Pope Saint Nicholas I, known as Nicholas the Great (858-867)

The pope who defends the indissoluble marriage of a king

The most visible file of the pontificate is the marriage scandal of Lothair II of Lotharingia. The king wants to get rid of his legitimate wife, Theutberga, to marry his concubine Waldrada.^[6] He obtained several Frankish synods (Aix, 860 — twice — and Aix on April 28, 862, the date retained by Kirsch), then a council in Metz in June 863, which validated the annulment. Archbishops Gunther of Cologne and Theutgaud of Trier went to Rome to have the decision ratified. Nicholas refuses the acts, breaks the council in terms of rare severity, and deposes the two archbishops at the Lateran Synod of October 863.^[7][8]

This intransigence is not a personal mood. It publicly deploys a doctrine that the Fathers, the councils and Rome had long taught: the sacramental marriage concluded and consummated (ratum et consummatum) cannot be dissolved by any human power — a doctrine which the Church's current law takes up in can. 1141^[9] — which excludes neither the separation of spouses, who remain bound, nor a declaration of nullity where consent or a diriment impediment was lacking from the start. The defense of Theutberga remains entire.^[10] To the Carolingian Lothair who believes he has won, Nicholas responds with an act of universal government. He had Gunther of Cologne and Theutgaud of Trier deposed at the Lateran Synod of October 863, refused all communion with those who supported them, forced Lothair to take Theutberga back, and held his ground despite Carolingian military pressure on Rome in 864 — Louis II took up the cause of the deposed bishops, Lothair advanced with an army.^[11][12]

The defender of oppressed bishops and canon law

The second file is the Rothad de Soissons affair. Deposed a first time by the synod of Soissons in 861 according to Kirsch's notice on Nicholas, then again in 862 after the synod of Pîtres — a synod continued at Soissons — according to the notice on Hincmar: the two notices by the same author describe two successive acts, not two competing datings^[13][14] —, Bishop Rothad appealed to Rome. Nicholas examines the procedure, concludes that there is an irregularity, and reinstalls Rothad on his see in 865 by the legate Arsenius of Orte, despite the resistance of Hincmar, who will end up publicly recognizing the right of appeal of bishops to the Apostolic See.^[15][16]

This affair is the occasion for a broader debate on the false pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, a canonical collection made in West Francia in the 9th century to defend bishops against the abuses of metropolitans. Rothad would have introduced these decretals in Rome in 864; the question of their exact use by Nicholas is debated: Kirsch reports that Schrörs rules out Nicholas having used parts of the collection, while Wilhelm defends another position — the two conclusions must not be conflated. The letter of January 22, 865 is the document invoked in this debate; the precise use Nicholas may have made of this or that piece of the collection is not established.^[17][18] The result is not the creation of a new right, but the confirmation, in a concrete case, of the ancient principle that the last ecclesial authority is the bishop of Rome.

The pope of universal primacy facing Constantinople

The third file is the Photian crisis. In Constantinople, Emperor Michael III and his uncle Bardas deposed the patriarch Ignatius, son of Emperor Michael I Rangabé, and in a few days installed a lay official named Photius at the patriarchal seat (858).^[19] Nicholas sent legates, examined the file, refused to recognize Photius, and had this intrusion condemned at the Roman synod of April 863. Photius responded by having Nicholas deposed by a council of Constantinople in 867. The news only reached Rome after the pope's death, on November 13, 867.^[20][21]

The doctrinal heart of the matter is exposed in the letter Proposueramus quidem to Emperor Michael III (September 28, 865): the primacy of the Apostolic See comes from Peter, not from the civil greatness of a city, and no higher ecclesial authority can judge Rome.^[22] This formulation becomes one of the medieval patristic references on the status of Peter's successor in the universal Church.

