Helias of Aquileia

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Longobard and Byzantine territories before 603

Helias of Aquileia , Italian Elìa , in the sources also Elya , was Patriarch of Aquileia from 571 to 586 . However, the cleric, referred to as Greek in the Chronicon Altinate, resided in Grado , which was protected by its lagoon , on the run from the Lombards who conquered northern Italy . The move of the patriarch , considered a schismatic in the three-chapter dispute , was in all probability not approved by the Pope , as later Venetian chronicles claim. His activity as the initiator of church buildings in Grado can be proven through inscriptions, in particular the cathedral there . The Patriarchate of Helias is of decisive importance for the consolidation of the last schismatic patriarchate in Northern Italy at that time.

Life

Inscription in S. Eufemia

According to the Chronicon Altinate , Helias was "nacione Graecorum". As Ernest Stein was able to prove, he was patriarch from 571, not as Bice Stoppato assumed, from 573. Aquileia's self-elevation to patriarchy was only achieved in 557 by Helias' predecessor Paulus (first documented in 559), whom his opponent Pope Pelagius I condescendingly called "Paulinus", that is, in the diminutive form. Only at the Synod of Grado can it be proven that the title of patriarch was also officially claimed, i.e. at the time of Helias. Pope Pelagius could not induce the Eastern Roman rule to put an end to the "uprising" that began in 557 and that would drag on until the end of the 7th century. When the Lombards conquered north-east Italy in 568, Paul led the move to the safer Grado, but he died the next year. At that time Aquileia was the only remaining schismatic metropolitan seat.

Ideal portrait of Helias in the throne room of the Diocesan Museum and the Tiepolo Gallery in Udine . The inscription claims that the patriarch "authoritate Pelagii II" moved his seat to Grado and that he convened a provincial council there.

Helias resided in Grado , as the Lombards kept his residence Aquileia , similar to his predecessor. Since Ostrom saw Rome as endangered until the armistice of 585 with the Lombards, the emperor did not interfere in Aquileia or Grado. Meanwhile, Helias succeeded in founding a number of dioceses, the number of which rose from at least eleven within half a century to twenty in the province of Venetia et Histria alone , and another five or six were added in the territory of the neighboring provinces that joined Aquileia had.

As reported by several Venetian chronicles, Helias convened a synod in the local cathedral on November 3, 579. However, both the date (dates between 571 and 586 were proposed, but also two synods, with which the contradictions in the sources could be eliminated) and the need for clarification by the synod, yes, whether it took place at all, is controversial. Although the Council of Mantua , which took place in 827, lists the 19 signatories to the synod (while the 11th-century Cronica de singulis patriarchis Nove Aquileie lists 20 bishops), the text of the resolutions appears only in much later sources, such as the chronicle of the Venetian doge Andrea Dandolo . In addition, these resolutions contain contradictions. After all, the list of participants largely matches.

According to tradition more recent, the synod was convened with the approval of Pope Pelagius II , so that his legate Lorenzo was present. This had issued a privilege by which the Pope confirmed the move of the Patriarchal seat from Aquileia to Grado. At the same synod, the councils of Chalcedon (451) and the previous councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) - meaning the first council convened there - as well as Ephesus (449) were recognized, without explicitly the second council of Constantinople to mention that took place in the year 553. The three-chapter dispute went back to their resolutions . Like Paul I of Aquileia , Helias also joined these council resolutions. However, this obvious attitude does not fit with the presence of a papal legate, and certainly not with the papal consent to move to Grado. Therefore, the passages about the Pope and the Legates are probably an interpolation that was inserted between the 9th and 11th centuries in order to be used as a weapon in the dispute between Aquileia and Grado over the right patriarchal seat. If this later reinterpretation is not followed, Helias did not succeed in gaining papal recognition for his change of office. However, this representation was not in the Venetian interest, because in the 14th century the Republic of Venice had long combined secular power and the possibilities of ecclesiastical influence, for example on Istria , which Venice claimed. At that time the patriarchy was no longer a schismatic church district, but a lever for gaining colonies and bases that one wanted to break out of the territory of the Roman-German Empire .

