Николас I: Рим Папасы және оның билігі

Head of the Catholic Church from 858 to 867

Pope Nicholas I (Nicolaus I; c. 800 – 13 November 867), called Nicholas the Great, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority, exerting decisive influence on the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe. Nicholas I asserted that the pope should have suzerainty over all Christians, even royalty, in matters of faith and morals. Nicholas refused King Lothair II of Lotharingia's request for an annulment of his marriage to Teutberga. When a council pronounced in favor of annulment, Nicholas I declared the council deposed, its messengers excommunicated, and its decisions invalid. Despite pressure from the Carolingians, who laid siege to Rome, his decision held. During his reign, relations with the Byzantine Empire soured because of his support for Patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople, who had been removed from his post in favor of Photius I. Since the seventeenth century, Nicholas has been venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, with his feast on 13 November. His claims of supremacy over territories outside his jurisdiction, the incorporation of the filioque in the Constantinopolitan Nicene creed, and his pressure on Bulgaria to remain under Roman rule, provoked tensions between Rome and Constantinople, leading to his excommunication by the Greeks at the fourth Council of Constantinople.

Born to a distinguished family in Rome, son of the Defensor Theodore, Nicholas received excellent education. Distinguished for his piety, benevolence, competence, knowledge, and eloquence, he entered the service of the Church at an early age. Pope Sergius II (844–847) made him a subdeacon and Pope Leo IV (847–855) a deacon. After the death of Pope Benedict III on 7 April 858, Louis II of Italy came to Rome to influence the papal election. On 24 April Nicholas was elected pope, consecrated, and enthroned in St. Peter's Basilica in the presence of Emperor Louis. Three days later, Nicholas held a farewell banquet for the emperor and afterward, accompanied by the Roman nobility, visited him in his camp before the city, on which occasion the emperor met the pope and led his horse for some distance.

To a spiritually exhausted and politically uncertain Western Europe beset by Muslim and Norse incursions, Pope Nicholas appeared as a conscientious representative of Roman primacy in the Church. He was filled with a high conception of his mission for the vindication of Christian morality and the defence of God's law. He also strengthened the Ostian fortifications against any future Muslim raids.

Archbishop John of Ravenna oppressed the inhabitants of the Papal States, treated his suffragan bishops with violence, made unjust demands upon them for money, and illegally imprisoned priests. He also forged documents to support his claims against the Roman See and maltreated the papal legates. As the warnings of the pope were without result, and the archbishop ignored a thrice repeated summons to appear before the papal tribunal, he was excommunicated. Having first visited the Emperor Louis at Pavia, the archbishop repaired with two imperial delegates to Rome, where Nicholas cited him before the Roman synod assembled in the autumn of 860. Upon this John fled from Rome. the emperor withdrew from Rome and commanded the former archbishops of Trier and Cologne to return to their homes. Nicholas never ceased his efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Lothair and his wife. Another matrimonial case in which Nicholas interposed was that of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who had married Count Baldwin I of Flanders without her father's consent. Frankish bishops had excommunicated Judith, and Hincmar of Reims had taken sides against her, but Nicholas urged leniency in order to protect freedom of marriage.

In the East, Nicholas was seen as trying to extend his papal power beyond what was canonical authority by asserting a "rulership" over the Church instead of the position of "highest honor among equals" accorded to the pope of Rome by the East. He contended that Patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople was deposed in 858 and Photius I raised to the patriarchal see in violation of ecclesiastical law. When Pope Adrian II rejected Boris's request that either Formosus or Marinus be made archbishop of Bulgaria, Boris began to look again towards Constantinople. In 870 a council of Constantinople granted the autocephalous status and Greek priests were sent as missionaries; they were soon replaced by Bulgarians.

Nicholas encouraged the missionary activity of the Church. He sanctioned the union of the sees of Bremen and Hamburg, and confirmed to Archbishop Ansgar of Bremen and his successors the office of papal legate to the Danes, Swedes, and Slavs. In many other ecclesiastical matters, he issued letters and decisions, and he took active measures against bishops who neglected their duties. In Rome, Nicholas rebuilt and endowed several churches, and constantly sought to encourage religious life. He led a pious personal life guided by a spirit of Christian asceticism. Regino of Prüm reports that Nicholas was highly esteemed by the citizens of Rome and by his contemporaries generally (Chronicon, "ad annum 868," in "Mon. Germ. Hist." Script. ", I.579). After his death he was regarded as a saint. His cult was re affirmed in 1630 by Pope Urban VIII. His feast day is observed on 13 November. A question that is important in judging the integrity of this pope is whether he made use of the forged pseudo Isidorian papal decretals. After exhaustive investigation, Heinrich Schrörs concluded that the pope was neither acquainted with the pseudo Isidorian collection in its entire extent, nor did he make use of its individual parts. He perhaps had a general knowledge of the false decretals, but did not base his view of the law upon them and owed his knowledge of them solely to documents that came to him from the Frankish Empire. Nicholas decreed that the figure of the rooster should be placed on every church. The rooster has served as a religious icon and reminder of Peter's denial of Christ since that time, with some churches still having the rooster on the steeple today. Perhaps the most impactful act of Pope Nicholas was, in the year 866, he ordered that all Christians should abstain from eating the "flesh, blood, or marrow" of warm blooded animals on Wednesdays and Fridays. This led to the tradition still widely followed by Roman Catholics in the modern day of abstaining from eating meat on Fridays during the liturgical season of Lent, but the meat of cold blooded animals (such as fish) still being eaten. While there is a theory that this tradition was instituted solely to benefit the fishermen of Europe, there is no evidence for this.