The pastor of the great Bulgarian mission

The fourth file is Slavic evangelization. The khan Boris of Bulgaria — baptized in 864 under Byzantine military pressure, receiving then the Christian name of Michael —, turned to Rome in 866 to escape Constantinopolitan tutelage. He sends a legation to Nicholas with 106 questions about faith, discipline, Christian life and ancient customs to abandon. Nicholas responded with the famous Responsa Nicolai ad consulta Bulgarorum, dated November 13, 866, and sent to Bulgaria the bishops Formosus of Porto and Paul of Populonia, with books and liturgical material.^[23][24]

This text is not an abstract apologetic document. It is a true manual of pastoral catechesis for a recently baptized people: it deals with baptism, confession, the Eucharist, indissoluble marriage, fasting, pagan customs to be abandoned, and the relationship between canon law and customary law. Leo XIII, in the encyclical Grande Munus (1880), recalls that Nicholas sent Roman priests to Boris with instructions to educate the people, and entrusted the new Christian community to the bishops of Populonia and Porto.^[25]

The Holy See and the official chronology

The official record of the Holy See styles him "105th Pope of the Catholic Church": 105th pope in the traditional numbering, born in Rome, pontiff from April 24, 858 to November 13, 867.^[26] The chronology is solidly attested by the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Liber Pontificalis, which agree on the election on April 24, 858 in the old basilica Saint Peter's, in the presence of the emperor Louis II of Italy, and death in Rome on November 13, 867.^[27]

This dual civil and ecclesial framework already says a lot. In the 9th century, the papal election took place in Rome, but the Western emperor was present. Nicholas does not arrive at Peter's seat as an unknown person protected by the court: he is a deacon from the previous pontificate, already visible, and the emperor himself is there when he ascends to Peter's chair.

The Liber Pontificalis and the Vita Nicolai

The Liber Pontificalis gives the notice CVII, Vita Nicolai, written by a contemporary close to the Lateran. It describes Father Theodore, Roman defensor, the clerical education of young Nicholas, his ordination as subdeacon by Sergius II (844-847), then deacon by Leo IV (847-855), his already influential role under Benedict III, and finally his election.^[28] The same notice insists on his Roman constructions and restorations, his donations to the churches of the City, his concern for the poor and pilgrims, as reported in Kirsch's notice after the Vita Nicolai.^[29]

As with Leo the Great, the Liber Pontificalis is here a first-rate historical source: short, dated, attentive to concrete acts, and largely convergent with the other Frank and Greek documents on the major affairs of the pontificate.

The corpus of letters: MGH Epistolae VI

Nicholas' great doctrinal instrument is his correspondence. The Monumenta Germaniae Historica publishes his letters in the volume Epistolae VI (Karolini aevi IV), with approximately 150 letters preserved. There we find correspondence with Lothair II, the Carolingians, Hincmar of Reims, Hincmar of Laon, Photius, Michael III, Ignatius, Boris of Bulgaria, as well as decrees on marriage, bishops, liturgy, clerical discipline and mission.^[30]

This corpus makes it possible to follow the pontificate file by file rather than by anecdotes. For the Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum, letter 99 is the centerpiece, dated November 13, 866; for primacy, the letter Proposueramus quidem to Michael III, dated September 28, 865, constitutes the most complete doctrinal manifesto.^[31][32]

The Responsa Nicolai ad consulta Bulgarorum

Separate document: Nicholas responds in 106 chapters to Khan Boris's questions on faith, discipline, law, customs, the daily life of the new Christian people.^[33] The text is not a systematic encyclical: it follows the order of the questions, the practical turn of which reveals the daily life of a Bulgaria just emerging from paganism - legal disputes, pagan rites, polygamy, spells, funeral customs, forms of penance.

The text follows the order of the questions asked; the passages cited below each give the exact response number (Responsum III, XV, XXXV, LIIII, etc.), after the critical text edited by Ernst Perels in MGH Epp. VI, p. 568-600.^[34][35]

Origin and formation

Nicholas was born in Rome, at an unknown date — Kirsch proposes none. The range "around 800-820", sometimes repeated, does not come from Kirsch and is not attributed to him.^[36] His father Theodore is a defensor, that is to say a lawyer-administrator attached to the Roman Church; his family is ranked by historiography among the distinguished of the City.^[37] He is described as a young man already known for his piety, his benevolence, his intelligence, his culture and his eloquence - convergent formulas of the Liber Pontificalis and Western sources.

This origin matters. Nicholas is not a bishop from the provinces; he is a Roman of the city, formed in the Lateran environment, in close proximity to the government of the Church.