In contrast to the Venetian representation, the belief that the Pope called schismatic runs through the entire reign of Helias. Around 585 Pope Pelagius sent three letters to him and the Istrian bishops subordinate to the patriarch, in which he tried to persuade them to return to the Roman faith. The third letter is almost a treatise on the three chapters, possibly originally it was a kind of memorial that accompanied the previous letter.

According to a note in the Historia Langobardorum of Paulus Diaconus , the said memorial was not assigned to Pelagius II but to Gregory the Great , who should have written it before his election as Pope. Both Ludo Moritz Hartmann and Eduard Schwartz argue with stylistic similarities when they claim that the three letters were from the same author. In October 584, Gregory was still in Constantinople , and it was probably not until 586 that he returned to Rome. As a result, Gregor could not be the author of the memorial, since he was also the author of the other two letters, recognizable by the same style.

Fragment of the choir screen in the church of S. Maria delle Grazie

Neither the answer of the patriarch nor that of the Istrian bishops has been recorded. The fact that Helias remained true to his opinion is evident from the fact that after the Council of Marano in 591 the bishops, in a letter to Emperor Maurikios , recalled that Smaragdus , who had been sent to Italy as Exarch of Ravenna around 585 , “because of this Matter '- again it is about the said dispute - "pluribus vicibus contristaret". Helias wrote a letter to the emperor himself and obtained an imperial intervention against Smaragdus, since not a single bishop had been bothered about the schism. Constantinople prohibited Ravenna from interfering in Aquileia. Smaragdus waited for the death of Helias in order to have his successor Severus and the Istrian bishops Johannes von Parentium , Severus from Tergeste and Vindemius from Cissa arrested. In Ravenna , after a year, he forced the prisoners to convert to the Catholic side. But in Aquileia twelve bishops remained loyal to the schism, while the patriarch and five bishops reconciled with the church. In 591 Severus rejoined the schismatics.

Silver capsule from the 5th century with the names of saints Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla and Quirinus

His predecessor Helias is known for his church building in addition to the aforementioned activities, with particular attention to that of St. Euphemia dedicated the Cathedral of Grado . A mosaic inscription preserved in the floor of the cathedral states that the cathedral was built by Helias. The building was built on a previous building and the mosaic was ceremoniously attached after Helias' death. Archaeological excavations have confirmed the assertion found therein that the cathedral replaced an old, small previous building. Giovanni Brusin discovered a sign, the text of which also attributes the building to Helias. Another font, a medallion with the patriarch's monogram , confirms this, as does a floor mosaic by Bishop Marcianus with the monogram of Helias. According to Amelio Tagliaferri , a capital also bears the same monogram. In the church of S. Maria delle Grazie, Helias had the building structure renovated and set up the prothesis and diaconicon - the repository for the deceased and the place for the holy objects. At the later Piazza della Vittoria già Piazza della Corte there was also a church of S. Agata or S. Giovanni Evangelista . There he also made fundamental changes. This could confirm what Andrea Dandolo mentions, namely that a pagan temple in honor of Bethel , perhaps identifiable with Helenus, has been converted into a convent. This was consecrated to the apostle Peter . A monastery in honor of Mary was also built on the island of Barbana , on the edge of the Grado lagoon .

In addition, Andrea Dandolo attributes the translation of various relics to the Patriarch. In doing so, however, he names saints whose veneration can only be proven from the 9th century. However, when an elliptical silver capsule was discovered under the main altar of Grado Cathedral, which probably dates from the 5th century, and which bears the names Cantius, Cantianus and Cantianilla and those of Saints Quirinus and Latinus, it was obvious that it was had to be a piece from the cathedral treasure brought from Aquileia to Grado.

After 14 years, 10 months and 21 days as patriarch, Helias died in 586/587. He was buried in the cathedral he built. Klaus Gamber and Michel Huglo attribute a Homilia ad neophytos to Helias , which Alban Dold edited.

