Pope Saint Vitalian (657-672)

The pope of détente after the martyrdom of Martin I

Vitalian is not a pope of spectacular rupture. He is the pope of a risky détente. After the fate inflicted on Martin I, continuing frontal war against the emperor could have exposed Rome to a new abduction or complete paralysis. But accepting an ambiguous communion could have given the impression that Rome was renouncing the confession of the two wills of Christ.^[7][8]

His policy holds in this tension: to reconnect without renouncing. Treccani sums up the movement well: Vitalian's initiative produced the first prudent rapprochement between Rome and Byzantium after the rupture caused by the Typos of Constans II and the solemn condemnation of Monothelite positions by Martin I.^[9]

The pope who received Emperor Constans II in Rome (663)

In July 663, Constans II arrived in Rome. The event struck contemporaries: no emperor had come to the old capital since Valentinian III in the 5th century, according to Treccani.^[10] Vitalian went to meet him with the clergy, welcomed him according to ceremonial, led him to Saint Peter's, then received him at the Lateran.^[11]

The visit had, however, a brutal underside. After the ceremonies, the emperor had the bronzes removed from the monuments of Rome, including the bronze plates of the roof of Saint Mary of the Martyrs, the former Pantheon. The Liber Pontificalis preserves this bitter memory: the twelve Roman days began as an imperial pilgrimage and ended in spoliation.^[12][13]

The pope of Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian

Vitalian also played a decisive role in English history. After the death of Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury and the death in Rome of the priest Wighard, he sought a man capable of stabilizing the Anglo-Saxon Church. The choice finally fell on Theodore of Tarsus, a learned Cilician monk, Greek and Latin, accompanied by the African abbot Hadrian.^[14][15]

This choice bore immense fruit. Bede reports that Theodore was the first archbishop whom the whole English Church obeyed, that he visited the peoples of the Angles, taught the true rule of life and the canonical paschal reckoning, and that with Hadrian he gave birth to a school where Scripture, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, arithmetic and languages were learned.^[16]

"He was the first archbishop whom the whole Church of the English obeyed." — Bede the Venerable, on Theodore of Tarsus sent by Vitalian^[17]

Table of witnesses

The Holy See and chronology

The current Vatican file gives Vitalian as 76th pope, with the pontificate beginning on July 30, 657, ending on January 27, 672, and birth in Segni.^[18] These dates correspond to the core transmitted by the ancient notices: Eugene I died on June 2, 657; the vacancy lasted about two months; Vitalian was consecrated on July 30.^[19][20]

The title retained is thus Pope Saint Vitalian (657-672). Sanctity is attested liturgically: the Martyrologium Romanum inscribes Saint Vitalian, pope, on January 27.^[21] Fontistoriche gives as a complement the file (Segni, July 30, 657, January 27, 672) with the Latin text of the Liber Pontificalis notice.^[22]

The Liber Pontificalis: Rome looks above all to the emperor

The Liber Pontificalis gives the basic biographical information: Vitalian came from Segni, in the province of Campania, son of Anastasius. He sat fourteen years and six months according to this notice, sent his representatives with a synodical letter to the imperial city, received the renewal of the privileges of the Roman Church, then a gold Gospel Book adorned with precious stones offered to Saint Peter.^[23]

The same notice contains a very important, short but dense sentence: Vitalian preserved the ecclesiastical rule and the vigor of the Church. In a pontificate often described as diplomatic, this sentence prevents reducing Vitalian to a mere political accommodation.^[24]

The rest of the narrative is dominated by Constans II: imperial itinerary, entry into Rome, processions, gifts, banquet at the Lateran, spoliation of the bronzes, departure for Naples, fiscal oppression in Sicily, Calabria, Africa and Sardinia, then assassination of the emperor at Syracuse.^[25][26]

