Pope Gelasius I, after a long contest, …
Years: 494 - 494
Pope Gelasius I, after a long contest, changes the pagan Lupercalia festival into a Christian feast day.
Significantly, this festival of purification, which had given its name—dies februatus, from februare, "to purify"—to the month of February, is replaced with a Christian festival celebrating the purification of the Virgin Mary instead: Candlemas, observed forty days after Christmas, on February 2.
The Decretum Gelasianum (list of forbidden books) is attributed to Gelasius.
In 494, Gelasius writes a very influential letter, known as Duo sunt, to Emperor Anastasius on the topic of Church-State relations; its political impact will be felt for almost a millennium.
He also canonizes Saint George Pope Gelasius I gains support from Italian bishops in his assertion that the spiritual power of the papacy is superior to the emperor's temporal authority.
Like his predecessors, the pope opposes the efforts of Anastasius I to establish Miaphysite doctrine.
Locations
People
Groups
- Goths (East Germanic tribe)
- East, or Oriens, Praetorian prefecture of
- Christians, Miaphysite (Oriental Orthodox)
- Christians, Monophysite
- Christianity, Chalcedonian
- Roman Empire, Eastern: Leonid dynasty
- Italy, Praetorian prefecture of
- Ostrogoths, Italian Kingdom of the
