I run a little WhatsApp group for some individuals like myself. (I won’t describe it beyond that. And no, I cannot invite all my readers. Sorry.) Something I frequently do now in the group is post, “On this day in history, X happened.”

The past two days have been interesting. Roman antics.

Yesterday, we had the anniversary of the consecration of St. Sergius I in 687 as Bishop of Rome. His papacy began in the following way (from Wikipedia):

“Pope Conon died on 21 September 687 after a long illness and a reign of less than a year. His archdeacon, Paschal, had already attempted to secure the papacy by bribing the exarch of Ravenna, John II Platyn. A more numerous faction wanted the archpriest Theodore to become pope. The two factions entered into armed combat, each in possession of part of the Lateran Palace, which was the papal residence. To break the deadlock, a group of civic authorities, army officers, clergy, and other citizens met in the Palatine imperial palace, elected Sergius, and then stormed the Lateran, forcing the two rival candidates to accept Sergius.

Though pretending to accept Sergius, Paschal sent messengers to Platyn, promising a large sum of gold in exchange for military support. The exarch arrived, recognised that Sergius had been regularly elected, but demanded the gold anyway. After Sergius’s consecration on 15 December 687, Platyn departed. Paschal continued his intrigues and was eventually confined to a monastery on charges of witchcraft. Sergius’s consecration ended the last disputed sede vacante of the Byzantine Papacy.”

We sing the “Agnus Dei” during mass because of Pope St. Sergius I. He put it there essentially as an anti-ecumenical gesture, in his extreme disdain for the Quinisext Council (Trullo) of 692 and its canons, which had forbidden the depiction of Christ as a lamb. Go read about him.

Today we have the anniversary of the death of Pope John VIII in 882. His papacy was bound up with disputes over the use of the Slavonic language in the liturgy, the Saracen invasions in Italy, and the Photian schism in Constantinople, which he healed (if only temporarily).

He was then assassinated by the clergy of Rome, by poisoning and then subsequent clubbing to death. His successor, Marinus I, a trusted legate of John and his two immediate predecessors, was “controversial” because he was already a bishop at the time of his elevation to the See of Peter – that was not the normal order of things back then. Popes (and any local bishops) were chosen from among the laity or the lower clergy. He then was involved with a dispute over the ministry of Formosus, later pope himself and some time later the subject of a cartoonish and grotesque posthumous investigation known as the Cadaver Synod.

We need to know our history. If we don’t know where we have been, how can we know where we are? If we don’t know where we are, how can we know where to go?

Pope St. Sergius I, pray for us!