Saint of the Day – 25 February – Saint Pope Felix III (Died 492) Papacy from 13 March 483 to his death on 1 March 492. He was the great-grandfather of St Pope Gregory the Great.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Rome, the birthday of Pope St Felix III, great-grandfather of St Pope Gregory the Great, who relates of him that he appeared to St Tharsilla, his niece and called her to the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Felix III Descendant of aristocrats and the son of a Priest, was ahimself a widower with 2 children when he was elected to the papacy in 483.
He was the first Pope to announce his election to the Emperor in Constantinople. The following year, he excommunicated Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, who was a monothelite.
The Catholics appealed to Felix, who convened a Synod in 487 and sent a letter to the Bishops of Africa, expounding the conditions under which the unwilling apostates were to be allowed to return to the Church. Felix addressed the issue of readmitting to the Church of those who through fear, the Arians had forcibly re-baptised i.e. members of the flock were allowed to return to the fold of the Church after penance and Clergy were allowed to return only on their deathbed.
Felix died in 492 and was buried in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
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