Innocent I
Son and successor to Pope Anastasius I, Pope/St. Innocent I was elected to the papacy in 401; he is sometimes called the first pope because of his insistence that Roman practice is normative. He supported St. John Chrysostom after the Council of the Oak deposed him, but Innocent's attempt to call a council to reinstate the patriarch was not successful. Innocent was also supportive of St. Jerome when thugs damaged his monastery in Bethlehem. In 410, while Innocent was in Ravenna to negotiate a treaty between the emperor and the Visigoths, Alairic sacked Rome. When a council at Diospolis rehabilitated Pelagius in 415, the pope excommunicated him. Innocent died in 417.
Karen Rae Keck
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