Background

Damasus was born around 326 in Cauca, in Hispania (modern day Coca, Spain), to a professional christian military family later headed by his older brother Roman General Theodosius the Elder and his wife Thermantia.

The crucial fact of his blood relation as uncle to Emperor Theodosius I (379-395) was removed completely from revisions to the Liber Pontificalis ("Lives of the Popes") and even his birthplace in Spain was changed to Portugal.

Around the time of the beginning of his Papacy, the Roman Church had gone through a period of irrelevance as the true seat of Christian power had resided in the Papal Throne of Constantinople. With Rome considered under the first Byzantine rulers to be a mere provincial capital, there is even strong evidence that the position of Bishop (Pope) of Rome was vacant for some periods during the first half of the 4th Century - a fact removed from history through the ficticious revisions of the Liber Pontificalis ("Lives of the Popes").

The reign of Pope Damasus is notable as a reign of supreme terror as the Roman Christian Church rose to an all encompassing power again against anything and anyone that stood in its way under the Theodosian Dynasty.

While the character and exploits of his brother General Theodosius the Elder, who was later promoted to the position of Count, have been filtered, contemporary historian Ammianus considered General Theodosius the Elder to be an unyielding tyrant who relished brutal military discipline.

When Theodosius the Elder was promoted to senior military rank in Rome by Valentinian around 364, it is almost certain that Damasus used the opportunity to come to Rome. While no record survives, it is presumably around the same date that he was promoted through his family connection to senior position within the clergy.

When Pope Liberius died in 366, his legitimate son by marriage, Ursinus was fully expected to become the next Pope. However, Count Theodosius used his position and power to convince the upper-class christian nobility to support the candidacy of his brother Damasus, while the clergy and laity supported Ursinus.

Neither side retreated from their position and both Damasus and Ursinus were elected as Popes at the same time by their separate supporter base. A series of riots, assassinations and battles then ensued over the following months until Ursinus was finally banished in 367.

It is admitted that Damasus faced accusations of both murder and adultery during his years as Pope. There is also the small matter of an Imperial Trial before Emperor Gratian in 383 where virtually all his bishops signed a warrant against accussing him of the very worst of satanic crimes.

He escaped the charges and had all his bishops murdered. But a year later himself was dead.

Damasus is claimed as the first Pope to refer to Rome as the "Apostolic See" and convinced the Imperial Court to recognize it as a legitimate court and secondlt as the tribunal of appeal for the entire Western Christian Church.

To his secretary St. Jerome, Damasus was “an incomparable person, learned in the Scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin Church, who loved chastity and heard its praises with pleasure.”

Damasus seldom heard such unrestrained praise. Internal political struggles, doctrinal heresies, uneasy relations with his fellow bishops and those of the Eastern Church marred the peace of his pontificate.

The son of a Roman priest, possibly of Spanish extraction, Damasus started as a deacon in his father’s church, and served as a priest in what later became the basilica of San Lorenzo in Rome. He served Pope Liberius (352-366) and followed him into exile.

When Liberius died, Damasus was elected bishop of Rome; but a minority elected and consecrated another deacon, Ursinus, as pope. The controversy between Damasus and the antipope resulted in violent battles in two basilicas, scandalizing the bishops of Italy. At the synod Damasus called on the occasion of his birthday, he asked them to approve his actions. The bishops’ reply was curt: “We assembled for a birthday, not to condemn a man unheard.” Supporters of the antipope even managed to get Damasus accused of a grave crime—probably sexual—as late as A.D. 378. He had to clear himself before both a civil court and a Church synod.

As pope his lifestyle was simple in contrast to other ecclesiastics of Rome, and he was fierce in his denunciation of Arianism and other heresies. A misunderstanding of the Trinitarian terminology used by Rome threatened amicable relations with the Eastern Church, and Damasus was only moderately successful in dealing with the situation.

During his pontificate Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman state (380), and Latin became the principal liturgical language as part of the pope’s reforms. His encouragement of St. Jerome’s biblical studies led to the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Scripture which the Council of Trent (12 centuries later) declared to be “authentic in public readings, disputations, preachings.”

(1 Oct. 366 — 11 Dec. 384)
Born in Rome c. 305, he was son of Antonius who rose to be priest and possibly a bishop, and whose home became the church later known as S. Lorenzo in Damaso, and of a mother Laurentia; he had a sister Irene. A deacon under Liberius, he accompanied him into exile in 355 but soon found his way back to Rome where, in defiance of the oath of the Roman clergy not to recognize anyone else as pope while Liberius was alive, he took service with Antipope Felix II. When Liberius was allowed to return in 358, Damasus became at some point reconciled with him. On Liberius' death on 24 Sept. 366 violent disorders broke out over the choice of a successor.

