seen. And so, though the Liber Diurnus, which contains a number of formulas generally considered to have been those used by the Roman Church, on one occasion speaks of Martin I as Universal Pope; still in the formula (I), where the modes of addresses used by the popes are given, only one title is assumed by them, and it is the formula of Pope Gregory : “Servant of the Servants of God”.

The only other recorded action of Boniface III is that, at a council, at which seventy-two bishops and all the Roman clergy took part, he issued a decree in favor of freedom of ecclesiastical elections, and forbidding anyone to treat of the election of a new pope or bishop until three days after his burial, or to speak of a pope’s successor during his lifetime. This interval, not always observed, was extended by Gregory X, at the council of Lyons (can. 2), 1274, to ten days. The events that gave rise to this decree are not known.

Boniface died the same year he was consecrated. He was buried in St. Peter's, November 12, 607.

ST. BONIFACE IV.