Subdeacon of Sergius II, deacon of Leo IV

His clerical career was rapid. He was made subdeacon by Sergius II (844-847), then deacon by Leo IV (847-855).^[38] At the death of Leo IV, he was already one of the most influential clerics in Rome. Under Benedict III, he is presented as a close advisor.^[39]

The fact that he bore the title of deacon — and not bishop — at the time of his election is notable. This shows that the Roman diaconal career remained, in the 9th century as in the century of Leo the Great, a recognized path to the pontificate; this also shows that the election is decided on the ecclesial quality of the candidate, not on his prior promotion to an episcopal seat.

The election of April 24, 858

Benedict III died on April 17, 858.^[40] The election took place in Rome in the presence of the emperor Louis II of Italy, son of Lothair I, who had officially come to pay homage — Kirsch also attributes to him a desire to influence the election.^[41] On April 24, Nicholas was elected, consecrated and enthroned on the same day at the old Saint Peter's basilica.^[42][43]

This imperial presence is neither a nomination nor an investiture: according to Kirsch, it involves at least a desire for political influence. It also recognizes the stability of the election.^[44] Nicholas is elected by the clergy and people of Rome according to ancient customs, but the event is solemnized by the presence of the temporal leader of the West. The gesture already prepares the posture of the pontificate: Nicholas will dialogue with the kings, but will never accept that a king decides in his place what concerns the government of the Church.

The matrimonial scandal of Lothair II

Lothair II, king of Lotharingia (855-869), is son of Lothair I and nephew of Charles the Bald and Louis the German. He married Theutberga, sister of the powerful Abbot Hubert. But he wants to marry his concubine Waldrada, with whom he already has children.^[45] To annul his marriage, he accuses Theutberga of incest with his brother, a fault which the royal party presents as rendering the union void — a consequence precisely contested by Hincmar in his treatise De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae. Theutberga submits to the ordeal of boiling water by a champion, who exonerates her.^[46]

The king insisted, increased the pressure, and summoned several Frankish synods: Aix, January 860, a second synod in the same year 860, then Aix on April 28, 862, the date retained by Kirsch, which accepted the royal story and declared the union void.^[47][48] Theutberga, isolated, ends up fleeing to the court of Charles the Bald, who protects her. Hincmar of Reims, in his treatise De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae, wrote for this file one of the great Carolingian texts on matrimonial law.^[49]

The Council of Metz, June 863

To confirm the separation, Lothair convened a council in Metz in June 863, chaired by Gunther of Cologne and Theutgaud of Trier. Nicholas sent two legates there, John of Cervia (Ficcocle) and Radoald of Porto, who allowed themselves to be corrupted by the court and signed the acts.^[50] Theutberga was not summoned in time; Hincmar of Reims did not attend the council.^[51] The council declared the marriage with Theutberga void and blessed the union with Waldrada.

Gunther and Theutgaud then went to Rome with the acts to have them ratified. Nicholas examines the document, refuses to admit it, and describes it in terms that the Roman chroniclers report with rare severity. The council was not conducted as an assembly of bishops, but as an instrument of civil power.^[52][53]

The Lateran Synod of October 863

On October 30, 863, Nicholas held a synod at the Lateran: he annulled the decisions of Metz and deposed Gunther of Cologne and Theutgaud of Trier.^[54][55] He wrote to the Frankish bishops to explain the decision to them and instruct them to break communion with the deposed.

The meaning of Nicholas I's verdict on the Council of Metz, according to the acts of the Lateran Synod (October 863) and the Frankish chroniclers of the 9th century, may be summed up as follows: the case was not sufficiently investigated and judgment was hasty; this council spoke not like an assembly of bishops, but like a place of debauchery.^[56]

The language is deliberately harsh. It means that a council can be convened and held according to external forms without being a valid ecclesial act. Form is not enough if the truth of the record has been falsified. For Nicholas, the Bishop of Rome has the duty to say publicly, when a synod betrays justice, that it does not bind the Church.

Military pressure and victory

Gunther and Theutgaud refused their deposition, wrote to Rome, and obtained from the Emperor Louis II that he take up their cause. In February 864, while Louis II intervened in their favour, Lothair advanced on Rome with an army and laid siege to the city: Nicholas locked himself up in Saint Peter's — two days without food according to Kirsch —, held his ground, and Louis ended up negotiating.^[57][58] Lothair II must take Theutberga back; the affair continues to smolder and will only really be closed after the death of Nicholas, but the Roman decision is never reversed.

