Saint Silverius

Pope and Martyr
(died 537)

Saint Silverius was the son of Pope Hormisdas and was ordained a subdeacon before entering upon an ecclesiastical career at Rome. After the death of Pope Agapetus I in 536, Silverius was elected to the See of Peter, partly through the influence of the Gothic king Theodahad. He was consecrated in June of 536 and immediately found himself caught between the military power of the Byzantine Empire, which was then reconquering Italy under the general Belisarius, and the treacherous scheming of Empress Theodora in Constantinople.

Theodora, who favoured the Monophysite heresy, demanded that Pope Silverius restore Anthimus, a Monophysite bishop who had been deposed from the see of Constantinople for his errors. Silverius refused firmly and absolutely, knowing that to comply would be to betray the orthodox faith defined at the Council of Chalcedon. This refusal made him a mortal enemy of the empress, who resolved to destroy him by any means available.

Theodora prevailed upon Belisarius and his wife Antonina, who was the empress's confidante and instrument, to fabricate charges of treasonous correspondence with the Goths against the Pope. On the basis of these false charges, Silverius was summoned before Belisarius, stripped of his papal vestments, clothed in the habit of a common monk, and sent into exile. The Roman clergy, intimidated by Byzantine military power, allowed the deposition to proceed without effective resistance.

Silverius was first banished to Patara in Lycia, where the local bishop protested so vigorously to the emperor on his behalf that there was some hope of restoration. But Theodora prevailed upon Justinian to allow the matter to be referred back to Belisarius, who sent Silverius to the island of Ponza in the Tyrrhenian Sea. There the holy pope, deprived of adequate food and exposed to harsh conditions, died in November of 537, worn out by suffering and mistreatment. The Church has always regarded his death as a martyrdom, suffered in defence of Catholic truth and papal independence. His feast is kept on June 20th.