Pope Felix III (died 1 March 492) was the

bishop of Rome A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

from 13 March 483 to his death. His repudiation of the '' Henotikon'' is considered the beginning of the

Acacian schism The Acacian schism, between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, lasted 35 years, from 484 to 519 AD. It resulted from a drift in the leaders of Eastern Christianity toward Miaphysitism and Emperor Zeno's unsuccessful attempt to reconcile th ...

. He is commemorated on March 1.

Family

Felix was born into a Roman senatorial family - possibly the son of a priest. He was married and widowed before he was elected as pope. He fathered two children, and through his son Gordianus (a priest) was thought to be great-great-grandfather to

Pope Gregory I Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregori ...

, and possibly related to

Pope Agapetus I Pope Agapetus I (489/490 – 22 April 536) was the bishop of Rome from 13 May 535 to his death. His father, Gordianus, was a priest in Rome and he may have been related to two previous popes, Felix III and Gregory I. In 536, Agapetus traveled ...

.Coleman, Ambrose. "Pope St. Felix III." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 6 Apr. 2013
/ref> It was also said that Felix appeared as an apparition to another of his descendants, his great-granddaughter Trasilla (an aunt of Pope Gregory I), and asked her to enter

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

, and "on the eve of

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

Trasilla died, seeing

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

beckoning".

Eutychian heresy

Eutyches was an

archimandrite The title archimandrite ( gr, ἀρχιμανδρίτης, archimandritēs), used in Eastern Christianity, originally referred to a superior abbot (''hegumenos'', gr, ἡγούμενος, present participle of the verb meaning "to lead") who ...

at Constantinople. In his opposition to

Nestorianism Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian ...

he seemed to have taken the opposite view to extremes. In an effort to defuse controversy regarding the teachings of

Eutyches Eutyches ( grc, Εὐτυχής; c. 380c. 456) or Eutyches of ConstantinopleEmperor Zeno Zeno (; grc-gre, Ζήνων, Zénōn; c. 425 – 9 April 491) was Eastern Roman emperor from 474 to 475 and again from 476 to 491. Domestic revolts and religious dissension plagued his reign, which nevertheless succeeded to some extent in forei ...

, at the suggestion of Patriarch

Acacius of Constantinople Acacius (Greek language, Greek: Ακάκιος, ?26 November 489) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 472 to 489. Acacius was practically the first prelate throughout Eastern Orthodoxy and renowned for ambitious participation in ...

, had issued an edict known as the

Henoticon The ''Henotikon'' ( or in English; Greek ''henōtikón'' "act of union") was a christological document issued by Byzantine emperor Zeno in 482, in an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the differences between the supporters of the Council of Chalc ...

. The edict was intended as a bond of reconciliation between Catholics and Eutychians, but it caused greater conflicts than ever, and split the Church of the East into three or four parties. The Henotikon endorsed the condemnations of Eutyches and Nestorius made at Chalcedon and explicitly approved the twelve anathemas of

Cyril of Alexandria Cyril of Alexandria ( grc, Κύριλλος Ἀλεξανδρείας; cop, Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲕⲩⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲩ ⲁ̅ also ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444 ...

, but in attempting to appease both sides of the dispute, avoided any definitive statement on whether Christ had one or two natures. Felix's first act was to repudiate the Henoticon. He also addressed a letter of remonstrance to Acacius. The latter proved refractory and sentence of deposition was passed against Acacius. As Catholics spurned Zeno's edict, the emperor had driven the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria from their sees.

Peter the Fuller Peter Fullo ("the Fuller") was Patriarch of Antioch (471–488) and Non-Chalcedonian. Peter received his surname from his former trade as a fulling, fuller of cloth. Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, Tillemont (''Empereurs'', tome vi. p.&nbs ...

deposed

Martyrius of Antioch Martyrius was Patriarch of Antioch from 460 to 470. A Chalcedonian, his patriarchate was dominated by strife between the Chalcedonians and Non-Chalcedonians. Martyrius was deposed by prominent Non-Chalcedonian Peter the Fuller in 470, the latter ...

and assumed the

See of Antioch Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the bishop of Antioch (modern-day Antakya, Turkey). As the traditional "overseer" (ἐπίσκοπος, ''episkopos'', from which the word ''bishop'' is derived) of the first gentile Christian c ...

in 470.

Peter Mongus Pope Peter III of Alexandria also known as Peter Mongus (from the Greek μογγός ''mongos'', "stammerer") was the 27th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. Biography After the Council of Chalcedon, Peter Mongus was an ar ...

took the

See of Alexandria The Patriarch of Alexandria is the archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Historically, this office has included the designation "pope" (etymologically "Father", like "Abbot"). The Alexandrian episcopate was revered as one of the three major epis ...

. In his first synod, Felix excommunicated Peter the Fuller. In 484, Felix also excommunicated Peter Mongus, an act that brought about a schism between East and West that was not healed until 519.

Aftermath of the Vandals

In North Africa, conquered by the fervently

Arian Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The ...

, persecution by king

Genseric Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the diff ...

and his son and successor

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was m ...

had driven many Catholic Romans into exile.Victor of Vita, ''History of the Vandal Persecution'', 2.3-6 (John Moorhead, trans.), Liverpool: University Press, 1992, p. 25 When Huneric died, the persecutions were eased, and many of those who through fear had been rebaptized as Arians desired to return to the Church. However, the Vandals remained resolutely Arian. The Catholics appealed to Felix, who convened a synod in 487 and sent a letter to the bishops of Africa, expounding the conditions under which the unwilling apostates were to be taken back.

References

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