This victory is more than a political success. It publicly affirms the thesis which will define Latin matrimonial doctrine: the sacramental marriage concluded and consummated is not a civil contract that the king can undo at his convenience; once validly contracted then consummated between baptized persons, no human authority can dissolve it — a doctrine which current law takes up in can. 1141^[59] — without prejudice to the separation of spouses or to a possible declaration of nullity for an original defect.

The synods of Soissons (861) then Pîtres-Soissons (862) and the deposition

The bishop Rothad of Soissons enters into conflict with his metropolitan, Hincmar of Reims, over the deposition of a priest. Hincmar convened a synod at Soissons, which deposed Rothad in 861 according to Kirsch's notice on Nicholas; the notice on Hincmar then describes the sequence of Pîtres then Soissons in 862, where Rothad was deposed again after appealing: these are therefore two successive acts, not two competing datings.^[60][61] Rothad refused the sentence and appealed to Rome.

This appeal procedure is not an invention. The canons 3 to 5 of the Council of Sardica (343) organize the appeal to Rome: a deposed bishop may appeal to the bishop of Rome (then Julius I) and request a re-examination.^[62] The problem, in the 9th century, was that the Carolingian metropolitans – first and foremost Hincmar – actually refused to allow their decisions to be called into question by Rome.

Nicholas' decision

Nicholas examines the file, asks the Frankish bishops to let Rothad come to Rome, and himself holds a contradictory examination. In 865, he reinstalled Rothad on the see of Soissons by the legate Arsenius, bishop of Orte, despite the opposition of Hincmar.^[63][64] He accompanied the decision with a long letter to the Frankish bishops where he defended the right of appeal of bishops to the Apostolic See.

In his correspondence with the Frankish bishops in 865, Nicholas defends in substance the bishops' right of appeal to the Apostolic See.^[65][66]

The scope is immense. The result is not the expansion of a new right, but the public confirmation of an old right in a concrete case. Hincmar, after strong epistolary resistance, ends up publicly recognizing the principle.^[67]

The pseudo-Isidorian Decretals

Rothad arrived in Rome in 864 equipped with a canonical file: there was, in his luggage, a collection which would become famous under the name of Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. Compiled in West Francia in the years 840-850, they attribute to ancient popes decisions favorable to the autonomy of bishops vis-à-vis their metropolitans, particularly in the right of appeal.^[68]

The question of their exact role in Rome is much debated. Joseph Wilhelm, in his 1909 notice on the False Decretals, holds it certain that Nicholas knew the collection and possible that he owned a copy; he attributes to Rothad quotations from the collection, traces of which the letter of Nicholas of January 22, 865 would bear.^[69] Heinrich Schrörs on the other hand, at the end of his 1904-1905 investigation as reported by Kirsch in the 1911 Nicholas notice, concludes that the pope did not know the collection as a whole, used no part of it, and had only a general knowledge of it from the Frankish dossiers: he did not found his doctrine on it.^[70] The two positions remain distinct: the precise use Nicholas may have made of this or that piece of the collection is not established.^[71][72]

The nuance matters: the Roman primacy defended by Nicholas is earlier and more solid than the pseudo-Isidorian collection. False Decretals played a large role in medieval canon law; but the decision to reinstall Rothad and the doctrine of the appeal to Rome do not rest on their historical authenticity. They are based on the authentic canons of the ancient Church.

Ignatius deposed, Photius enthroned (857-858)

In Constantinople, the patriarch Ignatius, son of the emperor Michael I Rangabé, refused communion in 857 to Bardas, uncle of the emperor Michael III "the Drunkard", because of a serious moral scandal. Bardas obtains his deposition. In a few days, Photius, a lay imperial functionary, a remarkable scholar, was consecrated as Patriarch, but without any real ecclesiastical preparation: tonsured a monk on December 20, 858, he received in six days the lectorate, the subdiaconate, the diaconate and the priesthood, before being consecrated bishop and enthroned patriarch.^[73]

Photius sends a letter to Rome announcing his enthronement. Nicholas requests the sending of legates to examine the regularity of the procedure. The legates, Radoald of Porto and Zacharius of Anagni, arrive in Constantinople; at the council held in 861, they approved the deposition of Ignatius against their mandate. Nicholas then disavowed them and himself held a synod in Rome in April 863.^[74]

The Roman synod of April 863

The Lateran Synod of April 863 annuls the acts of the Council of Constantinople, reestablishes Ignatius as legitimate patriarch and deposes Photius as an intruder.^[75][76] Nicholas writes to the Eastern Patriarchs to communicate the decision to them (letter of May 8, 862 already preparatory, then subsequent letters).