A group who had remained consistently loyal to Liberius immediately elected his deacon Ursinus in the Julian basilica and had him consecrated bishop, but a rival and larger faction of Felix's adherents met in what is now San Lorenzo in Lucina and elected Damasus, who did not hesitate to consolidate his claim by hiring a gang of thugs, storming the Julian basilica and carrying out a three-day massacre of Ursinians. On Sunday, 1 Oct. his partisans seized the Lateran basilica, and he was there consecrated. He then sought the help of the city prefect (the first occasion of a pope enlisting the civil power against his adversaries), and he promptly expelled Ursinus and his followers from Rome. Mob violence continued until 26 Oct., when Damasus' men attacked the Liberian basilica, where the Ursinians had sought refuge; the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they left 137 dead on the field.

Damasus was now secure on his throne; but the bishops of Italy were shocked by the reports they received, and his moral authority was weakened for several years. The antipope and his adherents, though repeatedly banished by the government, kept up continuous attacks on him throughout his reign. In about 371, through a converted Jew named Isaac, they brought a 'disgraceful charge', probably of adultery, against him, and only the emperor's intervention secured his acquittal.

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In spite of these embarrassments, Damasus enjoyed the favour of court and aristocracy, not least of wealthy ladies; gossips nicknamed him 'the matrons' ear-tickler'. His magnificent lifestyle and hospitality helped to break down the anti-Christian prejudices of upper-class pagan families, though his closeness to the aristocracy was a source of criticism, especially from the followers of Ursinus. He was active in repressing heresies, including Arianism, and in 378 did not scruple to call in the secular power against the Donatist community in Rome; but he failed to dislodge Auxentius (d. 374), the Arianizing bishop of Milan. His measures against the intransigently Nicene disciples of Lucifer of Cagliari (d. 370/1) were particularly brutal. ‬

‪In 380 he counselled moderation in dealing with Priscillianism, an esoteric Spanish heresy with dualist and Sabellian traits, but at successive synods he anathematized Apollinarianism (which claimed that the Logos took the place of the human mind in the God-man) and Macedonianism (which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit). His relations with the eastern churches, however, where Basil the Great (d. 379) was striving to restore orthodoxy on the basis of a subtle restatement of Nicene doctrine, were less than happy. ‬

‪Like the west generally, he failed to understand the new developments and, when Antioch was split between rival bishops, persisted in backing Paulinus, the unrepresentative leader of a reactionary group, instead of Meletius, on whom eastern hopes for unity were centred; when Meletius died in 381, he refused to enter into communion with his successor Flavian. In despair Basil described him as impossibly arrogant. He took no part in the ecumenical council (the second) held at Constantinople in 381, and made no contribution to the constructive détente between east and west which was now under way.‬

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Damasus was indefatigable in promoting the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as 'the apostolic see', an expression inherited from Pope Liberius, and ruling that the test of a creed's orthodoxy was its endorsement by the pope. In 378 he persuaded the government to recognize the holy see as a court of first instance and also of appeal for the western episcopate, but it declined to admit any special immunity for the pope himself from the civil courts. In tune with his ideas, Theodosius I (379 — 95) declared (27 Feb. 380) Christianity the state religion in that form which the Romans had once received from St Peter and Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria now professed; for Damasus this primacy was not based on decisions of synods, as were the claims of Constantinople, but exclusively on his being the direct successor of St Peter and so the rightful heir of the promises made to him by Christ (Matt. 16: 18). 

This succession gave him a unique juridical power to bind and loose, and the assurance of this infused all his rulings on church discipline. Much to Damasus' annoyance, however, canon 6 of the council of Constantinople endorsed the claim of the church of Constantinople to the second place of honour in the ranks of the churches, because it was the 'new Rome'. He was also a builder of churches (including S. Lorenzo in Damaso), advanced the cult of the martyrs, and restored the catacombs, making them much easier for the faithful to visit, with the aim of demonstrating that the real glory of Rome was not pagan but Christian. 

A man of cultivated interests, he organized and rehoused the papal archives. He made friends with St Jerome, employed him as his secretary for several years, corresponded with him on points of exegesis, and commissioned him to revise the existing Latin translations of the gospels on the basis of the original Greek. He himself composed epigrams in sonorous, if turgid, verse, mostly in honour of martyrs and previous popes, and had them inscribed on marble slabs in the elegant lettering of his friend Filocalus; and St Jerome attributes to him essays in prose and verse on virginity. He was buried in a church he had built on the Via Ardeatina, but his remains were later transferred to S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Feast 11 Dec.

