Pope Adrian II (867-872)

A Roman life before the papacy

Adrian came from a high-ranking Roman family. The tradition reported by Mann connects it to a lineage that had already given two popes to the Church: Stephen IV (816-817) and Sergius II (844-847).^[8] His father, Talarus, had been married before entering the clergy and later became a bishop; Adrian himself had also been married before ordination. At the time of his election, his wife Stephania and his daughter were still living, which would make the end of his pontificate one of the most painful pages of medieval pontifical history.^[9]

Gregory IV noticed his virtues and brought him into the Lateran palace to be trained there. In 842, Adrian was ordained cardinal-priest of the title of Saint Mark. His reputation was then twofold: solid administration and overflowing charity.^[10]

Mann preserves an episode typical of this reputation. After receiving forty denarii along with other priests, Adrian returned home and found a crowd of poor pilgrims in front of his house. Instead of calculating, he ordered three denarii to be given to each, invoking Christ who fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes. The account holds that the money did not run out.^[11]

"What is it to have money in comparison with having so many brothers?" — Adrian, still priest of Saint Mark, before the poor pilgrims^[12]

An election long refused

Adrian was not ambitious. According to the pontifical account used by Mann, he had already refused the papacy twice: after the death of Leo IV in 855, then after that of Benedict III in 858.^[13] In 867, after the death of Nicholas I, the Romans left him no choice. The clergy, the nobility and the people dragged him from Saint Mary Major and installed him at the Lateran.

The episode reveals an important institutional question. Imperial envoys were then in Rome and took offense at not having been involved in the election. The Romans replied that this was not a lack of respect toward the emperor, but a refusal to let a new custom make pontifical elections dependent on the presence of imperial representatives.^[14]

The consecration took place at Saint Peter's in December 867. The Catholic Encyclopedia simply records the pontificate 867-872; Mann gives the detail of the consecration by Donatus of Ostia, Peter of Cava and Leo of Silva-Candida, in the absence of Formosus of Porto, then occupied in Bulgaria.^[15][16]

A first gesture: reconciling without renouncing

On the very first day of the pontificate, the tone is set. Adrian II readmits to communion several figures sanctioned under Nicholas I, on condition of satisfactory penance: Theutgaud of Trier, Zachary of Anagni and the former antipope Anastasius.^[17] This gesture may have worried the supporters of Nicholas: was Adrian going to undo the work of his predecessor?

He answers by deeds. He keeps the line of Nicholas, but in a more conciliatory manner. After the consecration, he also abolishes the custom of selling the gifts offered to the new pope: he keeps what serves his table and distributes the rest to the poor.^[18]

The pontifical account, as reported by Mann, lends him this motive: what has been freely received must be freely given, and senseless coin must not be loved more than rational creatures.^[19]

1. Lothair II: being conciliatory without sacrificing marriage

The dossier of Lothair II of Lotharingia is inherited directly from Nicholas I. The king wanted to repudiate his legitimate wife Theutberga in order to impose his concubine Waldrada. Nicholas had annulled the compliant synods and defended the indissolubility of marriage. Adrian II does not go back on this principle, but he opens a procedural door.^[20]

In February 868, the excommunication of Waldrada is lifted. In June 869, at Monte Cassino, Adrian admits Lothair to communion after having him swear a public oath: he declares that he has had no relations with Waldrada since the pontifical prohibition, promises to take Theutberga back and to submit to the final judgment of the Roman See.^[21][22]

This way of proceeding arouses suspicion in Rome. Some fear that Adrian is unraveling the work of Nicholas I. Formosus of Porto, returned from Bulgaria, leads the opposition to too hasty a decision. The dossier is referred to a larger assembly, planned for the following year. Lothair dies a few weeks later, which ends the political urgency of the affair.^[23]

The doctrinal point remains clear: Adrian does not authorize the divorce of Lothair. He admits a penitent king to communion under condition, but does not deliver Theutberga to reasons of state. The pastoral issue is subtle: sacramental mercy does not become an annulment of conjugal truth.