Nicholas' position is clearly formulated: episcopal consecration is not to be confused with an imperial administrative appointment. An episcopal see is not a civil office that the emperor distributes; it is an apostolic responsibility which requires a real ecclesial procedure.

Proposueramus quidem: the letter to Michael III (September 28, 865)

The doctrinal manifesto of the pontificate is the letter Proposueramus quidem to the Emperor Michael III, dated September 28, 865.^[77] Michael had written to Rome a contemptuous letter against Roman primacy and Latin; Nicholas responds at length, posing three theses:

1. The primacy of the Apostolic See comes from Peter, not from the civil grandeur of the city of Rome.
2. The ancient canons place the Apostolic See as the last instance; no higher judgment can challenge it.
3. The emperor is not a bishop; his function is to protect the Church, not to govern it internally.

Nicholas there states in substance that, where there exists a superior authority, the judgment of inferiors must be submitted to it to be annulled or confirmed: the judgment of the Apostolic See, which has no authority above it, therefore cannot be challenged by anyone.^[78]

The Roman adage taken up by Nicholas in the same letter reads, at no. 638 of Denzinger, Prima Sedes non iudicabitur a quoquam (in substance: the First See is judged by no one); no. 641 gives the Latin passage of which the summary above is paraphrased.^[79]

These formulations rank among the clearest expressions of the Roman doctrine of primacy in the 9th century.^[80]

The encyclical of Photius (867) and the "deposition" of Nicholas

Photius retaliates. In 867, he sent an encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs denouncing the presence in Bulgaria of Latin missionaries, the practice of the Filioque, clerical celibacy and Roman authority. A council held in Constantinople in 867 pronounced against Nicholas a supposed "deposition" and "excommunication", which Rome does not recognize.^[81]

The news only reached Rome after the pope's death. The successor Adrian II will then confirm the deposition of Photius, and the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870), recognized as ecumenical by the Catholic Church, will condemn Photius and restore Ignatius.^[82] The Photian crisis does not end in 867, but the pontificate of Nicholas laid down the doctrinal grammar: an episcopal see is not a charge that the civil power distributes, and the last ecclesial authority remains the Apostolic See.

Boris, from Byzantine baptism to the Roman legation

Khan Boris of Bulgaria has been seeking for several years to integrate his people into Christianity. In 864, under Byzantine military pressure, he accepted a Constantinopolitan baptism and received the name Michael. But he quickly became suspicious of Greek ecclesial supervision, which refused to grant him an autocephalous archbishopric (autonomous, with its own head) and kept his Church in a subordinate status.^[83][84]

In 866, Boris sent a delegation to Rome with a long list of questions about faith, discipline and customs. He also asks for an autonomous patriarch for Bulgaria. Nicholas welcomes the delegation with dignity, refuses for the moment the patriarchal title, but answers questions with Responsa and sends two bishops to Bulgaria to found the Latin ecclesial organization.

The legates Formosus of Porto and Paul of Populonia

The two legates sent to Boris are Formosus, bishop of Porto - the contested future pope of the end of the 9th century - and Paul, bishop of Populonia.^[85][86] Leo XIII, in Grande Munus (1880), recalls that Nicholas entrusted them with the organization of the new Christian community, the instruction of the people, and the establishment of the Latin episcopal hierarchy in Bulgaria.

The Bulgarians welcomed the legates with enthusiasm and requested that Formosus become their archbishop. Nicholas refuses, wanting to keep Formosus in Porto. This decision would have consequences: failing to grant Boris the ecclesial autonomy he requested, Rome would lose Bulgaria to Constantinople in 870, under the pontificate of Adrian II.^[87] But for the four years between 866 and 870, the Roman mission in Bulgaria was one of the densest missionary enterprises of the entire 9th century.

The 106 Responsa: a manual of pastoral catechesis

The heart of the file is the text of the Responsa Nicolai ad consulta Bulgarorum, dated November 13, 866 (letter 99 in MGH Epp. VI). 106 chapters answer Boris's questions point by point: baptism, confession, Eucharist, Christian marriage, fasting, Sunday, liturgical vestment, treatment of pagans, Jews, slaves, burial, ordeals, funeral customs, divination, polygamy, celibacy of priests, instruction of children.^[88]

The passages cited below give their numbers and keep the real tone of the text: a mixture of doctrinal authority and pastoral pedagogy very attentive to concrete situations.