Treccani: the policy of balance

The notice by Umberto Longo for Treccani is the best brief modern synthesis. It stresses the ambiguous but real character of the rapprochement with Constantinople. Vitalian wanted to prevent the doctrinal controversy from exploding again, since Rome had to keep a link with Byzantium in the struggle against the Lombards; but Emperor Constans II himself remained an ambivalent figure, capable of pilgrimage, gift and spoliation in the same visit.^[27][28]

Treccani also notes a significant silence of the Liber Pontificalis: the Roman notice does not recount the crisis of the autocephaly of Ravenna nor the links, decisive as they were, between Vitalian and the young Anglo-Saxon Church.^[29] These silences oblige the article to cross-check the sources: without Bede, Vitalian would appear almost solely as the pope of Constans II; without Ravenna, one would miss one of the gravest jurisdictional wounds of his pontificate.

A known origin, an unknown life

We know almost nothing of Vitalian before his election. New Advent says so explicitly: his date of birth is unknown and nothing is known of his life before his elevation to the Holy See.^[30] The Liber Pontificalis gives only origin and father: Segni, Anastasius.^[31]

This sobriety is typical of the 7th-century popes. The sources do not recount a childhood, an education or a complete career; they take interest in the moment when the man becomes bishop of Rome and must hold together faith, Empire, the poor, ordinations and distant Churches.

Segni in Roman Campania

Segni, a Latin city of present-day southern Latium, is said in the Liber Pontificalis to be of "provincia Campania": this "Campania" denotes the ancient Roman Campagna, not modern Campania. The detail is not merely geographical: Vitalian was neither a court Greek nor a known Oriental diplomat, but an Italian from Roman territory. Yet he came to a pontificate whose major dossiers would be Greek, Byzantine, Ravennate and English.^[32][33]

This tension explains part of his importance. Vitalian was a local pope by origin and Mediterranean by mission. Under him, Rome spoke to Constantinople, received an emperor, arbitrated Crete, confronted Ravenna and sent a monk of Tarsus to England.

Vitalian's synodical letter

Once consecrated, Vitalian sent his synodical letter to Constantinople through the Roman apocrisiarii. Treccani stresses that he addressed it not only to Patriarch Peter, but also to Emperor Constans II, restoring the ancient custom of notifying the imperial court of the new pope's consecration.^[34]

This decision was very different from the line of Martin I, who had been consecrated without awaiting imperial confirmation. But the difference lies in the context: Martin had to break the silence imposed by the Typos; Vitalian had to prevent Rome, after Martin's exile and Eugene's death, from remaining isolated to the point of losing all capacity for action.

Roman privileges confirmed

The immediate result was positive. The emperor confirmed the privileges of the Roman Church and sent to Saint Peter a gold Gospel Book, adorned with large white stones according to the Liber Pontificalis.^[35] New Advent reports the same scene: a codex of the Gospels in a gold cover richly adorned with precious stones.^[36]

The gesture was political and liturgical at once. Offering the Gospels to Saint Peter, after having let Martin die in exile, amounted to saying publicly that Constantinople wished to reopen a sacred relation with Rome. But the gift did not yet settle the question of substance: did Christ have two natural wills and two natural operations?

The diptychs of Constantinople

Vitalian obtained a rare sign: his name was inscribed in the diptychs of the Church of Constantinople. New Advent specifies that he was the only pope so inscribed between Honorius I and the Sixth Ecumenical Council; Treccani notes that it was the first time since Honorius and the only one until Agatho.^[37][38]

This fact is a good summary of his pontificate. Vitalian reopened a visible communion, but on a still fragile basis. Patriarch Peter responded positively enough to allow the resumption of relations; yet he gave no definitive clarification on Monothelitism.^[39]

A pilgrim emperor welcomed by the pope

On July 5, 663, Constans II arrived in Rome. The Liber Pontificalis recounts that Vitalian went out to meet him with his clergy at the sixth milestone from the city, then received him and accompanied him to Saint Peter's for prayer and offering.^[40]