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Christianity in the 4th century - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georgian Orthodox Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

‪Georgian Orthodox Church‬

‪The Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Georgian: საქართველოს სამოციქულო ავტოკეფალური მართლმადიდებელი ეკლესია, sak’art’velos samots’ik’ulo avt’okep’aluri mart’lmadidebeli eklesia) is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church. It is Georgia's dominant religious institution, and a majority of Georgian people affirm their membership in the Church. It asserts apostolic foundation, and its historical roots can be traced to the conversion of the Kingdom of Iberia to Christianity in the 4th century AD. Christianity, as embodied by the Church, was the state religion of Georgia until 1921, when a constitutional change separated church and state.[3]‬
‪The Georgian Orthodox Church is in full communion with the other churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. Its autocephaly is recognized by other Orthodox bodies, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople since 1990. As in similar autocephalous Orthodox churches, the Church's highest governing body is the Holy Synod of bishops. It is headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia. The current Patriarch is Ilia II, who was elected in 1977.‬
‪The Constitution of Georgia recognizes the special role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the country's history, but also stipulates the independence of the Church from the State. The relations between them are regulated by the Constitutional Agreement of 2002. It is the only religious institution to have received official recognition in Georgia.‬

‪History‬

‪Origins‬

‪Traditions regarding Christianity's first appearance in Iberia and Colchis‬

‪The propagation of Christianity in present-day Georgia before the 4th century is still poorly known. The first documented event in this process is the preaching of Saint Nino and its consequences, although exact dates are still debated. Saint Nino, honored as Equal to the Apostles, was according to tradition the daughter of a Roman general from Cappadocia. She preached in the kingdom of Iberia (also known as Kartli) in the first half of the 4th century, and her intercession eventually led to the conversion of King Mirian III, his wife Queen (later Saint) Nana and their family. Cyril Toumanoff dates the conversion of Mirian to 334, his official baptism and subsequent adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Iberia to 337.[6]‬
‪The royal baptism and organization of the Church were accomplished by priests sent from Constantinople by Constantine the Great. Conversion of the people of Kartli proceeded quickly in the plains, but pagan beliefs long subsisted in mountain regions. The western kingdom of Egrisi was politically and culturally distinct from Kartli at that time, and culturally more integrated into the Roman Empire; some of its cities already had bishops by the time of the First Council of Nicea (325).‬
‪[edit]‬
‪Expansion and Transformation of the Church‬
‪The conversion of Kartli marked only the beginnings of the formation of the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the next centuries, different processes took place that shaped the Church, and gave it, by the beginning of the 11th century, the main characteristics that it has retained until now. Those processes concern the institutional status of the Church inside Eastern Christianity, its evolution into a national church with authority over all of Georgia, and the dogmatic evolution of the church.‬

‪Acheiropoieta (Byzantine Greek: αχειροποίητα, "made without hand"; singular acheiropoieton) — also called Icons Made Without Hands (and variants) — are a particular kind of icon which are said to have come into existence miraculously, not created by a human painter. Invariably these are images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. The most notable examples are, in the Eastern church the Image of Edessa or Mandylion, and in the West, the Veil of Veronica and the Shroud of Turin.‬


‪Such images functioned as powerful relics as well as icons, and their images were naturally seen as especially authoritative as to the true appearance of the subject. Like icons believed to be painted from the live subject, they therefore acted as important references for other images in the tradition. They therefore were copied on an enormous scale, and the belief that such images existed, and authenticated certain facial types, played an important role in the conservatism of the Byzantine tradition. Beside, and conflated with, the developed legend of the Image of Edessa, was the tale of the Veil of Veronica, whose very name signifies "true icon" or "true image", the fear of a "false image" remaining strong.‬


