Pope Saint Eugene I (654-657)

The pope of an impossible succession

The most difficult question of his pontificate concerns his election. Martin I was arrested on 17 June 653 according to Treccani, or 18 June according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, then transferred to Constantinople. After about a year and two months, Eugene was elected at Rome on 10 August 654.^[7][8]

Two misunderstandings must be avoided. The first would be to make Eugene a mere antipope imposed by the emperor. Catholic sources do not receive him in that way: the Holy See counts him as the 75th pope, and Martin I seems to have ultimately acquiesced in his election. The second would be to erase the violence of the context: Rome elected because its pope was physically neutralised, held far from his Church and regarded as politically fallen by Constantinople.^[9]

Rome's refusal of an ambiguous communion

Eugene's best-documented act concerns the synodical letter of Peter of Constantinople, patriarch from 9 June 654 to 666. The letter avoids stating clearly whether one or two wills, one or two operations in Christ are to be confessed. It seeks communion without a clear confession — exactly the kind of compromise Martin I had refused.^[10][11]

The clergy and the people of Rome reacted fiercely when the letter was read at Saint Mary Major. The Liber Pontificalis says it was rejected from the church with great uproar, and that the pope could not celebrate Mass until he had promised never to receive it.^[12]

A brief pontificate continuing Martin I

Eugene convoked no council comparable to the Lateran of 649. Nor did he leave any great written doctrinal work. But his pontificate continues Martin's line by one decisive act: not accepting an Eastern communion that evades the central point of faith.^[13][14]

The situation is more fragile than a simple heroic narrative. Roman legates sent to Constantinople showed themselves conciliatory ; various currents probably existed in Rome ; the emperor hoped for a more flexible line after Martin. Yet Rome's final reception of Peter's letter prevented this ambiguous détente from becoming official communion.^[15]

Table of witnesses

The Holy See and the chronology

The Vatican's current entry gives Eugene I as the 75th pope, with a pontificate beginning on 10 August 654, ending on 2 June 657, and of Roman origin.^[16] These three facts frame the article: Eugene did not succeed Martin after the latter's death, but during his exile.

The Catholic Encyclopedia stresses this point: after Martin's forced departure, Rome was first administered as though vacant or in the absence of its titular head by the archpriest, the archdeacon and the primicerius of the notaries ; then a successor was given to Martin on 10 August 654.^[17] This formula expresses the embarrassment of the case: the succession is received by the Church, but born of an abnormal imperial constraint.

The Liber Pontificalis: the Roman core

The Liber Pontificalis gives the oldest biographical details: Eugene was Roman, of the first region, here linked to the Aventine, son of Rufinianus. He was a cleric from childhood, generous to the clergy and the poor, gentle and affable.^[18]

The same notice gives above all the decisive episode of the pontificate: the synodical letter of Peter of Constantinople, judged too obscure because it declares neither the operations nor the wills in Christ. The clergy and the people rejected it, and the pope had to promise not to accept it before he could celebrate at Saint Mary Major.^[19]

"It declared neither the operations nor the wills in our Lord Jesus Christ." — Liber Pontificalis, notice on Eugene I^[20]

New Advent: a pontificate under threat

The Catholic Encyclopedia adds two important elements. First, Eugene's election may have answered the emperor's calculations: if Constantinople hoped for a pope more docile than Martin, those calculations failed. Second, Byzantine officials explicitly threatened Eugene and the Romans after the rejection of Peter's letter.^[21]

The text reports their brutal formula: when politics allowed, they would inflict on Eugene and the chatterers of Rome the fate dealt to Martin. The threat was not rhetorical: Martin had just been arrested, tried, humiliated and exiled (he would die at Cherson in 655).^[22][23]

A modest origin in the sources

We know almost nothing of Eugene's youth. The Liber Pontificalis calls him a cleric from childhood, son of Rufinianus, and a native of a Roman region associated with the Aventine.^[24] No source allows us to recount a detailed formation, a precise family network or a diplomatic career at Constantinople.

This documentary poverty is not a defect to be filled by invention. It rather indicates the kind of pope Eugene seems to have been: not a great imperial figure come from the East, but a man of the Roman clergy, chosen in a wounded Church that needed a pastor acceptable enough to be recognised and firm enough not to yield.

