Zacharias, St (3 Dec. 741–15 Mar. 752) Born c. 679 in Calabria (or possibly Athens) of Greek stock, he worked closely as a deacon with Gregory III. The last of the Greek popes, he was a cultivated man who translated Gregory the Great's Dialogues into Greek, and was admired for his gentle, compassionate bearing. He combined with this, however, political adroitness and great personal persuasiveness.
First, he reversed Gregory III's policy towards the Lombards, who had seized key fortresses in the Campagna and were threatening Rome itself. Abandoning the alliance with Duke Trasamund of Spoleto, he sent envoys to the Lombard king Liutprand (712–44), then met him personally in his camp at Terni (spring 742), and by promising the help of the Roman militia obtained not only the return of the fortresses and other towns, of confiscated papal estates, and of all prisoners, but a twenty-year truce between the Lombards and Rome. In 743, when the Lombards switched their attack to Ravenna and the remaining Byzantine possessions in Italy, and the distracted exarch Eutychius implored him to mediate, Zacharias again intervened, visited Liutprand at Pavia (29 June 743), and prevailed on the reluctant king to evacuate the occupied districts and consent to an armistice. Liutprand's successor Ratchis confirmed the twenty-year truce with Rome; but when he renewed the offensive against the exarchate by laying siege to Perugia, thus cutting the road between Rome and Ravenna, the pope induced (749) him too, by persuasion and gifts, to desist. But this was the last of his successes with the Lombards. Ratchis was obliged to abdicate and his brother Aistulf, who replaced him (July 749), revived the Lombard expansionist ambitions and, after capturing Ravenna (summer 751) and bringing the Byzantine exarchate to an end, was soon aiming his sights at Rome.
With Constantinople, relations with which had been stormy as a result of Emperor Leo III's (717–41) ban on images and their veneration (iconoclasm), Zacharias was able to reach an at any rate temporary modus vivendi. Although his appointment had not needed imperial ratification, he was careful to send envoys to the capital to announce it and to convey synodical letters to the patriarch; he was the last pope to do so. While thus indicating that there was no break with the eastern church, he also made his objection to iconoclasm clear to Emperor Constantine V (741–75) and Patriarch Anastasius. When the envoys arrived, they found the usurper Artavasdus (741–2) on the throne, but while they had no option but to recognize him, both they and the pope seem to have behaved with diplomatic reserve. At any rate, when Constantine was restored in Nov. 743, he bore no grudge against Rome but made a grant to the holy see of the large and lucrative estates of Norma and Ninfa in south Lazio. In fact, while Constantine was a fanatical iconoclast and Zacharias an orthodox defender of images, they seem to have tacitly agreed to play the issue down. The emperor was aware of, and must have been grateful for, the help the pope had given his exarch to keep hold of Ravenna, and for the moment preferred to have him as a friend while he consolidated his position and dealt with the Arabs and Bulgars.
Zacharias's dealings with Boniface (680–754), Apostle of Germany, and with the Franks—since Charles Martell's death (29 Oct. 741) ruled by his sons Carloman and Pepin III (714/15–68) as mayors of the palace (originally supervisors of the royal household but now quasi-hereditary chief ministers)—were especially memorable. Like Gregory II and Gregory III, he gave full backing to Boniface, who continually referred matters to him, and both encouraged and directed his programme for the reform of the Frankish church, appointing him his legate. This was carried through, with the cooperation of Carloman and Pepin, by a series of important Frankish synods, the measures taken being ultimately approved by the pope. The result was the effective strengthening of the ties between the Frankish church and Rome, and the presentation to Zacharias of a remarkable expression of loyalty by a council of the entire Frankish episcopate early in 747. In the same year the pope confirmed the condemnation of two heretical impostors, Adalbert and Clement, by Boniface. In 750, in response to an embassy sent to Rome by Pepin, he delivered the momentous ruling that it was better for the royal title to belong to him who exercised effective power in the Frankish kingdom than to him who had none. The sequel was the deposition of King Childeric III, last of the feeble Merovingian line, the election of Pepin at Soissons (Nov. 751), and his anointing as king by Boniface. Zacharias's part in the transference of the crown to the Carolingian dynasty was to prove of immense significance for future relations between pope and emperor.
Zacharias was an energetic and efficient administrator who, as well as controlling the militia and civil government of Rome, took an active interest in the papal patrimonies. To resettle abandoned land, but also to replace revenues lost through the confiscation of the Sicilian and Calabrian patrimonies by Emperor Leo III, he developed the system of domus cultae, estates held in perpetuity by the church and worked by tenant farmers settled around an oratory. Although he constructed no new church, he carried out a great deal of restoration and embellishment of churches in Rome, continuing John VII's decorative work in Sta Maria Antiqua (where a contemporary fresco portrait of himself can be seen). He also brought the papal residence, moved by John VII to the Palatine, back to the Lateran, not only rebuilding the decaying palace but adorning it with painted murals and adding a sumptuous new dining-room for official purposes. Feast 15 Mar.
