Antipope Felix II was installed as Pope in 355 after the
EmperorThe Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin titles such as imperator , augustus, caesar and princeps were all associated with it...
Constantius IIFlavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II was a Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty.-Early life:...
banished the reigning Pope,
LiberiusPope Saint Liberius, pope from May 17, 352 to September 24, 366, was consecrated according to the Catalogus Liberianus on May 22, as the successor of Pope Julius I. He is not mentioned as a saint in the Roman Martyrology...
, for refusing to subscribe the sentence of condemnation against Saint Athanasius. In May 357 the Roman laity, which had remained faithful to Liberius, demanded that Constantius, who was on a visit to Rome, should recall Liberius. The Emperor planned to have Felix and Liberius rule jointly, but when Liberius returned Felix was forced to retire to Porto, near Rome, where, after making an unsuccessful attempt to establish himself again in Rome, he died on 22 November
365-Roman Empire:* July 21—An earthquake and tsunami devastates Crete, Alexandria and affects Italy, Greece and Palestine.* September 28—Procopius bribes two legions passing by Constantinople, proclaims himself Roman emperor, and takes control of Thrace and Bithynia.* Emperor Valens exiles Athanasius...
.
This Felix was later confused with a Roman martyr named Felix, with the result that he was included in lists of the Popes as Felix II and that the succeeding Popes of the same name (
Pope Felix IIIPope Saint Felix III was pope from March 13, 483 to 492.-Biography:He was born into a Roman senatorial family and said to have been a great-great-grandfather of Saint Gregory the Great. Nothing certain is known of Felix until he succeeded St...
and
Pope Felix IVPope Saint Felix IV was pope from 526 to 530.He came from Samnium, the son of one Castorius. Following the death of Pope John I at the hands of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, the papal voters gave in to the king's demands and chose Cardinal Felix as Pope...
) were given wrong numerals, as was
Antipope Felix VAmadeus VIII was the son of Amadeus VII, Count of Savoy and Bonne of Berry. He was surnamed the Peaceful and was the Count of Savoy from 1391 to 1416 and was elevated by Emperor Sigismund to the Duke of Savoy in 1416...
.
The
Catholic EncyclopediaThe Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and it was completed in April 1914...
(1909) called this confusion a "distortion of the true facts" and suggested that it arose because the "Liber Pontificalis", which at this point may be registering a reliable tradition, says that this Felix built a church on the
Via AureliaThe Via Aurelia was a Roman road constructed around the year 241 BC. The project was undertaken by C. Aurelius Cotta, who at that time was censor. C...
, which is where the Roman martyr of an earlier date was buried. However, a more recent source says that of the martyr Felix nothing is known except his name, that he was a martyr, and that he was buried in the cemetery on the
Via PortuensisVia Portuensis was an ancient Roman road, leading to the Portus constructed by Claudius on the right bank of the Tiber, at its mouth. It started from the Pons Aemilius, and the first part of its course is identical with that of the Via Campana...
that bears his name.
The Catholic Encyclopedia remarked that "the real story of the antipope was lost and he obtained in local Roman history the status of a saint and a confessor. As such he appears in the Roman Martyrology on 29 July." At that time (1909) the Roman Martyrology had the following text: This entry was based on what the Catholic Encyclopedia called later legends that confound the relative positions of Felix and Liberius. More recent editions of the Roman Martyrology have instead:
The feast day of the Roman martyr Felix is 29 July. The antipope Felix died, as stated above, on a 22 November, and his death was not a martyr's, occurring when the
Peace of ConstantinePeace of the Church is a designation usually applied to the condition of the Church after the publication of the Edict of Milan in 313 by the two Augusti, Western Roman Emperor Constantine I and his eastern colleague Licinius, an edict of toleration by which the Christians were accorded complete...
had been in force for half a century.
As well as the Roman Martyrology, the
Roman MissalThe Roman Missal is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.-History:...
identified the Saint Felix of 29 July with the antipope. This identification, still found in the 1920 typical edition, does not appear in the 1962 typical edition. To judge by the Marietti printing of 1952, which omits the numeral "II" and the word "Papae", the correction had already been made by then.
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