St. Silverius

SAINT SILVERIUS
Pope and Martyr
(†538)
Silverius was son of Pope Hormisdas, who had been married before he entered the ministry. Upon the death of Saint Agapetas, and after a vacancy of forty-seven days, Silverius, then subdeacon, was elected Pope and consecrated on the 8^th of June, 536, despite maneuvers on the part of heretics opposed to the Council of Chalcedon.

The heretical empress Theodora, resolved to win Silverius over to her interests, wrote to him, ordering that he should either acknowledge as lawful bishop the Eutychian heretic Anthimus, who had been deposed as patriarch of Constantinople, or come in person to Constantinople and reexamine his cause. Without the least hesitation or delay, Silverius returned her a short answer, by which he gave her to understand that he neither could nor would obey her unjust demands, which would be to countermand his predecessor's decision and betray the cause of the Catholic faith.

The empress, finding that she could expect nothing from him, resolved to have him deposed. Vigilius, archdeacon of the Roman Church, a man of diplomacy, was then at Constantinople. To this ambitious ecclesiastic the empress exposed her wishes, and promised to make him pope and to bestow on him seven hundred pieces of gold, if he would engage himself to condemn the Council of Chalcedon and receive into Communion the three deposed Eutychian patriarchs. Vigilius assented to these conditions, and the empress sent him to Rome, charged with a letter to the Roman general Belisarius, commanding him to drive out Silverius and contrive the election of Vigilius to the pontificate.

Vigilius urged the general to execute this project. In order to implement it, the Pope was accused of corresponding with the enemy, and a forged letter was produced, supposedly written by him to the king of the Goths, inviting him to the city and promising to open the gates to him. These dealings succeeded; Vigilius was made Pope, and Silverius was banished to Patara in Lycia.

The bishop of Patara received the illustrious exile with all possible marks of honor and respect, and thinking himself bound to undertake his defense, journeyed to Constantinople and spoke boldly to the emperor Justinian. He terrified him with threats of divine judgments for the expulsion of a bishop of so great a see, telling him, "There are many kings in the world, but there is only one Pope over the Church of the whole world." Justinian appeared startled at the atrocity of the proceedings and gave orders that Silverius be sent back to Rome. The enemies of the Pope contrived to prevent this, however, and he was intercepted on his road toward Rome and transported to the deserted island of Palmeria, where he died of hunger a year later, on the 20^th of June, 538 and was buried.

It was perhaps in response to the martyred pope's prayers that after his death the usurper of the pontifical throne, Vigilius, though he had wished to step down, was forced to remain in function and then transformed, like Saul of Tarsus, into another man. He exercised the pastoral duties with as much courage, piety, zeal and faith, as he formerly had used violence, avarice and cruelty during his predecessor's lifetime. The traitor Belisarius was accused of conspiracy against the emperor, stripped of all he had, and his eyes put out; he was obliged to beg for alms in Constantinople. But he too repented and built a church with an inscription over the door which was a public reparation for his fault.
(Eutychianism was an early heresy which maintained that Jesus Christ was of one nature only.
The heresy was named after Eutyches of Constantinople, who tried in the year 433 to make the 12 Anathemas of Cyril of Alexandria the standard of orthodoxy and do away with the "inspired man" Christology of Antioch. Another goal was to make Alexandria, instead of Constantinople, the second most powerful see in Christendom (next to Rome).
The view of Eutyches was that Christ had only one nature - a confused mixture of human and divine. Eutycianism is also known as monophysitism from monos (single) and physis (nature). It assumes that Christ can have only one nature, which is a mixture of divine nature and human natures, such that the human becomes divine and the divine human. This confuses both Christ’s true humanity and his true deity. The view was officially deemed heresy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE.)

Another take on the saint:

Theodora, the wife of Emperor Justinian, had named to the see of Constantinople Bishop Anthimus, a partisan of the Monophysite heresy. The Empress then asked that her choice be approved by Rome, but Pope Agapitus deposed Bishop Anthimus and condemned his followers.

St. Agapitus died in 536 and Pope Silverius was chosen as his successor. Theodora attempted again to have her candidate approved by Rome, but she received a negative answer a second time. So she ordered General Belisarius to use force against the Pope to obtain what she desired.