2. Rome: feudal violence enters the city

The beginning of the pontificate also shows the weakening of public order in Rome. During the festivities connected with the consecration, Lambert of Spoleto enters the city with an armed troop, plunders civil and ecclesiastical property, and allows grave acts of violence to be committed.^[24] The emperor Louis II, occupied against the Saracens in southern Italy, does not punish him immediately. Adrian excommunicates several plunderers until restitution and reparation.^[25]

This is not a secondary episode. It already announces the crisis of the 10th century: the papacy will soon have to govern the universal Church spiritually while surviving Roman and Italian powers capable of entering the city by military force.

3. The family tragedy: Stephania, the daughter of Adrian, and Eleutherius

Adrian II has a rare particularity in pontifical memory: he had been married before his ordination, and his wife Stephania was still living when he became pope.^[26] His daughter, already promised to another, was abducted on 10 March 868 by Eleutherius, son of Bishop Arsenius, an influential figure connected to imperial circles.^[27]

Arsenius tried to obtain the protection of the Empress Engelberga, but died suddenly. Eleutherius, seeing that he could not escape the imperial envoys, killed Stephania and the daughter of the pope before being himself executed.^[28] Anastasius the Librarian, a relative of Eleutherius according to some traditions, was suspected of having inspired this violence. Adrian summoned him before a synod and declared him excommunicated until he cleared himself.^[29]

This drama contributes no new doctrine, but it gives a very concrete face to the pontificate: Adrian governs the Church at a time when aristocratic violence can strike even the house of the pope.

"Of the black deeds to be done in Rome during the tenth century, there are now lurid shadows coming before." — Horace K. Mann, on the Roman violence of the pontificate of Adrian II^[30]

4. Photius and Constantinople IV: repairing the rupture opened under Nicholas I

The Photian crisis is the most important ecclesial dossier of the pontificate. At Constantinople, Ignatius had been deposed and replaced by Photius, a brilliant layman raised very rapidly through the orders. Nicholas I had refused this intrusion, condemned Photius and defended the legitimacy of Ignatius. In 867, Photius had claimed to depose Nicholas through a synod hostile to Rome.^[31]

The situation changes brutally in the same year. The emperor Michael III is assassinated, Basil I the Macedonian takes power, Photius is interned in a monastery, Ignatius is recalled, and Constantinople asks for a general reconciliation with Rome.^[32]

Adrian II first holds a Roman synod in June 869, which again condemns Photius. Then he sends three legates to Constantinople to preside in his name over the council: Donatus of Ostia, Stephen of Nepi and the deacon Marinus, the future Pope Marinus I.^[33][34]

The council opens on 5 October 869 at Hagia Sophia. It never gathers more than 102 bishops, which is modest for an ecumenical council, but it brings together the Roman legates, Ignatius, the representatives of Antioch and Jerusalem, then those of Alexandria.^[35]

The acts confirm the decisions of Nicholas I and Adrian II against Photius. Clerics ordained by Photius are deposed or reduced to lay communion. The council also denounces the remains of iconoclasm and the interference of civil power in ecclesiastical affairs.^[36]

"The decrees of Nicholas I and Adrian II against Photius and in favour of Ignatius were read and confirmed." — Catholic Encyclopedia, on Constantinople IV^[37]

In Catholic reception, this council is the Eighth Ecumenical Council. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, its authority will later be eclipsed by the synod of 879-880, which will rehabilitate Photius after the death of Ignatius. But for understanding Adrian II, the essential point lies elsewhere: he succeeds where Nicholas had not had time to go all the way. He turns Roman resistance to Photius into a conciliar act.