A moral portrait: gentleness and charity

The portrait in the Liber Pontificalis stresses gentleness, mildness, affability and holiness. It adds that Eugene gave the clergy the customary due and provided for the needy ; even on the day of his death, he ordered that distributions be made in full to the poor, the clergy and the ecclesial household.^[25]

This detail is not decorative. In a Rome subjected to the pressures of the Empire, where Martin had been torn from the Lateran, the pope's ordinary charity gave a concrete face to fidelity. Eugene did not only combat a heretical formula ; he maintained the daily fabric of the Roman Church.

Rome after the abduction of Martin I

The immediate context is the martyrial papacy of Martin I. He had condemned at the Lateran in 649 the Ecthesis of Heraclius, the Typos of Constans II and Monothelitism. The empire answered with arrest and a political trial, because it could not bear a bishop of Rome refusing doctrinal silence.^[26]

The question Eugene had to answer was therefore not abstract: can peace be made with Constantinople without clearly stating that Christ has a real human will? The Roman answer would be no, even if it came through a tumultuous popular episode rather than a theological treatise.

A Church governed in the pope's absence

After Martin's forced departure, Rome could not simply suspend all ecclesial life. The Catholic Encyclopedia recalls the ancient mode of government in case of vacancy or absence: archpriest, archdeacon and primicerius of the notaries ensured administration.^[27]

This period lasted about fourteen months. During that time, Martin was a prisoner, then an exile ; his moral authority remained, but his concrete government was made almost impossible. Ordinations, the poor, liturgies, letters and relations with the Empire demanded a visible head.

Did Martin I accept Eugene?

New Advent prudently states the case: if Eugene was placed on the see of Peter by imperial power in the hope of obedience to Constantinople, the hope failed ; and if he was first elected against the will of the reigning pope, Martin afterwards acquiesced in his election, according to his letter XVII preserved in the Latin tradition (PL, vol. LXXXVII) — a reference given by the Catholic Encyclopedia itself.^[28]

This prudence is the right Catholic line. Neither the canonical unease should be denied, nor a pope recognised by the Church delegitimised. The holiness of Martin and that of Eugene are not opposed: one carried confession to the point of exile, the other kept Rome after his predecessor had been torn away.

The imperial calculation backfires

The Byzantine Empire could hope that a new Roman pope, elected under pressure, would avoid Martin's frontal line. Treccani sums up the failure: the legates sent to Constans II showed themselves conciliatory towards the Monothelite doctrine protected by the empire, but Eugene disavowed them and remained faithful to his predecessor's position.^[29]

Eugene's election thus becomes paradoxical. It was born of a situation imposed by the Empire ; yet it produced a new Roman resistance. The pope who might have been thought more pliable did not deliver the Church to an ambiguous communion.

Peter succeeds Pyrrhus

Peter became patriarch of Constantinople on 9 June 654, after the brief restoration of Pyrrhus (January-June 654), who had himself succeeded Paul II. The case remained that of Monothelitism: part of the imperial East wanted to avoid clearly confessing two wills and two operations in Christ, while Rome, the disciples of Maximus the Confessor and the anti-Monothelites refused this silence.^[30][31][32]

In ancient practice, a new patriarch sent a synodical letter to notify his election and set out his faith. Peter's arrived at Rome under Eugene. It should have reassured ; it troubled all the more.

A deliberately obscure letter

The Liber Pontificalis calls it most obscure and beyond the rule, because it did not clearly declare the operations or the wills in Christ.^[33] New Advent specifies that it avoided any specific declaration on the number of wills or operations.^[34]

The pastoral danger is obvious. A frankly heretical letter can be condemned. A deliberately vague letter can allow everyone to sign while believing their own position saved. That is the very mechanism of the Typos: replacing confession with silence, in the name of a façade unity.

The Roman legates and the temptation of conciliation

Eugene sent legates to Constantinople to notify his election and present his profession of faith. New Advent reports that they let themselves be deceived or won over, and returned with Peter's letter, accompanied by an imperial envoy bearing gifts for Saint Peter and asking for communion with the patriarch.^[35]

This scene shows the diplomatic pressure. The legates returned not only with a text ; they returned with offerings, an imperial request and probably the expectation of normalisation. Rome was invited to leave the crisis behind by accepting a document vague enough not to condemn Monothelitism openly.