swell

  • Andreae Danduli Chronicon Venetum, in Ludovico Antonio Muratori , Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, XII, Milan 1728, coll. 97, 98-104.
  • Ester Pastorello (Ed.): Andreae Danduli Ducis Venetiarum Chronica per extensum descripta aa. 46-1280 (= Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XII, 1), Nicola Zanichelli, Bologna 1938, 2nd edition, p. Xxx.
  • Theodor Mommsen (Ed.): Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum , V, 1, Berlin 1872, p. 149.
  • Georg Waitz (ed.): Pauli Diaconi Historia Langobardorum (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI - IX), Hanover 1878, pp. 92, 100, 103, 105.
  • Henry Simonsfeld (Ed.): Chronicon Venetum quod vulgo dicunt Altinate , (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI - IX, XIV), Hannover 1883, pp. 13, 16, 22, 38 f.
  • Giovanni Monticolo : Chronica de singulis patriarchis Nove Aquileie , in: Cronache veneziane antichissime (= Fonti per la storia d'Italia, IX), Rome 1890, pp. 5–9.
  • Giovanni Monticolo (Ed.): Cronicon Gradense , in: Cronache veneziane antichissime (= Fonti per la storia d'Italia, IX), Rome 1890, pp. 42–50.
  • Giovanni Monticolo (ed.): Cronaca veneziana del diacono Giovanni , in: Cronache veneziane antichissime (= Fonti per la storia d'Italia, IX), Rome 1890, pp. 62, 70-72, 74
  • Pio Paschini: Un'antica iscrizione cristiana di Grado , in: Rendiconti della pontificia accademia Romana, s. 3, XIII (1937) 117-125, here: p. 120.
  • Alban Dold : Instructive Basel Breviary Fragments of the 10th Century. Ways to determine and develop them , in: Texts and works… Erzabtei Beuron XLIV (1954), pp. 31–34.
  • Bernard-Marie de Rossi: Monumenta Ecclesiae Aquileiensis , Argentinae 1740, coll. 227-256. ( Digitized version )
  • Pietro Siccorti: I vescovi giuliesi. Ricerche e riflessioni sopra il loro carattere e sopra il luogo di loro residenza , in: Archivio Veneto V (1875), p. 7th
  • Carlo Cipolla : Fonti edite della storia della regione veneta dalla caduta dell'Impero romano sino alla fine del sec. X , in Monumenti storici pubblicati dalla R. Dep. veneta di storia patria, p. 4, II (1883), 1, pp. 9, 33, 34, 105, 116, 122.
  • Luigi Andrea Berto (ed.): Giovanni Diacono, Istoria Veneticorum (= Fonti per la Storia dell'Italia medievale. Storici italiani dal Cinquecento al Millecinquecento ad uso delle scuole, 2), Zanichelli, Bologna 1999.