5. Bulgaria: a conciliar victory followed by a strategic loss

The same sequence nevertheless produces a defeat. Since Nicholas I, the Bulgaria of Boris-Michael had sought to organize its Church without becoming a mere extension of Constantinople. Nicholas had sent Roman missionaries, notably Formosus of Porto and Paul of Populonia. Adrian II continues this line and sends new missionaries with letters prepared under Nicholas.^[38]

King Boris wanted to obtain as archbishop either Formosus or the deacon Marinus. Adrian refuses Formosus, become too indispensable and perhaps too political; Marinus must accompany the legates to the council. He therefore sends the subdeacon Silvester, whom Boris immediately sends back, still demanding an acceptable archbishop.^[39]

Irritated, Boris turns to Constantinople. His envoys arrive at the end of the 869-870 council. Three days after the last session, Emperor Basil organizes a conference on Bulgarian jurisdiction. The Roman legates affirm that Bulgaria belongs to Rome: Boris had given himself to Saint Peter, Nicholas had sent bishops and priests, and the Latin missionaries had formed the new Church for three years.^[40]

The Eastern representatives reply that the territory belonged to the Greek Empire and must therefore depend on Constantinople. The Roman legates protest vigorously, but the conference swings in favour of the Byzantine patriarchate. Ignatius soon consecrates an archbishop for the Bulgarians, and the Latin clergy withdraw.^[41][42]

"The Apostolic See judges, but is judged by none." — Argument of the Roman legates in the Bulgarian conference, according to Mann^[43]

This loss is momentous. Adrian II won the great canonical battle against Photius, but he loses one of the most important missionary frontiers of Christian Europe. The Catholic Encyclopedia judges this Bulgarian outcome severely, seeing it as a lasting adherence to Constantinople.^[44]

Two brothers come from Thessalonica

The Slavic dossier is not reducible to Bulgaria. It also contains the most luminous page of the pontificate: the Roman welcome of Saints Cyril and Methodius, apostles of the Slavs.^[45]

The two brothers come from Thessalonica. Sent to Moravia around 863, they proclaim the Gospel in a language understood by the people, invent or adapt an alphabet for the Slavonic language and translate the Gospels as well as the necessary liturgical books.^[46]

Their method worries the Germanic missionaries, who ill endure a liturgy in the Slavonic language. Nicholas I had summoned them to Rome, but he dies before their arrival. It is therefore Adrian II who receives them.^[47]

Adrian II approves the Slavic mission

Leo XIII, in Grande Munus (1880), recounts that Adrian II went out with the Roman clergy and people to meet the two brothers, because they were bringing the relics of Saint Clement.^[48] Cyril and Methodius explain their mission and answer the accusations: they are reproached for using the Slavonic language in sacred things.

The pope and the Roman clergy judge their cause orthodox. Adrian II receives the two brothers with benevolence, approves their missionary activity and sanctions the liturgical use of Slavonic.^[49] The two brothers swear to remain in the faith of Saint Peter and of the popes, and Adrian raises several of their disciples to holy orders.^[50] Methodius is consecrated and proclaimed archbishop of the Slavs: at the request of the Slavic princes, Adrian II establishes him archbishop of Moravia-Pannonia, independent of the Germanic Church.^[51][52] Cyril — Constantine by birth, the name taken with the monastic habit^[53] — dies in Rome on 14 February 869^[54]; Mann notes, from the Italian legend, that he had apparently been consecrated bishop shortly before, and that Adrian bestowed on him the honours of a papal funeral^[55].

"They pleaded their cause with reasons so solid and noble that the pope and all the clergy praised and approved their conduct." — Leo XIII, Grande Munus, on Cyril and Methodius in Rome^[56]

Cyril dies in Rome, Methodius returns to the Slavs

Cyril dies in Rome on 14 February 869. Leo XIII stresses that his funeral was public and solemn, almost like a triumph, and that he was buried near Saint Clement.^[57] Methodius, for his part, sets out again for Moravia and Pannonia under pontifical mandate.

