Adrian I

Pope Adrian, or Hadrian I, (d. December 25, 795) was pope from February 9, 772 to December 25, 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman. He reigned for longer than any Pope until the pontificate of Pius VI. He has been decribed as symbolizing the "the medieval ideal of union of church and state in a united Christendom' through his relationship with Charlemagne and did much to lay the ground for the creation, in 800C.E., of the Holy Roman Empire. He published the Donation of Constantine, which purported to be the last wil and testament of Constantine I. This appointed the Popes as successors to the Roman Emperor, thus the papal claim to possess all authority on earth, temporal and religious, to be appointers of and not appointees of, princes and kings. He also presided over the 7th Nicene Council (786), repaired many Roman churches, rebuilt the City walls and gave generously to the poor.

Charlemagne comes to the aid of Pope Adrian I

Early Life

Very little is known of Adrian's early life. Born as a patrician, he would have recieved a classical education and may have been marked from an ealy age for a career in the Church. He was a clerk, a notary, a regional bishop and then a cardinal-deacon, serving under Popes Paul I and Stephen III. Renowned for his piety, his election as Pope was a popular choice, one which Desiderius, Paul Afiarta, the representative of the powerful Lombard King, who saw the Pope as his personal nominee, could not resist.

Invasion of The Papal States

Soon after his accession, Adrian discovered that Paul Afiarta had either exiled or imprisoned a number of people accused of opposing Lombard ambition. He released them or secured their return. Meanwhile, Afiarta was in Lombardy denouncing the new Pope to Desiderius, who swore he would bring the Pope to his court at Pavia, in chains if necessary. Desiderius, who wanted to rule the whole of Italy, then set out to annex the Papal States, over which the popes ruled directly. Adrian immediately turned to Charlemagne, whose own father had been confirmed as King of the Franks by Pope Zachary, and who was considered an ally of the Papacy, to come to his defense. Meanwhile, Adrian prepared to resist the advancing Lombard army. Charlemagne, in response, entered Italy with a large army and laid siege to Desiderius in his capital of Pavia. While his army besieged Desiderius, Charlemagne himself visited Rome, where he celebrated Easter and was received with deep gratitude by Pope Adrian. According to one source, the outcome of this encounter was the "Donation of Constantine", in which the Pope claimed temporal sovereignty, which makes Adrian "the founder" of the concept of the "temporal authority of the Popes." . The pope, whose expectations had been aroused, had to content himself with some additions to the duchy of Rome, and to the Exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis in the Marches, which consisted of the "five cities" on the Adriatic coast from Rimini to Ancona with the coastal plain as far as the mountains.

In his contest with the Byzantine Empire and the Lombard dukes of Benevento, Adrian remained faithful to the Frankish alliance, and the friendly relations between pope and king were not disturbed by the difference which arose between them on the question of the veneration of images, to which Charlemagne and the bishops in France were strongly opposed, while Adrian favoured the views of the Eastern Church, and approved the decree of the second council of Nicaea (787), confirming the practice and excommunicating the iconoclasts. It was in connection with this controversy that the Libri Carolini were written, to which Adrian replied by letter, anathematizing all who refused to venerate the images of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or saints. Notwithstanding this, a synod, held at Frankfurt in 794, anew condemned the practice, and the dispute remained unsettled at Adrian's death.

In 787, he elevated the diocese of Lichfield, in England, to an archdiocese on request from the English bishops and King Offa of Mercia in order to balance the ecclesiastic power in that land between Kent and Mercia. He gave the Lichfield bishop Higbert the pallium in 788.

An epitaph written by Charlemagne in verse, in which he styles Adrian "father," is still to be seen at the door of the Vatican basilica. Adrian restored some of the ancient aqueducts of Rome, and rebuilt the churches of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, decorated by Greek monks fleeing from the iconoclastal persecutions, and of San Marco in Rome. At the time of his death, his was the longest papacy since Saint Peter, and it would remain so until he was surpassed by the 24-year papacy of Pius VI in the late 18th century. In fact, only three more popes (Pius IX, John Paul II and Leo XIII) have reigned longer since.

See also

• List of 10 longest-reigning popes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Bower, Archibald The History of the Popes, Boston: Adamant Media, 2001 ISBN 978-1402171796
• Duffy, Eamon Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN978-0300115970
• Maxwell-Stuart, P. G Chronicle of the Popes: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Papacy over 2000 years,London: Thames & Hudson, 1997 ISBN 978-0500017982

External links

• Partial letter of Pope Hadrian to the 2nd session of the Seventh Ecumenical Council Retrieved September 8, 2007.

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