‪Acheiropoieta of 836‬
‪Such icons were seen as powerful arguments against iconoclasm. In a document apparently produced in the circle of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which purports to be the record of a (fictitious) Church council of 836, a list of acheiropoieta and icons miraculously protected is given as evidence for divine approval of icons. The acheiropoieta listed are:‬
‪1. the Image of Edessa, described as still at Edessa;‬
‪2. the image of the Virgin at Lydda in Israel, which was said to have miraculously appeared imprinted on a column of a church built by the apostles Peter and John;‬
‪3. another image of the Virgin, three cubits high, at Lydda in what is now Israel, which was said to have miraculously appeared in another church.‬
‪The nine other miracles listed deal with the maintenance rather than creation of icons, which resist or repair the attacks of assorted pagans, Arabs, Persians, scoffers, madmen, iconoclasts and Jews.‬
‪This list seems to have had a regional bias, as other then-famous images are not mentioned, such as the Christ of Camuliana, later brought to the capital. Another example, and the only one which indisputably still exists, is a mosaic of the young Christ from the sixth century in the church of the Latomos monastery in Thessaloniki (now dedicated to Saint David). This was apparently covered by plaster during the Iconoclastic period, towards the end of which an earthquake caused the plaster to fall down, revealing the image (during the reign of Leo V, 813-20). However, this was only a subsidiary miracle, according to the account we have. This says that the mosaic was being constructed secretly, during the 4th century persecution of Galerius, as an image of the Virgin, when it suddenly was transformed overnight into the present image of Christ.‬

‪Born in Alexandria into a poor family, Maximus was the son of Christian parents, who had suffered on account of their religion; but whether from Pagan or Arian violence is not clear. Maximus united the faith of an orthodox believer with the garb and deportment of a Cynic philosopher. He was initially held in great respect by the leading theologians of the orthodox party. Athanasius, in a letter written about 371,[1] pays him several compliments on a work written in defence of the orthodox faith.‬

‪In 374, during the reign of the emperor Valens, in the persecution carried on by Lucius, Arian patriarch of Alexandria, Maximus was flogged, and banished to the Oasis, on account of his zeal for orthodoxy and the aid he offered to those who suffered in the same cause.[2] He obtained his release in about four years, probably on the death of Valens; and sometime after his release he presented to the emperor Gratian at Milan, his work, Περὶ τῆς πίστεως, De Fide, written against the Arians.‬

‪He wrote also against other heretics, but whether in the same work or in another is not clear;[2] and disputed against the pagans.[2] Apparently on his return from Milan he visited Constantinople, where Gregory of Nazianzus had just been appointed to the patriarchate (379). Gregory received him with the highest honour; and delivered a panegyrical oration (Oration 25), in the man's own presence in full church, before the celebration of the Eucharist. He received him at his table, and treated him with the greatest confidence and regard. He was, however, grievously disappointed in him. Whether the events which followed were the results solely of the ambition of Maximus, or whether Maximus was himself the tool of others, is not clear. Taking advantage of the sickness of Gregory, and supported by some Egyptian ecclesiastics, sent by Peter II, Patriarch of Alexandria, under whose directions they professed to act, Maximus was ordained, during the night, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the place of Gregory, whose election had not been perfectly canonical. The conspirators chose a night in when Gregory was confined by illness, burst into the cathedral, and commenced the consecration. They had set Maximus on the archiepiscopal throne and had just begun shearing away his long curls when the day dawned. The news quickly spread and everybody rushed to the church. The magistrates appeared with their officers; Maximus and his consecrators were driven from the cathedral, and in the tenement of a flute-player the tonsure was completed.‬

‪This audacious proceeding excited the greatest indignation among the people, with whom Gregory was popular. Maximus withdrew to Thessalonica to lay his cause before the emperor Theodosius I. He met with a cold reception from the emperor, who committed the matter to Ascholius, the much respected bishop of Thessalonica, charging him to refer it to Pope Damasus I. Two letters from Damasus asked for special care that a Catholic bishop maybe ordained.[3] Maximus returned to Alexandria, and demanded that Peter should assist him in re-establishing himself at Constantinople. Peter appealed to the prefect, by whom Maximus was driven out of Egypt.[4]‬

‪As the death of Peter and the accession of Timothy I of Alexandria are dated to February 14, 380, these events must have occurred in 379. The resignation of Gregory, who was succeeded in the patriarchate of Constantinople by Nectarius, did not benefit Maximus. When the First Council of Constantinople met in 381, Maximus's claim to the see of Constantinople was unanimously rejected, the last of its original four canons decreeing "that he neither was nor is a bishop, nor are they who have been ordained by him in any rank of the clergy".[5]‬

‪Maximus appealed from the Eastern to the Western church. In the autumn of 381 a synod held either at Aquileia or at Milan under Ambrose's presidency considered Maximus's claims. Having only his own representations to guide them, and there being no question that Gregory's translation was uncanonical, while the election of Nectarius was open to grave censure as that of an unbaptized layman, Maximus also exhibiting letters from Peter the late venerable patriarch, to confirm his asserted communion with the church of Alexandria, the Italian bishops pronounced in favour of Maximus and refused to recognize either Gregory or Nectarius. A letter of Ambrose and his brother-prelates to Theodosius[6] remonstrates against the acts of Nectarius as no rightful bishop, since the chair of Constantinople belonged to Maximus, whose restoration they demanded, as well as that a general council of Easterns and Westerns, to settle the disputed episcopate and that of Antioch, should be held at Rome. In 382 a provincial synod held at Rome, having received more accurate information, finally rejected Maximus's claims.[7]‬