The basilica ad Praesepe

The scene reported by the Liber Pontificalis took place in the basilica of the Mother of God, called ad Praesepe, that is, Saint Mary Major. The place is not neutral: there the mystery of the Incarnation is honoured — precisely what Monothelitism renders incomplete by denying or passing over in silence the human will of Christ.^[36]

The contrast is stark. At Saint Mary Major, the Church confesses the Word made flesh. Yet a letter come from Constantinople avoids saying whether this flesh of Christ possesses a real human will. The Roman reaction becomes clearer: liturgy and dogma meet.

Clergy and people as guardians of the confession

The account says that clergy and people blazed up against the letter. They did not receive it ; they rejected it from the church ; they even prevented the pope from celebrating Mass until he promised never to accept it.^[37]

The popular uproar must not be idealised as though it replaced pontifical authority. But an ecclesial truth must be recognised: the faith received does not belong only to chancelleries. When a formula threatens the complete Christ, the faithful people can perceive that ambiguity is not peace, but abandonment.

Eugene's promise

Eugene promised not to receive the letter. That is the decisive point. He could have sheltered behind his legates, behind imperial gifts, behind diplomatic prudence or behind the need to protect Rome after Martin's fate. He did not.^[38][39]

The episode reveals a humble papacy, almost constrained by its own people, yet ultimately faithful. Eugene does not appear as a solitary hero ; he appears as a pastor who accepted that the faith of his Church obliged him to refuse a compromise.

"Clergy and people would not let him celebrate until he had promised never to receive that letter." — Summary of the Liber Pontificalis account, Saint Mary Major^[40]

The threat of suffering Martin's fate

The Byzantine officials reacted with anger. New Advent reports that they threatened, in coarse language, to inflict Martin's fate on Eugene and the Romans as soon as the political situation allowed — a passage the Catholic Encyclopedia connects with the account of the Dispute between Saint Maximus and Theodore (PL, vol. CXXXIX, col. 654), and not with the Liber or Treccani.^[41]

This threat alone measures the courage of the decision. The precedent was not old: Martin had just been "roasted", in the formula reported by his adversaries — that is, politically destroyed, physically humiliated, starved and exiled. Eugene knew the Empire did not use words alone.

Why did Eugene escape Martin's fate?

The Catholic Encyclopedia largely attributes his survival to the military context: the Muslims took Rhodes in 654 then defeated Constans II at the naval battle of Phoenix, known as the Battle of the Masts, dated 654 or 655 according to the chronologies.^[42][43] The Empire, threatened by Islamic expansion, did not have its hands free to repeat at once against Rome what it had done to Martin.

A sober historical providence may be seen in this. Eugene was not stronger than Martin ; he was not protected by a Roman army. But external events limited the emperor's action and gave Rome a space for resistance.

A Rome crossed by several currents

Recent studies invite us not to imagine a Rome unanimously heroic at every moment. Sihong Lin stresses, in his Manchester thesis (2018), on the basis of the works of Phil Booth, Marek Jankowiak and the Acts of the trial of Maximus (ed. Allen and Neil), that the Roman position in the mid-650s was delicate: apocrisiarii — the pope's permanent envoys to the emperor at Constantinople — seemed on the verge of entering into communion with Constantinople, while the popular refusal of Peter's letter associated the pope of the moment with the party of Maximus, though partisan exaggeration by the source cannot be excluded.^[44]

This nuance makes the episode more serious. The Church did not pass through the crisis as a bloc without weakness. It passed through it with hesitations, factions, pressures, prudences and reversals. What counts, in the end, is that Rome did not officially receive the ambiguous letter.

A young Anglo-Saxon seeks Roman usages

New Advent notes that Eugene almost certainly received the young Saint Wilfrid during his first journey to Rome around 654.^[45] The evidence comes from Bede and the Life of Wilfrid: the young monk wanted to learn the ecclesiastical and monastic usages observed at the Apostolic See.^[46]

Bede recounts that Wilfrid became close to Boniface, a most holy and most learned archdeacon, counsellor to the apostolic pope. Under his direction, he learned the four Gospels in order, the correct reckoning of Easter and many points of ecclesiastical discipline he had been unable to receive in his own country.^[47]

Boniface the archdeacon: memory of a teaching Rome

The fact is discreet but important. At the very moment the Empire sought to silence Rome about Christ, a young Anglo-Saxon came to learn at Rome discipline, Scripture and paschal computation. The papacy was not only a chancery in crisis ; it remained a centre of teaching for distant Churches.

The contrast with the Ireland of John IV is useful: the Roman See corrected paschal reckonings, answered Pelagian errors, taught monastic usages, and protected the Christological confession.^[48] One and the same Rome held together exactness of faith, liturgy and monastic life.

