Damasus

Damasus can refer to:

Pope Damasus I

Pope Damasus I (/ˈdæməsəs/ DAM-əs-əs; c. 305 – 11 December 384) was Pope from October 366 to his death in 384.

Biographical Information

Pope St. Damasus I was born around 305, around or inside the city of Rome.His life coincided with the rise of Emperor Constantine I and the reunion and re-division of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, which is associated with the legitimization of Christianity and its later adoption as the official religion of the Roman state in 380.

Following the death of Pope Liberius, he succeeded to the Papacy amidst factional violence. A group of Damasus' supporters, previously loyal to his opponent Felix, attacked and killed rivals loyal to Liberius' deacon Ursinus in a riot that required the intervention of Emperor Valentinian I to quell.

Damasus faced accusations of murder and adultery with a married woman in his early years as Pope. The neutrality of these claims has come into question with some suggesting that the accusations were motivated by the schismatic conflict with the supporters of Arianism. His personal problems were contrasted with his religious accomplishments, which included restoring Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, encouraging his personal secretary Saint Jerome in his Vulgate translation of the Bible, and presiding over the Council of Rome in 382, which may have set down the canon of Scripture (based upon the Decretum Gelasianum, which some consider a sixth-century work). He also did much to encourage the veneration of the Christian martyrs, restoring and creating access to their tombs in the Catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, and setting up tablets with verse inscriptions composed by himself, several of which survive or are recorded in his Epigrammata.

Pope Damasus II

Pope Damasus II (died 9 August 1048), born Poppo, was Pope from 17 July 1048 to his death on 9 August that same year. He was the second of the German pontiffs nominated by Emperor Henry III. A native of Bavaria, he was the third German to become Pope and had one of the shortest papal reigns. He was bishop of Brixen when the Emperor raised him to the papacy.

Imperial nomination

Given the display of imperial power Henry III had inflicted on the Romans in intervening against Pope Gregory VI and installing Clement II, it is not surprising that on Christmas Day of 1047, an emissary was sent by the Roman people bringing news of Clement II's death to Henry III and asking him, in his position as Patricius of the Romans, to appoint a successor. Henry had been engaged in an indecisive campaign in Frisia, and was in his palace at Pöhlde in Saxony when the embassy found him. The envoys, according to their instructions, suggested as a suitable candidate the handsome Halinard, Archbishop of Lyon, who was a fluent speaker of Italian, and was well respected in Rome.