25
October 625 A.D. Boniface V Dies—Rome’s 69th; Directs Ecclesiastics to Obey Civil
Magistrates; Loved the English
Church; Letters Sent to Mellitus, 3rd
Archbishop of Canterbury to Ordain Bishops as Needed; Letter to Edwin, King of
Northumbria, Telling Him to Convert; A
“Mild” Man; Loved by Fellow Clergy;
Buried in St. Peter’s
Oestereich, Thomas. "Pope Boniface
V." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1907.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02661a.htm. Accessed 14 Jul 2014.
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Pope Boniface V
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A Neapolitan who succeeded Deusdedit after a vacancy of more than a year; consecrated 23 December, 619; d.
25 October, 625. Before his consecration Italy was disturbed by the
rebellion of the eunuch Eleutherius, Exarch of Ravenna.
The patrician pretender advanced towards Rome,
but before before he could reach the city, he was slain by his own troops. The "Liber
Pontificalis" records
that Boniface made certain enactments relative to the rights of sanctuary, and that he ordered the ecclesiastical notaries to obey the laws of the empire on the
subject of wills. He also
prescribed that acolytes should not presume to
translate the relics of martyrs,
and that, in the Lateran
Basilica, they should not take the place of deacons in administering baptism. Boniface completed and consecrated the cemetery of St.
Nicomedes on
the Via Nomentana. From the Venerable
Bede we learn of the pope's affectionate concern
for the English Church. The "letters of
exhortation" which he is said to have addressed to Mellitus, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and to Justus, Bishop of Rochester, are no longer extant, but
certain other letters of his have been preserved. One is written to Justus, after he had succeeded Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury (624), conferring the pallium upon him and
directing him to "ordain bishops as occasion should
require". According to Bede, Pope Boniface also sent letters to Edwin, King of Northumbria (625),
urging him to embrace the Christian
Faith, and to the Christian Princess
Ethelberga, Edwin's spouse,
exhorting her to use her best endeavours for the conversion of her consort (Bede, H. E., II,
vii, viii, x, xi). In the "Liber
Pontificalis" Boniface is described as "the mildest of men", whose chief distinction
was his great love for the clergy. He
was buried in St. Peter's, 25 October, 625. His
epitaph is found in Duchesne.
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Sources
Liber Pontificalis (ed. DUCHESNE), I,
321-322; JAFFÉ, Regesta RR. PP. (2nd ed.), I, 222; Letters in MANSI, X, 547-554,
and in BEDE,Hist.
Eccles. Gent. Angl.;
MANN, Lives of the Popes, etc., I, 294-303;
GASQUET, A Short History of the
Catholic Church in England, 19; HUNT, A History of the
English Church, etc., 49, 56, 58;
GREGOROVIUS, II, 113; LANGEN, 506; JUNGMANN, Dissertationes, II, 389.
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