To found matrimonial indissolubility, Nicholas takes up in substance 1 Cor 7:39 (response III): the wife remains bound by the law as long as her husband lives; widowed, she is free.^[89]

On baptism (response XV, where Nicholas cites Anastasius II), he teaches in substance that the sacrament does not lose its force even when given far from a church or by an unworthy minister.^[90]

On the pagan customs of the Bulgarians (response XXXV), he teaches in substance that the observation of days and hours, incantations, games, songs and omens belong to the pomp and work of the devil.^[91]

On confession before the Eucharist (response IX), he teaches in substance that communicating without prior penance or reconciliation heaps upon oneself an accusation rather than a remedy.^[92]

These short texts express the spirit of the whole. A people leaving paganism receives from Rome a catechesis which does not mince words on what must be abandoned, which defends indissoluble marriage and confession before communion, and which takes care to transmit a solid faith rather than a superficial Christianity.

The Brothers of Thessalonica Sent to Great Moravia

The pontificate of Nicholas is also the one where Rome discovered the brothers of Thessalonica, Cyril (Constantin) and Methodius, sent in 863 by Constantinople to prince Rastislav of Great Moravia at the latter's request.^[93] The two brothers invented the Glagolitic alphabet, translated the liturgy and Scripture into the Slavonic language, and founded a mission which spread to Moravia, Bohemia and beyond.

The sending of Cyril and Methodius was therefore not originally a Roman project. It comes from Constantinople, at the request of a Slavic prince who is looking for Christianity in his language, against the Frankish missionaries who defend the exclusive use of Latin. The mission quickly encountered opposition from the Bavarian episcopate, which defended the so-called "trilingual" thesis: only three languages - Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the languages of the inscription of the Cross - would be legitimate for the Christian liturgy.

Rome summoned to recognize the liturgy in the Slavonic language

When Bavarian bishops protested against the vernacular liturgy, Cyril and Methodius went to Rome to make their case heard. Nicholas died on November 13, 867 while they were on their way; it is his successor Adrian II who will welcome them, approve the Slavonic liturgy, and consecrate Methodius archbishop of Pannonia. But the orientation is typically Nicolasian: Rome recognizes that a vernacular language can carry the Christian liturgy, against the Germanic particularisms which wanted to prohibit any language other than Latin, Greek and Hebrew.^[94]

Leo XIII, in Grande Munus, will make this Roman opening a point of support for the Catholic doctrine of liturgical inculturation. The historical nuance remains important: Nicholas prepares the Roman reception of the Slavic mission, while Adrian II will carry out the decisive liturgical acts.

The Apostolic See above all judgment

The doctrinal heart of the pontificate is the explicit affirmation that the Apostolic See cannot be judged by any human assembly. This thesis belongs to the Roman tradition of the primacy of the Apostolic See.^[95]

What Nicholas adds is a concrete implementation in four major simultaneous files: Lothair, Rothad, Photius, Boris. Each case tests the Roman thesis before a different authority – Carolingian king, Frankish metropolitan, Byzantine emperor, recently baptized people – and each time Nicholas holds the position.

The papacy as a service of unity

Nicholas's thesis is not personal absolutism. The pope does not decide by private will; he decides according to ancient canons, relying on Sardica, Leo, Gelasius and Gregory. What he defends is not his personal authority, but the place of the Apostolic See as the last authority recognized by the entire Church.

Nicholas recalls in substance that, where there exists a superior authority, the judgment of inferiors must be submitted to it to be annulled or confirmed.^[96]

The criterion is juridical before being affective. It applies as much to bishops oppressed by their metropolitan (Rothad) as to patriarchs deposed by the civil power (Ignatius). A Church without final authority gives itself over to the arbitrariness of the most powerful; a Church which recognizes the final Roman authority protects itself against both civil and ecclesial tyrannies.

Relationship to imperial power

The relationship between the pope and the emperor is conceived by Nicholas in the Gelasian line of the two powers. The emperor protects the Church, defends the Catholic faith, supports the bishops; but he does not consecrate, does not teach, does not judge in the last instance. This distinction takes up that of the two powers inherited from the Gelasian tradition.

