CONSTANTINE, POPE

Pontificate: Mar. 25, 708 to Apr. 9, 715, the fourth Syrian elected pope since 685. The only extant document from his pontificate dates from 713 and authorizes the monastery of Bermondsey and Working in England to choose its own abbot. The liber pontificalis describes the troubles that the Ravenna Exarch, John Rizocopus (d. 710 or 711), caused ravenna and its Archbishop, Felix (709–717?, 724?), seeing the misfortunes as retribution for Felix's insubordination at the time of his consecration by Constantine. The Liber indicates that Milan's metropolitan, Archbishop Benedict (685–732), withdrew his protest against papal consecration of the bishop of Pavia. But most of the Liber's account deals with Constantine's visit (October 710 to October 711) to the East on the invitation of Emperor justinian ii, who warmly received the pope at Nicomedia. Their conversations are unrecorded, but they may well have treated of the relationship between Ravenna and the papacy and of the papal attitude toward the quinisext synod (692). When Justinian was assassinated (Dec. 711) and was succeeded by philippicus, who supported monothelitism, Constantine refused to recognize the new incumbent. Reprisals were avoided, however, when Philippicus was deposed (June 713) and the new emperor, Anastasius II, forwarded to the pope his orthodox profession of faith. According to Bede (Ecclesiastical History 5.19), the Mercian King Coinred and the East Saxon Prince Offa made their monastic profession at Rome in 709 during Constantine's pontificate.

Bibliography: Liber pontificalis, ed. l. duchesne (Paris 1886–92) 1:389–395, cf. 396; 3:99. p. jaffÉ, Regesta pontificum romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum 1198 (Graz 1956) 1:247–249. h. k. mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages from 590 to 1304 (London 1902–32) 1.2:127–140. e. caspar, Geschichte de Papsttums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft (Tubingen 1930–33) 2:638–643. o. bertolini, Roma di fronte a Bisanzio e ai Longobardi (Bologna 1941) 413–423, 767–768. j. haller, Das Papsttum (Stuttgart 1950–53) 1:349–351, g. bardy, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912) 13:589–591. g. ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (Oxford 1956) 122–127, 135–137. r. aubert, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1995). a. breukelaar, Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 4 (1992). p. novara, Dizionario biografico delgi italiani 46 (Rome 1996). s. scholz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3d. ed. (1997). j. n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 85–86.

[h. g. j. beck]