Saint Paschal I

Pope St. Paschal I, detail from a 9th-century mosaic; in the apse of the Church of Santa Prassede, Rome.Alinari/Art Resource, New York

Saint Paschal I,  (born Rome [Italy]—died Feb. 11, 824, Rome; feast day May 14), pope from 817 to 824.

A priest who had served in the Curia, Paschal was an abbot when elected pope immediately after the death of his predecessor, Stephen IV (V), on Jan. 26, 817. During his pontificate Paschal was continually concerned with the relation of the papacy to the recently founded Frankish empire under Charlemagne’s son and successor, Louis I the Pious. Louis forcibly imposed on the church an unprecedented reform and reorganization of monasteries and dioceses while concurrently arranging the empire and trying to reconcile the safeguarding of Christian order and unity.

Paschal secured from Louis the independence of the Roman see, its suzerainty over the states of the church, and the right of Romans to freedom of election. In 823 he crowned Louis’s son Lothar I as co-emperor, a deed that was significant because it initiated the handing of a sword by the pope to the emperor as a symbol of the temporal power that was to suppress evil; it also formalized the practice of crowning the emperor in Rome. Meanwhile, in Rome an anti-Frankish movement was developing, which Paschal supposedly joined. Some of his servants executed at the Curia two leaders of the Frankish party accused of plotting against Paschal and of favouring imperial control of Rome. Louis ordered an investigation at which Paschal was forced to clear himself by an oath of purgation. The exact proceedings of this investigation are clouded by intrigue and the argument that no mortal can judge a pontiff. It is known, however, that Paschal was hated, and the emotions aroused by the executions caused considerable trouble that necessitated firmer supervision of Rome by the imperial court.

Paschal was further faced with the revival of Iconoclasm (destruction of images) in the East under the Byzantine emperor Leo V the Armenian. The Eastern abbot Theodore Studites, leading defender of orthodoxy and of the veneration of icons, appealed to the pope, who dispatched legates to Constantinople. Paschal’s intervention proved unsuccessful, but he did supply refuge for the Greek monks who fled to Rome.

Paschal’s contribution to the building activity in Rome typifies the period that followed Charlemagne’s consecration as Holy Roman emperor. Santa Prassede and the annexed chapel of San Zeno, both containing magnificent mosaics, were his work; he also built Santa Maria in Domnica and rebuilt Santa Cecilia. He was responsible for the translation of the relics of many martyrs, including those of St. Cecilia, from the catacombs to Rome.