Zacarias (father)

Zacharias (Latin: Zacharias) (Calabria, 679-Rome, March 15, 752) was 91.er pope of the Catholic Church between 741 and 752. He was the last pontiff of the so-called Byzantine papacy.

Biography

Early Years

Hardly anything is known of his life before he was consecrated as pope.

The son of a Greek settler named Polychronus, Zacharias belonged to the Calabrian Greek ethnic group.

Papacy

ZACHARIAS PP GRECVS Engraving of Pope Zacarias

In his first years of pontificate, Zacarías managed to get the Lombards (a Germanic people who occupied the north of present-day Italy) to return some cities to the Church.

When Zacharias ascended the throne, the position of the city and the Duchy of Rome was in a very serious situation. Liutprando, king of the Lombards, was preparing a new incursion into Roman territory. The Duke of Spoleto Trasamundo, with whom Pope Gregory III had formed an alliance against Liutprando, did not keep his promise to help the Romans recover the cities taken by the Lombards. Consequently, Zacharias abandoned the alliance with Trasamundo and tried to protect the interests of Rome and Roman territory through personal influence over Liutprando. At the request of the Ravenna Exarchate, Zacharias persuaded Liutprando to abandon the planned attack on Ravenna and restore the seized territory to the city.

Outside the Italian peninsula, Zacharias helped Pepin the Short dethrone Childeric III, the last Merovingian king. Indeed, Pepin the Short, Mayordomo of the Palace, was the strong man who governed the Frankish people in practice and Childeric III, the weak king called to put an end to Clovis's lineage. In such a situation, in order to legitimize his planned usurpation of the throne, Pepin the Short asked the pope a compromising question charged with the appearance of a naive search for orthodox conduct: Who should be the king of the Franks: the one who actually exercised royalty? or who held it nominally? The pope settled the matter with this verdict: "Whoever is so in fact, be so by law."

Thus was born a strong relationship of political and religious ties between the Papacy and the Carolingian dynasty, founded by Pepin.

He sent Archbishop Boniface to crown Pepin the Short King of the Franks on his behalf.

He built the original church of Santa Maria sobre Minerva and outlawed the slave trade in Rome.

Her feast day is March 15.