The Catholic Encyclopedia specifies that at the request of Rastislav, Svatopluk and the Slavic prince Kocel of Pannonia, Adrian II forms an archdiocese of Moravia and Pannonia, independent of the Germanic Church, and appoints Methodius archbishop.^[58]

This point is essential for the history of the Church. Adrian II does not merely authorize a useful translation; he protects a mission against absorption by already established national hierarchies. The issue is not to flatter an ethnic identity, but to ensure that a recently evangelized people truly hears the Gospel and receives its own ecclesial structure.

The Slavonic liturgy: boldness or dangerous precedent?

The Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of the approval of the Slavonic liturgy as a decision "of lasting influence, for good or for evil".^[59] The formula reflects the debates of early 20th-century Latin historiography. For Ignispedia, it must be read without caricature.

On the one hand, the decision of Adrian II is missionary: it refuses to confuse the faith with a single imperial or Frankish culture. On the other, it opens a complex dossier: how to maintain doctrinal and liturgical unity when sacred languages multiply? Rome will answer again under John VIII, who will confirm Methodius while regulating Slavonic usage.^[60]

In the pontificate of Adrian II, the gesture remains above all a sign of Catholic universality: the See of Peter receives brothers come from Constantinople, approves a Slavic mission and protects new peoples without obliging them to become culturally Latin.

Adrian II is not a theorist as quoted as Nicholas I, but his pontificate puts Roman primacy into practical situations. Three scenes suffice to show it.

The first is the election of 867: the Romans refuse to let the presence of imperial envoys become a normal condition of the pontifical election.^[61] The second is Constantinople IV: the Roman legates preside in the name of the pope and have a formula of union linked to the Apostolic See signed.^[62] The third is the Bulgarian conference: the legates affirm that the decision belongs to the See of Rome, even faced with the emperor and the Eastern representatives.^[63]

These scenes must not be isolated from political reality: Adrian does not win everything. He does not keep Bulgaria, does not perfectly control Rome, does not remove the ambiguities around Anastasius, and cannot prevent the future rehabilitation of Photius under John VIII. But he maintains a clear line: Catholic communion is not a mere diplomatic balance between emperors and patriarchs.

A pope of charity

The memory of Adrian II begins with charity. Even before becoming pope, he was known for opening his house to the poor and to pilgrims. The account of the forty denarii is not an accounting proof; it is a spiritual miniature. Adrian appears as a man for whom the poor are not an administrative burden, but brothers present at his door.^[65]

A pope of continuity

The second trait is continuity. After Nicholas I, some wanted to overturn the Roman decisions; others feared that Adrian, gentler, would yield. He does neither. He reconciles when possible, but keeps the doctrinal axis: Lothair cannot repudiate Theutberga, Photius cannot occupy a see through imperial pressure, the Slavic mission must remain Catholic.^[66][67][68]

A pope who knows failure

The third trait is humbler: Adrian II knows failure. Bulgaria escapes Rome. His own family is struck. Roman tensions do not disappear. The pontificate is therefore not a story of linear victory, but a lesson in ecclesial government: holding the just line, even when visible results remain partial.

Adrian II is not a secondary pope because his pontificate is short. He is secondary in popular memory, but central for understanding the transition between Nicholas I and John VIII.

He matters for the history of Christian marriage, for he confirms the line of Nicholas I while dealing pastorally with Lothair. He matters for the history of Roman primacy, for Constantinople IV receives the Roman decisions against Photius. He matters for the history of the Slavic missions, for he approves Cyril and Methodius and protects Methodius against Germanic pressure. He matters finally for the political history of Rome, for his pontificate already shows the fractures that will make the 10th century so violent.

His spiritual profile is thus less that of a conqueror than of an aged pastor, charitable, prudent, wounded, yet faithful. In a Church crossed by imperial, family, diplomatic and missionary crises, Adrian II keeps a simple function: continuing the work received, without hardening it through pride or diluting it through weakness.

• Saint Nicholas I, the predecessor whose major dossiers Adrian continues
• Fourth Council of Constantinople, the anti-Photian council of 869-870
• Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople at the heart of the crisis
• Benedict III, one of the pontificates at which Adrian had already refused the papacy