literature

  • Gabriella Braga :  Elijah. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 42:  Dugoni – Enza. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1993 (basis of the article where not specified)
  • Vittorio Piva: Il patriarcato di Venezia e le sue origini , Vol. I, Venice 1938, p. 27.
  • Roberto Cessi : Nova Aquileia , in: Atti dell'Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti LXXXVIII (1928–1929) 543–594.
  • Johann Friedrich: The Ecclesia Augustana in the letters of the Istrian bishops to Emperor Mauritius from 591 and the Synod of Gradus between 572 and 577 , in: Session reports of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philos.-philol. hist. Klasse (1906), 2, pp. 327-356.
  • Karl Joseph von Hefele, Henri Leclercq (revision): Histoire des conciles , III, 1, Paris 1909, p. 149 f.
  • Pio Paschini : Le vicende politiche e religious del Friuli nei secoli nono e decimo , in: Nuovo archivio veneto 21 (1911) 37–88 et 399–432, here: p. 428.
  • Pio Paschini: Le vicende politiche e religious del territorio friulano da Costantino a Carlo Magno (secc. IV-VIII) , in: Memorie storiche forogiuliesi VIII (1912), pp. 234-239.
  • Max Manitius : History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages , Vol. II, Munich 1923, p. 251 f.
  • Louis Duchesne: L'Eglise au VIe siècle , Paris 1925, pp. 244–246.
  • Paolo Lino Zovatto: Monumenti paleocristiani di Grado , in: G. Brusin, PL Zovatto (ed.): Monumenti di Aquileia e di Grado , Udine 1957, pp. 434, 438, 453–458, 488, 491, 493, 508, 513.
  • Sergio Tavano: La scultura decorativa a Grado nell'opera dei vescovi Probino ed Elia , in: Aquileia nostra XXX (1959), coll. 71–78.
  • Luisa Bertacchi: La cappella con la tomba del vescovo Marciano nel duomo di Grado , in: Aquileia nostra XXXVII (1966), coll. 98-102.
  • Giuseppe Cuscito: Una pianta settecentesca del duomo di Grado e le iscrizioni musive del secolo VI , in: Aquileia nostra XLIII (1972), coll. 117 n.7, 118 n.11, 120 n.36 , 42, 48.
  • Paul Fridolin Kehr : Italia pontificia , VII: Venetiae et Histria, pars 1: Respublica Venetiarum - Provincia Gradensis– Histria , 1st edition, Berlin 1925, 3rd edition, Hildesheim 2001, p. 21 f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ernest Stein: Chronology of the métropolitains schismatiques de Milan et d'Aquilée-Grado , in: Journal for Swiss Church History XXXIX (1945) 126-136, here: pp. 133-135.
  2. ↑ Bice Stoppato: La Chiesa metropolitana di Aquileia fino alla duplice elezione patriarcale di Giovanni e Candidiano in: Archivio Veneto , s. 5, X (1931), pp. 68-77, 106-109, 116-126.
  3. ^ Rajko Bratož: The metropolitan district of Aquileia from the 5th to the early 7th century , in: Volker Bierbrauer , Hans Nothdurfter (ed.): The excavations in the late antique-early medieval bishopric Sabiona-Säben in South Tyrol I. Early Christian Church and Gräberfeld , CH Beck, Munich 2015, p. 673 f. ( academia.edu ).
  4. ^ Rajko Bratož: The metropolitan district of Aquileia from the 5th to the early 7th century , in: Volker Bierbrauer, Hans Nothdurfter (ed.): The excavations in the late antique-early medieval bishopric Sabiona-Säben in South Tyrol I. Early Christian Church and Gräberfeld , CH Beck, Munich 2015, p. 674.
  5. ↑ Like Andrea Dandolo's work, the Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo from the late 14th century, the oldest vernacular chronicle of Venice, which reports in great detail here, depicts the processes conventionally insofar as the story largely relates to individual men, above all the Doge is driven forward. This also applies to "dominus Elya" because, like the individual doges, in the history before 697, i.e. before the alleged first doge, the patriarchs form the temporal framework for the chronicle, as was customary in Venice. However, the author falsely claims that Pope Pelagius I - "Pelagio primo" - had the transfer of the Doge's seat "confermado" (Roberto Pesce (ed.): Cronica di Venexia detta di Enrico Dandolo. Origini - 1362 , Centro di Studi Medievali e Rinascimentali “Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna”, Venice 2010, p. 11 f.).
  6. ^ Ludo Moritz Hartmann : Studies on the history of the Byzantine administration in Italy (540-750) , Leipzig 1889, p. 111.
  7. ^ Eduard Schwartz : Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum , IV, 2, Strasbourg 1914, pp. 105-135.
  8. ^ Giovanni Brusin: Aquileia e Grado. Guida storico-artistica , Udine 1947, pp. 142, 151.
  9. ↑ Amelio Tagliaferri : Le diocesi di Aquileia e Grado , in: Corpus della scultura altomedievale, X, Spoleto 1981, p. 341 n.1, 348 n.1, 361 n.548, 395 n.1, 399 n.1, 421 n.1.
  10. ↑ Klaus Gamber : The FormuIare des hl. Praeiectus and St. Euphemia in the Young Gelasian Sacraments , in: Sacris erudiri XII (1961) 405-410, here: p. 407 f. and n.11.
  11. ↑ Michel Huglo: Liturgia e musica sacra aquileiese , in: Storia della cultura veneta , Vol. I, Vicenza 1976, p. 316, n. 17.
  12. ^ Alban Dold : Instructive Basler Breviary Fragments of the 10th Century. Ways to determine and develop them (= texts and works by the Archabbey of Beuron, 1st department, H. XLIV), Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron 1954, pp. VIII – 67, here: pp. 31–34.
  13. ^ Digitized version, n.26 .
  14. ^ Digitized version , III, 14.
  15. ^ Digitized version , III, 20.
  16. ^ Digitized version , III, 26.
personal data
SURNAME Helias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Patriarch of Aquileia / Grado
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century
DATE OF DEATH 586
Place of death Grado