October 530 A.D. Dioscurus Dies—Opponent (1 of 50ish or so Antipopes) of Boniface II & Gothic Influences in Rome; Served Justinian in Constantinople
October
530 A.D. Dioscurus
Dies—Opponent (1 of 50ish or so Antipopes) of Boniface II & Gothic
Influences in Rome; Served Justinian in Constantinople
Antipope, b. at Alexandria, date unknown; d. 14 October,
530. Originally a deacon of the Church of Alexandria he was adopted into the ranks of the Roman clergy, and by his commanding abilities soon
acquired considerable influence in the Church of Rome. Under Pope Symmachus he was sent to Ravenna on an important mission
to Theodoric the Goth, and later, under Pope Hormisdas, served with great
distinction as papal apocrisiarius, or legate, to the court of Justinian at Constantinople. During
the pontificate of Felix IV he became the recognized
head of the Byzantine party — a party in Rome which opposed the growing
influence and power of a rival faction, the Gothic, to which the pope inclined.
Sources
Oestereich,
Thomas. "Dioscorus." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05018a.htm. Accessed 10 Jul 2014.
Dioscorus
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To prevent a
possible contest for the papacy, Pope Felix IV, shortly before his
death, had taken the unprecedented step of appointing his own successor in the person of the aged Archdeacon Boniface, his
trusted friend and adviser. When, however on the death of Felix (Sept. 530) Boniface II succeeded him, the great
majority of the Roman priests — sixty out of
sixty-seven — refused to accept the new pope and elected in his stead the Greek Dioscorus in the basilica of Constantine (the Lateran) and Boniface in the aula (hall) of the Lateran Palace,
known as basilica Julii. Fortunately for the Roman Church, the schism which followed was but of
short duration, for in less than a month (14 Oct., 530) Dioscorus died and the presbyters who hadelected him wisely submitted to Boniface. In December, 530, Boniface convened a synod at Rome and issued a decree anathematizing Dioscorus as an intruder.
He at the same time (it is not known by what means) secured the signatures of
the sixty presbyters to his late rival's
condemnation, and caused the document to be
deposited in the archives of the church. The anathema against Dioscorus was
however, subsequently removed, and the document burned by Pope Agapetus I (535).
Liber
Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE (Paris, 1886), I, 281 sq.; JAFFE, Regesta Romanorum
Pontificum (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1885), I, 111-12 In 1883 Amelli discovered the
documents bearing on the election of 530, in the chapter library of Novara, and
published them with his comments in Scuola Cattolica (Milan), XXI, fascic. 123;
CREAGH in Amer. Eccl. Rev., XXVIII (Jan., 1903), 41-50; Theologische Quartalschrift
(1903), 91 sq.; GRISAR, Gesch. Roms und der Papste (Freiburg im Br., 1901), I,
494 sq.; WURM, Papstwahl (Cologne, 1902), 12 sq.
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