The pontifical blessing

According to Eddius Stephanus, in his Life of Wilfrid, chapter 5 — a passage cited by the Catholic Encyclopedia at the end of its notice, in the paragraph on Wilfrid — Eugene laid his blessed hand on the head of the young servant of God, prayed for him and blessed him.^[49] The gesture is pastoral and prophetic: Wilfrid would become one of the great Roman figures of the English Church, defender of Roman usages at the Synod of Whitby and missionary bishop.

For Eugene's article, this passage gives a spiritual breathing space. The pope threatened by Byzantium was not only a guardian of doctrinal frontiers ; he also blessed a youth come to seek at Rome a surer ecclesial form.

"Seeking at Rome the ecclesiastical and monastic usages." — Bede the Venerable, on young Wilfrid's project^[50]

Alms and distributions

The Liber Pontificalis attributes to Eugene a concrete attention to the poor. He provided alms to the needy and gave the clergy what was customarily due to them. On the very day of his death, he ordered that distributions be made in full to the poor, the clergy and the ecclesial household.^[51]

These lines are among the most spiritual of the notice. They show a pope whose holiness is measured as much in doctrinal resistance as in fidelity to the humble. True orthodoxy is not reduced to a correct formula ; it feeds the poor and keeps gentleness.

Twenty-one bishops ordained

The Roman notice adds that Eugene ordained twenty-one bishops for various places.^[52] The detail seems administrative, but it signals ecclesial continuity. Even in an extreme crisis, Rome continued to ensure apostolic succession and the service of local Churches.

This figure must not be over-interpreted. We do not have the list of all these bishops in the notice. But the number confirms that Eugene was not an inert pope: he governed, ordained, distributed, received, refused and blessed.

Burial at Saint Peter's

Eugene died on 2 June 657 and was buried near the blessed apostle Peter, according to the Liber Pontificalis.^[53] The Holy See retains the same end date for the pontificate.^[54]

The vacancy that followed lasted one month and twenty-eight days according to the Roman notice.^[55] His successor Vitalian would be elected in July 657 and would open a more conciliatory phase with Constantinople, though the interpretation of that conciliation is not entirely straightforward.^[56]

A link between Martin I and Constantinople III

Eugene was not the great doctrinal protagonist of the seventh century. The major names remain Sophronius of Jerusalem, Maximus the Confessor, Theodore I, Martin I, Agatho and the Council of Constantinople III. But Eugene occupies a precise link: he prevented Martin's civil death from being followed by an ambiguous Roman communion with Constantinople.^[57][58]

That place is enough for his greatness. In the history of the Church, not all saints found a new doctrine ; some simply keep a door shut at the right moment. Eugene kept shut the door of a peace that would have required passing over in silence the complete humanity of Christ.

A holiness of firm gentleness

The portrait of the Liber Pontificalis is marked by gentleness. It would be wrong to see weakness in it. In Eugene's case, gentleness did not yield to the Empire ; it refused the obscure letter, bore the threat, went on ordaining and feeding.

The Catholic reader can recognise here a very concrete spirituality: it is not enough to be hard in order to be faithful. Eugene shows another form of firmness, less spectacular than Martin's martyrdom, but real: remaining affable, charitable and plainly Roman amid an imperial crisis.

The Catholic meaning of a "secondary" pope

Eugene I belongs to the "Our other articles" sub-tree, but he illuminates a great law of Catholic history: the Church also survives through short pontificates, poor in documents, but placed at decisive crossroads. Without them, continuity between the great acts would be broken.

His article must therefore remain proportionate: not inventing a doctrinal giant, but not reducing Eugene to a notice either. He is the Roman pope who, after the arrest of Martin I, let Rome say no to a letter that passed over in silence the two wills of Christ.

• Pope Saint Martin I — martyr predecessor, arrested and exiled for refusing the Typos.
• Pope Theodore I — preparer of Roman resistance before the Lateran of 649.
• Pope John IV — first Roman clarifier against the Ecthesis after Severinus.
• Pope Severinus — pope who refused to sign the Ecthesis of Heraclius.
• Pope Saint Vitalian — Eugene's successor in a more conciliatory phase with Constantinople.
• Third Council of Constantinople (680-681) — definition of the two wills and two operations of Christ.
• The heresies of the early centuries — general framework of the Christological crises.