writes to Honorius of Tarentum giving him faculties to build and consecrate a parish church with a font.[1] When the See of Naples was torn by local quarrels, he appoints the subdeacon Peter to arrange the election of a bishop.[2] He himself then ordains the bishop (Fortunatus) so chosen.[3] He delegates this same Fortunatus to visit other dioceses in the Campagna.[4] He deposes Demetrius of Naples and makes a certain Paul Vicar Capitular of the diocese, till a new bishop shall be elected.[5] He makes laws for the rites of Sicily, and insists that these should, in certain points, conform to those of Rome.[6] A special point was that no bishop might consecrate a new church without special delegation from the Pope. So Gelasius I (492-496) says of the Southern Italian bishops: "They may not venture to dedicate new basilicas, without having received again faculties according to custom," and he reproaches those who had presumed to "consecrate holy churches or oratories without the command of the Apostolic See."[7] Martène says: "In Italy the diocesan bishops did not presume to do this [consecrate churches] until they had first obtained faculty from the Sovereign Pontiff."[8] In Sicily, too, the bishops were ordained by the Pope; they received from him leave to consecrate churches; they, too, had to attend the yearly provincial synods at Rome; when their sees were vacant they were administered by vicars appointed by the Pope, till the new bishop was elected.[9]
All this means more than Patriarchal jurisdiction. The Pope was Patriarch of all the West; yet we do not find him arranging these more intimate matters in the North of Italy, in Gaul, or Spain.[10] They were regulated by the Metropolitans of those places. When we see the Popes thus using local Metropolitical jurisdiction in the South of Italy and
- ↑ Greg. I, Ep. xiii, 20 (P.L., lxxvii, 1274-1275).
- ↑ Ep. iii, 35 (P.L., lxxvii, 631-632).
- ↑ Ibid. (P.L., lxxvii, 632).
- ↑ Ep. ix, 75, 76 (P.L., lxxvii, 1009-1010).
- ↑ Ep. ii, 6, 10 (P.L., lxxvii, 542-543; 546-547).
- ↑ Ep. ix, 12 (P.L., lxxvii, 956); L. di Brolo, "Storia d. Chiesa in Sic," , cap. (pp. 382-400).
- ↑ Gel. I, Ep. ix, ad Eppos per Lucaniam, etc., caps. 9 and 25 (P.L., lix, 50, 55).
- ↑ E. Martène, "de antiquis Eccl. ritibus" (2nd edition, Antwerp, 1736), vol. ii, lib. ii, cap. xiii, § 7 (col. 673); see the whole paragraph.
- ↑ See the quotations in Rodotà, "Rito greco in Italia," i, 58-60.
- ↑ Notably it was only in his metropolitical province that the Pope confirmed the election of the bishops and himself ordained them. In the first eight centuries this was the special right of the Metropolitan (Hefele-Leclercq, "Hist. des Conciles," i, 566).
