Agatho (Pope)

Agatho (depiction in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls )

Agatho (also Agathon , † January 10, 681 in Rome ) was Pope from 678 to 681.

He came from Sicily and became a monk. According to legend, he carried a stone in his mouth for three years to learn to be silent .

On June 27, 678, he succeeded the Donus and continued its policy. So Agatho managed to bring the city of Ravenna , which had been independent since 666, back under the sovereignty of the popes. The most important event of his pontificate was the end of the monotheletism dispute.

Monotheletic dispute

Emperor Constantine IV had invited Pope Donus in August 678 to send three of his own representatives and twelve bishops to Constantinople to settle the dispute between the Monothelets, led by the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, and the Roman direction, whereby he himself described as neutral. When the letter went off, the addressee had already died. Instead, Agatho organized a synod of the whole West, to which on March 25, 680 125 bishops traveled to Rome. In it the Western Church committed itself to the doctrine of the twofold will of Jesus. A delegation of seven clergymen, including three bishops, and a few monks were to report the result to the emperor.

Constantine IV, until then inclined to monotheletism, changed his attitude against all expectations in 680 and showed himself ready to condemn monotheletism, which was also due to the fact that the parts of the empire in which this belief was most widespread ( Egypt , Palestine and Syria ), had been lost to the Arabs through conquests , while the monotheletic patriarch Theodore had been replaced by the Rome-friendly Georgios . Constantine therefore said that dogmatic discussions had become superfluous for this reason. On September 10, 680, he issued the order for a general synod , which was opened on November 7, under the presidency of Constantine IV, in the imperial palace of Constantinople and lasted with interruptions until September 16, 681. The Patriarch of Antioch, Makarios , a monothelite, defended his position with forgeries recognized by the council , refused conversion from his heresy, and was deposed in March 681.

On September 16, the council unanimously approved the condemnation of monotheletism as heresy. Agatho, who died on January 10th, did not see her again. For the first time, a pope, Honorius , who had shown himself to be conciliatory towards monotheletism , fell victim to the anathema and thus the curse on the monotheletic heretics.

The Catholic Church commemorates Pope Agatho on January 10, the Orthodox Church on February 20.

Pope Agatho should not be confused with the Coptic Pope Agatho of Alexandria (654 to 673).

literature

• E. Gorys: Lexicon of Saints. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-32507-0 .
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Agatho (Pope). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 54.

Web links

Commons : Agatho  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia , Robert Appleton Company, New York 1913.
• Agatho in the dictionary of saints

predecessor	Office	successor
Donus	Pope 678-681	Leo II