Letter 10

From: Pope Honorius I To: Arioald, King of the Lombards Date: ~626 AD Context: Honorius urges the new Lombard king to restore the Catholic bishop Probus who has been displaced — continuing Gregory's strategy of using the papal-Lombard correspondence to advance Catholic interests in the kingdom. Honorius, bishop, to the most excellent King Arioald. I write to you at the beginning of your reign with the respect due your new authority and with a request that I believe is consistent with the justice that your reign should embody. Bishop Probus, who has served the Catholic congregation in your territory faithfully for many years, has been displaced from his see under circumstances that are, to be direct, political rather than canonical. There is no legitimate ecclesiastical charge against him. He was removed because he was associated with your predecessor's court in ways that have become inconvenient. I ask you to restore him. Not because I am a friend of your predecessor's politics — I am not — but because the principle that a bishop should be judged by ecclesiastical standards, and not removed by civil authority for political reasons, is one that the church must defend consistently or it will mean nothing. I understand that your own relationship to the Catholic faith is more complex than your wife's, and I do not propose to pressure you on that question. But on this specific matter — the justice of Bishop Probus's case — I ask only that you do what justice requires. With respect, Honorius, bishop of Rome