In December 536 General Belisarius went to Rome. Seeing that it was surrounded by the Goths, instead of attacking both the city and the barbarians, he began to spread rumors against the Pope. By means of a forged letter, the Pope was accused of a treasonable agreement and behavior with the Gothic king besieging Rome.

Belisarius

St. Silverius did not shake before this pressure, and still refused to carry out Empress’ wishes. Nonetheless, the Pope was forced to leave his palace and find safer shelter in the Church of St. Sabina.

There he was contacted by representatives of the Greek general, who gave him the guarantee he could return to the papal palace without incident. He trusted the word of these representatives, but they were lying. The Pope was kidnapped and exiled to the Island of Ponza in March 537. He died a little more than two years later on June 20, 539 as a consequence of the bad treatment he had received.

Comments of Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira:

You can see in this selection the difficult fight of the Pontiffs against the heresies. You also can observe the false, cruel and violent behavior the heretics used against the Roman Pontiff.

The Empress Theodora was a protector of the heresy

The heretics of Constantinople used every means they could against St. Silverius. However, they did not achieve their goal because St. Silverius remained faithful. From this episode you can see how great the bad faith of those heretics was.

First, the bad faith of Theodora, the Empress, who was a detestable woman constantly trying to impose heretics as archbishops of Constantinople. She ordered brute force be used to oblige the Pope to approve her candidate.

Second, the bad faith of General Belisarius and his officers. They realized they could not use military force against the Pontiff because the Roman people would defend him. So instead, they spread malicious rumors about him in order to change public opinion. Because of these rumors, the Pope had to move to a different place. Then they sent deceitful ambassadors to the Pope giving him the guarantee that nothing would happen if he would return to the papal palace. He did so, and they kidnapped him.

Something we should always consider is how the sin of heresy is a sin with a supreme malice. Heresy is the worst sin since it is a sin against the Faith. Every man who knows the Catholic Church has the sufficient grace to know that she is the True Church of God. If he refuses to see this, it is because he refuses the truth known as such. The primary of these truths is that the Catholic Church is the only true Church. Therefore, the heretics – like these Monophysite heretics of Byzantium – who had known the Catholic Church and denied her, were in bad faith.

That bad faith generated the other iniquities you heard about in this selection – falseness, cruelty, kidnapping the Pope, and finally his death as a consequence of the bad treatment he received.

What is necessary for a heretic to know the Catholic Church? It is enough, for example, to have seen the example of pious Catholics, participated in various ceremonies as they used to be, heard her chant and considered her elevation, her seriousness, her maternal goodness. If a heretic considers this ensemble, he has conditions to realize that she is a full of wisdom and divine.

Our Lord is represented as a warrior in a mosaic in Ravenna

The right thing to do is to show these facets of the Church to the heretic. It should be enough to move not only a Protestant, but also a Schismatic, a Jew, a Muslim etc.

Someone could object to me: This is not the ensemble of the doctrine and teachings of the Church that a person should know to convert. I would reply: You can observe the whole sun reflected in a drop of water, can’t you? The same happens with the Catholic Church. The ensemble of her truth and sanctity can be reflected, and actually is reflected, in the facets I pointed out as examples.

The wrong thing to do is to try to attract the heretic with an ecumenical approach, with little smiles and trying to find common points. No one converts because he finds common points. He changes when he sees the points he is missing.

But if the heretic refuses to accept the Catholic Church, he should be fought and publicly defeated, to prevent his evil from contaminating others. This is not to deny the teachings of Our Lord. Against evil and its followers we should use the whip Our Lord used in the Temple; we should apply the zealous words He spelled out against the hypocritical Pharisees; we should use the sword of fire of St. Michael the Archangel. And we should keep these bad people out of the Catholic Church.

This enmity between the heretics and the Catholic Church is the enmity of which St. Louis Grignon of Montfort speaks. It will exist for all times between the sons of the serpent and the sons of the Virgin. He says that this enmity was created by God when He said: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Gen 3:13-15).Therefore, St. Louis Grignon affirms, this enmity was decreed by God Himself, Who only does the most perfect things. It is this mentality of combativeness and vigilance that makes the Church a Militant Church.

These are some considerations suggested by the life of Pope St. Silverius.