When Louis II took up the cause of the deposed bishops and Lothair laid siege to Rome in 864, Nicholas refused to give in; when Michael III claims to dictate to Rome the conduct to be followed in Constantinople, Nicholas responds with Proposueramus quidem. The doctrine is consistent: the civil power does not govern the Church, and the pope does not govern the world.

Clerical celibacy

Nicholas belongs to the Latin tradition of clerical celibacy; the attribution of a systematic programme in this matter rests on no identified letter and is not retained. Response LXX of the Responsa does not authorize laymen to drive out the married priest: it therefore cannot found such a right.^[97]

This defense is not an arbitrary disciplinary tightening. It is part of the long Latin tradition inherited from the Council of Elvira (around 305-306), the letters of Siricius, Leo, Gregory the Great. For Nicholas, the authenticity of the ministry requires total availability of the priest to the Church; the Latin liturgy, and more broadly clerical discipline, require a form of life which is not confused with that of the laity.

Liturgical practices and fasting

Several late traditions attribute to Nicholas the institution of lasting disciplinary practices: abstinence from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, establishment of Roman liturgical customs for the Lateran basilica, care taken at the office. These attributions remain debated — many of these practices were already widespread before him — and the attribution of a Wednesday abstinence instituted by him is contradicted by response V of the Responsa, which normally permits meat on that day.^[98][99]

Roman charity

The Vita Nicolai of the Liber Pontificalis insists, according to the notice cited via Kirsch, on the Pope's material charity: regular donations to the poor, care of pilgrims, restoration of hospitals and xenodochia (hostels for strangers and pilgrims), beautification of basilicas, support for monks and clerics in difficulty, as reported in Kirsch's notice after the Vita Nicolai.^[100] As with Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, doctrinal grandeur is accompanied by a temporal government attentive to the daily bread of the Romans.

The pontificate lasted in less than ten years but condensed four major simultaneous files. The frieze below, then the point by point detail, restores the real sequence: from the death of Benedict III to the manifesto of Roman primacy, including the Carolingian synods, the military march of Louis II on Rome and the Responsa to the Bulgarians.

The title “the Great” and Catholic memory

Nicholas is one of the three popes nicknamed "the Great" with Saint Leo I and Saint Gregory I, a title retained by Catholic historiography.^[123] This title is not a formal decree: it is a progressive recognition of Catholic historiography and liturgy for these pontificates which decisively oriented the universal Church.

For Leo, the criterion is the Christology of Chalcedon and the meeting with Attila. For Gregory, it is the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxons, the Roman liturgy and monastic spirituality. For Nicholas, it is the simultaneous conjunction of four major issues (marriage, canon law, primacy, mission) which lastingly transformed the doctrine of the medieval papacy.

Canonization and liturgical celebration

Nicholas is venerated as a saint from the time immediately following his death. His memory is inscribed on November 13, the day of his death: this inscription in the martyrology and the local feast given by Nominis must be distinguished from a memorial inscribed in the General Roman Calendar — the latter does not exist.^[124]

Leo XIII and Bulgarian memory

More than a thousand years after the Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum, Leo XIII published in 1880 the encyclical Grande Munus on Cyril, Methodius and Slavic evangelization. He recalls the sending of Formosus and Paul to the Bulgarians, and makes Nicholas one of the great architects of the Catholic mission in central and eastern Europe.^[125]

This memory remains alive to the extent documented by Grande Munus: Nicholas opened the door to the Slavic mission through his invitation of Cyril and Methodius — welcomed and confirmed by Adrian II after his death — and through his letter to the Bulgarians.

• Pope Saint Leo the Great (440-461) — first pope called "the Great", doctrine of primacy and Tome to Flavian.
• Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604) — second pope called "the Great", evangelization and liturgy.
• Pope Saint Gelasius I (492-496) — doctrine of the two powers and primacy of the Apostolic See.
• Pope Adrian II (867-872) — immediate successor, reception of Cyril and Methodius, continuation of the Bulgarian affair.
• Pope Saint Leo III (795-816) — coronation of Charlemagne and foundations of the Carolingian government.
• Pope Saint Paschal I (817-824) — previous pope in line from the 9th century.
• Pope Saint Gregory VII (1073-1085) — Gregorian reform of the 11th century.