‪The invectives of Gregory of Nazianzus against Maximus[8] were written after their struggle for the patriarchate, and contrast starkly with the praises of his twenty-fifth Oration. The work of Maximus, De Fide, which is well spoken of by Jerome, is lost.‬

‪Gratian (pron.: /ˈɡreɪʃən/; Latin: Flavius Gratianus Augustus;[1] 18 April/23 May 359 – 25 August 383) was Roman Emperor from 375 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, during his youth Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Upon the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian's brother Valentinian II was declared emperor by his father's soldiers. In 378, Gratian's generals won a decisive victory over the Lentienses, a branch of the Alamanni, at the Battle of Argentovaria. Gratian subsequently led a campaign across the Rhine, the last emperor to do so, and attacked the Lentienses, forcing the tribe to surrender. That same year, his uncle Valens was killed in the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths – making Gratian essentially ruler of the entire Roman Empire. He favoured Christianity over traditional Roman religion, refusing the divine attributes of the Emperors and removing the Altar of Victory from the Roman Senate.‬



‪Empire and Orthodox Christianity‬

‪The reign of Gratian forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history, since during that period Orthodox Christianity for the first time became dominant throughout the empire.‬
‪Gratian also published an edict that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith). The move was mainly thrust at the various beliefs that had arisen out of Arianism, but smaller dissident sects, such as the Macedonians, were also prohibited.‬

‪Suppression of Paganism‬

‪Gratian, under the influence of his chief advisor the Bishop of Milan Ambrose,[4][5] took active steps to repress Pagan worship.[6][7] This brought to an end a period of widespread, if unofficial, religious tolerance that had existed since the time of Julian.[8] "In the long truce between the hostile camps", writes historian Samuel Dill "the pagan, the sceptic, even the formal, the lukewarm Christian, may have come to dream of a mutual toleration which would leave the ancient forms undisturbed but such men, living in a world of literary and antiquarian illusions, know little of the inner forces of the new Christian movement."[9][10]‬

‪In 382, Gratian appropriated the income of the Pagan priests and Vestal Virgins, forbade legacies of real property to them and abolished other privileges belonging to the Vestals and to the pontiffs. He confiscated the personal possessions of the colleges of Pagan priests, which also lost all their privileges and immunities. Gratian declared that all of the Pagan temples and shrines were to be confiscated by the government and that their revenues were to be joined to the property of the royal treasury.[11]‬

‪He ordered another removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate House at Rome, despite protests of the pagan members of the Senate, and confiscated its revenues.[12][13] Pagan Senators responded by sending an appeal to Gratian, reminding him that he was still the Pontifex Maximus and that it was his duty to see that the Pagan rites were properly performed. They appealed to Gratian to restore the Altar of Victory and the rights and privileges of the Vestal Virgins and priestly colleges. Gratian, at the urging of Ambrose, did not grant an audience to the Pagan Senators. In response to being reminded by the Pagans that he was still the head of the ancestral religion, Gratian refused to wear the insignia of the Pontifex Maximus as unbefitting a Christian, renouncing the title and office of Pontifex Maximus under the influence of Ambrose, declaring that it was unsuitable for a Christian to hold this office. Gratian was quickly faced with a revolt from Magnus Maximus to the throne because he was more sympathetic to the Pagan cause.‬

‪Notwithstanding his actions, Gratian was still deified after his death.‬



‪Religion‬

• Tyconius writes a commentary on the Bible's Book of Revelation.‬
• A cathedral is built in Trier (Germany).‬
• The Council of Saragossa is held; Spanish and Aquitanian bishops condemn the teachings of          Priscillianism.‬
• Ambrose introduces popular music into church services.‬
381‬ By place‬

Roman Empire‬

• Emperor Gratian moves the capital to Mediolanum (modern Milan). Because of his Christian beliefs,  he eliminates Pontifex Maximus as Imperial title. Gratian also refuses the robe of office. Insulting the  pagan aristocrats of Rome.‬
• The Gallic city of Cularo is renamed Gratianopolis (later Grenoble). In honor of Gratian to have created a Bishopric.‬