The visit lasted twelve days. The emperor went to Saint Peter's, to Saint Mary's, to the Lateran; he offered a pallium woven of gold on the altar of the apostle; he attended the Mass celebrated by the pope; he took part in a banquet at the Lateran, in the basilica of Vigilius; then pope and emperor took leave of one another after the Sunday Mass.^[41][42]

The first emperor in Rome for two centuries

Treccani stresses that the arrival of Constans II must have made an immense impression: the emperor was the first to come to Rome since Valentinian III.^[43] The narrative can thus be read as the birth of a medieval ceremonial of the pilgrim emperor: the sovereign comes to honor the apostolic tombs, receive the pope's welcome, show himself in the basilicas.

But this ceremonial did not erase recent memory. The same Constans II was the emperor of the Typos, of the arrest of Martin I and of the policy that broke the anti-Monothelites. For Vitalian, the welcome was not naivety: it was an act of government in a still-Byzantine Italy, under Lombard pressure.^[44]

The bronzes of Rome torn away

The visit turned to bitterness. The Liber Pontificalis writes that after twelve days in the city, Constans II had everything in bronze removed for the ornament of Rome, and even uncovered the bronze tiles of Saint Mary of the Martyrs, the former Pantheon, to send them to the imperial city.^[45]

Treccani insists on the contradiction: the emperor visited the basilicas, attended the ceremonies, made gifts, then ordered his army to strip the old monuments, without sparing the roof of Saint Mary ad Martyres.^[46]

"He had everything in bronze removed for the ornament of the city." — Liber Pontificalis, on the departure of Constans II from Rome^[47]

From Rome to Syracuse: oppression and assassination

After Rome, Constans II reached Naples, then Reggio, then Sicily. The Liber Pontificalis states that at Syracuse he imposed on the populations of Calabria, Sicily, Africa and Sardinia charges so heavy as had never been seen, separating even wives and husbands, children and parents, and carrying off the sacred vessels and ornaments of the churches.^[48]

The emperor was assassinated in a bath at Syracuse on July 15, 668 according to the Roman notice.^[49] New Advent adds that Vitalian then supported the son of Constans, Constantine IV Pogonatus, against a usurper, which helped the new emperor accede to the throne.^[50]

A less violent new emperor

New Advent notes that Constantine IV had no intention of using force to maintain his father's Typos. Vitalian could therefore adopt a more decided position against Monothelitism and attempt to bring the emperor back to orthodoxy.^[51]

His success must not be exaggerated. New Advent specifies that Vitalian did not fully win Constantine IV to orthodoxy during his pontificate, and that Patriarch Theodore of Constantinople even withdrew his name from the diptychs.^[52]

Vitalian did not see the doctrinal victory

Monothelitism would only be suppressed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Constantinople III, in 680-681, under Pope Agatho then Leo II.^[53] Vitalian died in 672, eight years before the decisive session. His role was thus preparatory: maintaining a link real enough for a settlement to be possible, but without giving ambiguity the last word.

This nuance is important. Vitalian must not be presented as the man who settled Monothelitism. He was rather the one who, after Martin's martyrdom, kept Rome in the imperial game without breaking the doctrinal continuity that would lead to Agatho.

A Catholic strategy of patience

Vitalian's sanctity reads less in a heroic phrase than in an ecclesial patience. Martin I manifested fidelity through public refusal and martyrdom; Eugene I through refusal of an obscure letter; Vitalian through preserving a balance that prevented Rome from disappearing diplomatically.

This form of prudence is not lukewarmness if it keeps the rule of faith. The Liber Pontificalis does not say that Vitalian changed doctrine; it says that he preserved the ecclesiastical rule. That is the fairest key of interpretation.^[54]

Maurus seeks autocephaly

One of the most important crises of Vitalian's pontificate concerned Ravenna. New Advent reports that Archbishop Maurus sought to free himself from direct dependence on Rome and to make his see autocephalous. When Vitalian summoned him to justify his theological positions, Maurus refused, declared himself independent and went so far as to excommunicate the pope after having been excommunicated himself.^[55]

The crisis went beyond a personal conflict. Ravenna was the seat of the exarch, the great Byzantine base in Italy; its archbishop stood at the crossroads of imperial policy, ecclesiastical wealth and communications between Rome and Constantinople.

