Pope Adrian II

Pope Adrian II
Bishop of Rome
Church	Catholic Church
Diocese	Rome
See	Holy See
Papacy began	14 December 867[1]
Papacy ended	14 December 872
Predecessor	Nicholas I
Successor	John VIII
Personal details
Born	792 (0792) Rome, Papal States
Died	December 14, 872(872-12-14) (aged 79–80) Rome, Papal States
Other popes named Adrian

Pope Adrian II (Latin: Adrianus II; 792 – 14 December 872) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 867 to his death. He continued the policy of his predecessor, Nicholas I. Despite seeking good relations with Louis II of Italy, he was placed under surveillance, and his wife and daughters were killed by Louis' supporters.

Family[]

Adrian was a member of a noble Roman family. In his youth, he married a woman named Stephania and had a daughter with her.^[2] Adrian was selected to become pope on 14 December 867. He was already at an advanced age, and objected to assuming the papacy.^[3] His wife and daughter moved with him to the Lateran Palace.^[4]

Pontificate[]

Adrian II maintained, but with less energy, the policies of his predecessor, Nicholas I. King Lothair II of Lotharingia, who died in 869, left Adrian to mediate between the Frankish kings with a view to secure the imperial inheritance to Lothair's brother Louis II of Italy.^[5] Adrian sought to maintain good relations with Louis, since the latter's campaigns in southern Italy had the potential to free the papacy from the threat posed by the Muslims.^[6]

Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople, shortly after the council in which he had pronounced sentence of deposition against Pope Nicholas I, was driven from the patriarchate by a new Byzantine emperor, Basil the Macedonian, who favoured Photius' rival, Ignatius. The Fourth Council of Constantinople was convoked to decide this matter. At this council Adrian was represented by legates who presided at the condemnation of Photius as a heretic, but did not succeed in coming to an understanding with Ignatius on the subject of jurisdiction over the Bulgarian Church.^[5]

Like Nicholas I, Adrian was forced to submit in temporal affairs to the interference of Emperor Louis II, who placed him under the surveillance of Bishop Arsenius of Orte, his confidential adviser, and Arsenius' nephew Anastasius the Librarian.^[5] In 868, Adrian's wife and daughter were carried off and murdered by Arsenius' son Eleutherius, who had forcibly married the daughter.^[7]

Adrian died on 14 December 872, after exactly five years of pontificate.^[5]

See also[]

• List of sexually active popes

References[]

Further reading[]

• Dvornik, Francis (1948). The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Siecienski, Anthony Edward (2010). The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195372045.

External links[]

• Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Adrian s.v. II". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 215.
• Loughlin, James Francis (1907). "Pope Adrian II" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.