SAINT ZACHARY 1, POPE

Zachary I, Pope
Also known as Zacharias
Born at San Severino, Calabria, Italy;
Died 752;
feast day formerly on March 22;
feast day in the East is September 5.
Feast day: March 15
Pope Zachary I came from a Greek family in Calabria. He became a deacon in Rome, known for his learning and sanctity, and was chosen pope in 741 to succeed Saint Gregory III. His holiness was so great that, instead of seeking revenge, he heaped benefits on those who had persecuted him before his promotion to the pontificate.

When King Liutprand of the Lombards was about to invade Roman lands at Terni because of the rebellion of the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, Zachary risked his own life in order to meet with the barbarian. Through persuasion Zachary won the freedom of all prisoners of war and the Roman territory Liutprand had occupied during 30 years was returned. It is said that the Lombards were moved to tears at the devotion with which they heard him say Mass. Another time, he dissuaded Liutprand from invading Ravenna.

Zachary achieved a great deal with the Lombards by negotiation, leading to peace between the Lombards and the Greek Empire. In fact, he gave the Benedictine habit to Saint Ratchis, king of the Lombards. By contrast, Zachary's successor had to enter into the defensive alliance with the Frankish Pepin the Short, which had the ambiguously felicitous result of leading to the revival of the Western Empire and led also to the protective domination of the emperor over the Roman Church which for centuries determined the course of Western history.

This Papal-Frankish alliance was prepared for by Pope Zachary's acquiescence in the deposition of the Merovingian puppet-kings and through his anointing of Pepin, who had been mayor of the palace, in 751 by the hand of his legate, Boniface at Soissons.

As a result of the iconoclastic movement, religious and political relations with Byzantium, which were noticeable weakened in these disturbances, grew ever looser. Zachary denounced the iconoclastic policy of Emperor Constantine Copronymus.

On the other hand, the Church made vast strides in the realm of the Franks, above all in Germany, through the work of reorganization and the missionary zeal of Saint Boniface, whom he consecrated archbishop of Mainz. Zachary assisted the labors of the Apostle of the Germans in every way. Two interesting letters of the pope to Boniface have survived, which give the impression of a man of great vigor and deep sympathy. He told Boniface to suspend polygamous and murderous priests, to abolish superstitious practices even if these were practiced at Rome, and to recognize the baptisms of those whose Latin was extremely inaccurate (the intention was there to do what the Church intends, even though the form was defective). At his synod of 745, he condemned the heretics Clement and Adalbert who had caused Boniface a good deal of grief.

On the other hand, Boniface was proven to be all too human on another occasion. He wrote to Zachary against an Irish priest named Virgilius, saying that he sowed the seeds of discord between him and Duke Odilo of Bavaria, and erroneously taught that there were other men under the earth, another sun and moon, and another world. Pope Zachary answered, that if he taught such an error he ought to be deposed. This cannot be understood as a condemnation of the doctrine of Antipodes (that the earth is round), as some have mistaken. Rather, there was a heresy that maintained there was another race of men, who did not descend from Adam, and were not redeemed by Christ. Nor did Zachary pronounce any sentence in the case: for in the same letter he ordered that Virgilius should be sent to Rome so that this doctrine might be examined. It seems that he cleared himself, for we find this same priest soon after made bishop of Salzburg, Austria, and, in 1233, formally canonized as Saint Virgilius. It seems that the friction between the two saints was probably a result of jurisdictional conflicts and the tension between Roman and Celtic liturgical customs. In any case, Pope Zachary was a peace-maker and judged no man without a hearing.

Zachary was also responsible for restoring Montecassino under Saint Petronax and himself consecrated its abbey church in 748. The saint was known for aiding the poor, provided refuge to nuns driven from Constantinople by the iconoclasts, ransomed slaves from the Venetians, forbade the selling of Christian slaves to the Moors of Africa, and translated Saint Gregory the Great's Dialogues into Greek. Since "Zacharias embraced and cherished all people like a father and a good shepherd, and never allowed even the smallest injustice to happen to anyone," he was venerated as a saint immediately after his death (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Husenbeth, Schamoni).

Saint Zacharias is depicted making peace with King Luitprand. Sometimes he may have a dove and olive branch over him