Saint Sergius I

Upon the death of the sovereign pont iff Conon, the people of Rome divided into two factions: one chose the archpriest Theodore, the other the arc hdeaco n Paschal. The struggle continued with cruel obstinacy; finally, the votes turned to the venerable priest Sergius. He was pulled from the midst of the crowd to be led to the oratory of the blessed martyr Caesarius, where he was proclaimed pontiff. The archpriest Theodore humbly made his submission; the archdeacon Paschal resisted: he was deposed and confined to a monastery where he died, five years later (692), in final impenitence.

In the time of Sergius, the Em peror Jus tinian gathered a council in Constantinople attended by the apocrisiaries of the Apostolic See; by deceiving their good faith, their signatures were obtained. They then sought the signature of Sergius; but he energetically refused it, because a certain number of canons, contrary to all ecclesiastical rules, had been fraudulently added. This council has been called in Trullo, because it was held under the dome of the emperor's palace; it has also been named Quinisext, in that it was intended to be a supplement to the fifth and sixth general councils.

On the pontifical throne, Sergius did not remain inactive. A notable portion o f the wood of the True Cross, enclosed in a silver reliquary and relegated until then to the sacristy of Saint Peter's, was placed by him in the Constantinian basilica, where, each year, on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, it is offered for the adoration and kissing of the faithful people. Sergius donated to the Vatican basilica the large gold statue of the blessed apostle Peter; the silver chair, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds, which is admired in the apse of the church, is also a gift from this pontiff, as are the six lampstands of the same metal that decorate the entrance to the confession. The body of the blessed pontiff Leo I, which had remained until then in its original burial place at the entrance of the Secretarium, was transferred by him to the interior of the basilica, into a beautiful mausole um. He or dered, by a pontifical constitution, that the Agnus Dei should be sung alternately by the clergy and the people before communion; he instituted for the feasts of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Assumption, and the Purification, a litany that was to depart from the church of Saint Hadrian to proceed to Saint Mary Major.

After other works still, all undertaken for the greater glory of God, Sergius fell asleep in the Lord, after a pontificate of thirteen years, eight months, and twenty-three days, and was buried in the Vatican.

Excerpt from the Liber Pontific alis. — Cf. Durcas, Histoire générale de l'Église, vol. XVI, p. 411.

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