Division Of The Ecclesiastical Year.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

The Ecclesiastical Year begins on The First Sunday of Advent and ends on the Saturday following The Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

It is composed of Liturgical Seasons, or Times.

THE TEMPORAL CYCLE, or, PROPER OF THE TIME, reveals 

Our Lord to us in the Traditional setting of the 

great mysteries of our Holy Religion.

Simultaneously with this TEMPORAL CYCLE, is a secondary one, called THE SANCTORAL CYCLE, or, PROPER OF THE SAINTS, because it is composed of all the Feasts of those Blessed Souls in which the work of the redemption is already accomplished.

This Circle, or Cycle, is divided into two parts: 

That of Christmas and that of Easter.

Both of the Cycles containing these two great Feasts 

are divided into three periods: 

The time before the Feast;

The time during the Feast;

The time after the Feast.

Thus having for its aim:

To prepare the Soul for the Feasts;

Then to allow the Soul to Celebrate the Feasts with Solemnity;

And, finally, to prolong the Feast for several weeks.

Advent is comprised of four weeks, during which, 

with the Patriarchs and Prophets, we long for the Advent, 

or coming, of Our Lord.

Christmas brings before our eyes:

The Birth of The Word Incarnate, Who is born in us by Grace;

And The Epiphany, or His Manifestation to the World.

The Time After Epiphany includes from one to five Sundays; 

it recalls to us the hidden life of Christ at Nazareth, and manifests to us His Divinity.

This Cycle depends upon the Easter Moon 

and begins between 18 January and 22 February.

Nine weeks lead us up to the Great Feast of Easter.

These weeks are divided into three periods:

Septuagesima.

During three weeks, brings before us the Public Life of Our Lord and, with Lent, which follows it, gives us a summary of it.

Lent.

Which begins on Ash Wednesday, represents by forty days 

of Penance, the forty days’ Fast of Our Lord in the desert, 

in which we participate.

Passiontide.

Which comprises the last two weeks of Lent and brings home to us the last sufferings of Christ and His Death on The Cross. That, with Him, we may die to our sins.

Paschaltide.

Permits us to participate in the greatest of all the Feasts. 

It is at Easter, with its Privileged Octave, that our Soul, 

risen with Christ, lives with Him during forty days, 

whilst He Founds The Church and then ascends to Heaven 

on Ascension Day.

The Feast of Pentecost closes this period with the 

descent of The Holy Ghost into our Souls.

The Time After Pentecost.

Shows us during twenty-four weeks the fruits of holiness which The Holy Ghost and The Blessed Sacrament cause to develop in The Church and her Saints to the end of the World.

This last event is brought before us on 

the Last Sunday After Pentecost.

The Feast of Easter, the centre of the year, is

always Celebrated on the Sunday after the fourteenth day

of the March Moon. This day is counted only from the

twenty-first of March.

If it is Full Moon before the twenty-first of March, 

the Paschal Moon will be the following one; hence, 

the difference sometimes of a month.

In other words, the extreme dates for the Celebration of Easter are the twenty-second of March and the twenty-fifth of April.

The Sanctoral Cycle will follow in due course.

Historical Note.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,

unless stated otherwise.

In 1890, Pope Leo XIII established a Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (Feast Day 11 February).

In 1907, Pope Saint Pius X extended the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes to The Universal Church.

In 1913, Pope Saint Pius X raised the Feast of The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady (Feast Day 15 September) to the Rank of a Double of the Second-Class.

In 1911-1912, Pope Saint Pius X transformed the Church’s Liturgical Calendar in such a way as to give the Christological Cycle preponderance over the Sanctoral Cycle, and, thereby, restore all things in Christ.

Pope Benedict XV (Reigned 1914-1922) extended the Feast of Saint Ephrem (Feast Day 18 June) to the whole Church, at the same time giving him the Title of Doctor of The Church. He also ordered the use of the new Preface of Saint Joseph and the new Preface of The Dead.

Pope Benedict XV extended to the Universal Church the following Feasts:

The Feast of The Holy Family (Feast Day Sunday within the Octave of The Epiphany);

The Feast of Saint Gabriel (Feast Day 24 March);

The Feast of Saint Raphael (Feast Day 24 October);

Where desired, the Feast of The Blessed Virgin Mary, (Mediatrix of All Graces) (Feast Day 31 May);

Where desired, the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus (Feast Day Thursday within Octave of The Sacred Heart).