The decree of Constans II in 666

Constans II took Ravenna's side. New Advent indicates that he published an edict removing the archbishop of Ravenna from the patriarchal jurisdiction of Rome and ordering that he receive the pallium from the emperor.^[56] Treccani dates this concession to March 1, 666 and describes it as an autocephaly granted to Maurus.^[57]

Recent studies on Ravenna show the political logic of this decision. Ravenna wanted its ecclesiastical status to match its role as the Byzantine administrative capital in Italy; the emperor used the Ravennate Church as an imperial relay in the West; Maurus contributed financially to Constans II's Sicilian campaigns thanks to the resources of his Church.^[58]

A brief but significant independence

Maurus's successor, Reparatus, was consecrated in 671 by three of his suffragans and received the pallium from the emperor.^[59] This situation did not last. Ravenna's independence would be abolished under Leo II, when Constantine IV revoked Constans's edict and confirmed the ancient rights of the Roman See.^[60][61]

For Vitalian, the episode remained a partial defeat. It showed the price of the policy of compromise: the same imperial court that could confirm Rome's privileges could also support Ravenna against Rome. The article must therefore avoid too mild a reading of the Byzantine détente.

From Whitby to the vacancy of Canterbury

England was emerging from the synod of Whitby: King Oswiu of Northumbria had chosen Roman practice for the date of Easter and the tonsure.^[62] But an archbishop capable of organizing the English Church was needed. The priest Wighard, sent to Rome to be consecrated after Deusdedit's death, died of the plague in the city.^[63]

Vitalian answered King Oswiu by promising to send a suitable bishop as soon as possible. Bede then recounts the search: Hadrian, an African abbot near Naples, was considered; he judged himself unworthy; he first proposed Andrew, prevented by illness; then he presented Theodore, a monk of Tarsus, sixty-six years old, instructed in profane and divine letters, Greek and Latin.^[64]

Theodore ordained by Vitalian

Bede gives a precise date: Theodore was ordained by Pope Vitalian on March 26, 668, a Sunday, then sent to Britain with Hadrian on May 27, 668 (the arrival in England itself dates to 669).^[65] This detail makes Vitalian one of the most important popes for the primitive English Church.

Theodore was not a mere administrator. Recent studies present him as an Oriental scholar, probably linked to the anti-Monothelite milieus of Rome and versed in the paschal computus, which he transmitted to the Canterbury school.^[66][67] Vitalian's choice then becomes more interesting: sending a Greek of Tarsus to England was not yielding to Constantinople; it was using the wealth of the Catholic East to fortify a Western Church.

Hadrian: companion, guarantor, master

Bede explains that Hadrian accompanied Theodore for several reasons: he knew the road through Gaul, had men at his disposal, and was to help him in teaching. Bede also adds that he was to watch that Theodore introduced nothing contrary to the true faith according to a Greek custom.^[68]

Historians discuss this last motive. Sihong Lin suggests that Bede may have projected an anxiety of his own, since the popes had worked with anti-Monothelite Greek monks for decades; Vitalian would rather have chosen Theodore because he was loyal to Rome and useful to an English Church directly linked to the papacy.^[69]

The English fruits

Once arrived in 669, Theodore visited the island, taught the good order of life and the canonical celebration of Easter, corrected defects, ordained bishops and unified the obedience of the English Church. Bede speaks of a happy time: pupils flocked to Theodore and Hadrian, and some knew Greek and Latin as their own language.^[70]

This mission gave Vitalian's pontificate its most luminous fruit. In Rome, he had to deal with an ambiguous emperor; in England, he sent two masters who transformed a young Church into a center of study, liturgy and discipline.

"With the books of Scripture, they also taught ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy and arithmetic." — Bede the Venerable, on the school of Theodore and Hadrian^[71]

A Cretan bishop appeals to the pope

New Advent (Kirsch, 1912) reports, alone among the witnesses cross-checked here, another dossier, important for understanding Roman authority under Vitalian. John of Lappa, a bishop in Crete, was deposed by a synod presided over by Metropolitan Paulus. He appealed to the pope, was imprisoned for it, escaped and came to Rome.^[72][73]

Vitalian then held a synod in December 667 to examine the case, relying on the acts of the Cretan synod. He declared John innocent.^[74]

Letters to Paulus, Syracuse and an imperial officer

Vitalian then wrote to Metropolitan Paulus to request John's restoration to his diocese, the restitution of monasteries unjustly taken, and the deposition of two deacons married after their consecration. He also wrote to an imperial officer and to Bishop George of Syracuse, who had supported the deposed bishop.^[75]

This dossier shows that Roman primacy was not merely a Western idea. A Cretan bishop could seek justice in Rome; Rome held a synod; Rome demanded reparation from an Oriental metropolitan. Even in a diplomatically cautious pontificate, the Roman See acted as a court of appeal.

Twenty-two priests, one deacon, ninety-seven bishops

The Liber Pontificalis attributes to Vitalian four ordinations: twenty-two priests, one deacon and ninety-seven bishops for various places.^[76] The number of bishops is high; it signals the governmental continuity of a fifteen-year pontificate.

The mention is dry, but important. While the sources recount above all the emperor, Ravenna and England, Rome continued to ordain, maintain apostolic succession and ensure the ordinary life of the Churches.

Death and burial at Saint Peter's

Vitalian died on January 27, 672 and was buried near the blessed apostle Peter, according to the Liber Pontificalis.^[77] The Holy See retains the same end date for the pontificate.^[78]

The vacancy lasted two months and thirteen days according to the Roman notice.^[79] His successor was Adeodatus II (sometimes called Deusdedit II in the ancient lists, not to be confused with Saint Deusdedit, pope from 615 to 618).

A pontificate of prudence under pressure

Vitalian obliges us to think of a form of fidelity less simple than martyrdom. Martin I is more immediately legible: he condemns, refuses, suffers, dies. Vitalian, for his part, negotiated, received, temporized, judged, sent, excommunicated, endured a defeat at Ravenna and indirectly prepared a doctrinal victory that would come only after him.

This prudence is Catholic only if it preserves the rule of faith. The Liber Pontificalis gives precisely this key: Vitalian preserved the ecclesiastical rule and vigor. He did not settle everything; he prevented the Roman bridge with Constantinople from being destroyed before the Church could decide at the council.^[80][81]

A Mediterranean papacy

His pontificate shows a Rome at once weak and central. Weak, because an emperor could still strip its monuments, support Ravenna against it and weigh upon Italy. Central, because a Cretan bishop came there seeking justice, because Constantinople inscribed his name in the diptychs, because England asked for an archbishop, and because Ravenna could become autonomous only by confronting it.

Vitalian was thus not a minor pope in the historical sense. He was a hinge pope: between Martin I and Constantinople III, between Byzantine Rome and medieval Rome, between imperial Italy and Roman England.

• Pope Saint Eugene I — predecessor of Vitalian, last pope before the détente with Constantinople.
• Pope Saint Martin I — martyr pope of the Lateran council of 649, arrested under Constans II.
• Pope Theodore I — preparer of Roman resistance to Monothelitism.
• Pope Severinus — first Roman refusal of the Ecthesis after Honorius.
• Third Council of Constantinople (680-681) — definition of the two wills and two operations of Christ.
• The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons — missionary context of Theodore of Tarsus and Canterbury.
• Basilica of Saint Mary Major — central Roman basilica in the tensions of the 7th century.