Pope Pius XI (Reign 1922-1939) instituted the following Feasts:

The Feast of Christ The King 

    (Feast Day last Sunday of October);

The Feast of the Maternity of Our Lady 

    (Feast Day 11 October).

Pope Pius XI (Reigned 1922-1939) drew up a new Divine Office and a new Mass for the Feast of The Sacred Heart (Feast Day Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi), which he enriched, in 1929, with a Privileged Octave of the Third Order.

Saint Alban. Proto-Martyr Of England. Red Vestments. Feast Day 22 June.

Saint Alban.

Photo: 27 October 2017.

Source: Evesham All Saints Church.

Author: Jules & Jenny from Lincoln, England.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
   By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
      Volume 12.
      Time After Pentecost.
      Book III.

Let the heavens rejoice; let the Island of Saints exult; and let all the Universe shout with her a song of victory. For now, indeed, has Earth been everywhere em-Purpled with the Blood of Testimony.

Alban, Proto-Martyr of fruitful England, seals today the conquest of the far West. Already, doubtless, even from the earliest days, Albion had yielded abundant flowers beneath the footsteps of the Spouse, whose giant stride had reached even unto her.

Later on, Eleutherius and Lucius had added the fresh charm of other plants to this new garden, wherein, far away from sterile Juda, the Man-God could forget the haughty disdain of the daughter of Sion.

Jesus loves, indeed, flower-beds exhaling the fragrance of confession and of praise; but still flowers of peace may not alone form the diadem of this powerful Son of the God of armies.

The story of Saint Alban.

Available on YouTube

HERE

The beauty He received from His Mother was enhanced by the Blood shed by Him in the great battle, and to obtain favour in His own eyes, the bride, too, is called upon to mingle her own brilliant Purple with the glistening Whiteness of His lilies.

Glory, then, to our Proto-Martyr ! Glory to him by whom Albion, fully arrayed for the nuptials of The Lamb, advances side by side with the most illustrious Churches, and takes her seat with them at the banquet of the strong !

From the heights of Heaven, the glorious Choir of Apostles and the White-Robed army of Martyrs are thrilling with joy, as in the brightest days of the three hundred years’ struggle, prolonged, perchance, on purpose to give ancient Britain a chance of sharing in their triumph.

Persecution was nearing its close; and even from British soil, the last to be touched by the tidal wave of Martyrs’ Blood, would deliverance come.

On 22 June 303 A.D., Alban, our new Stephen, died, breathing a Prayer for his murderers, beside the banks of a tributary of The River Thames; on 25 July 306 A.D., Constantine, having just escaped the snares of Galerius, was proclaimed at York, and he started thence to unfurl the Standard of Salvation to the whole World.

Later on, to the victorious combats of The Cross succeeded heresy’s contesting struggle to wrest from God Nations already won to His Christ in Holy Baptism. Whilst The East was going astray in misconceptions of The Incarnate Word, The West was carping at Doctrines concerning Free Will and Grace, a fatal stumbling-block which would be thrown in again at a more distant epoch.

Pelagius, the heretic here in question, was condemned by The Church, and the stone of error hurled against her gave but a passing shock.

The tomb of Alban was the curbing point of Hell’s efforts at that time, and here ended the final troubles caused by the Pelagian attack. Saint Lupus of Troyes and Saint Germanus of Auxerre, sent from the Continent to maintain the cause of Grace, ascribed to our British Martyr the whole honour of their victory, whereby Peace was given to The Western Church.

To show that this second defeat of Hell’s power was indeed the completion of that which a Century previously had ended the era of blood, these two Holy Bishops respectfully opened the glorious tomb, and united to the remains of our noble Alban some Relics of the Apostles and Martyrs, the fruit of whose triumph had just been definitely sealed.

For a thousand years were the depths of the abyss closed; years of power, years of honour for Alban, Venerated alike by each successive Race that lived on our British shore. The Anglo-Saxons outstripped the Britons in the magnificence of the structure they raised on the site of the Church formerly built over the Martyr’s tomb in the first era of his victory.

The Danes even considered his holy body to be their noblest conquest; and under the Normans, the Abbey, Founded by Offa of Mercia, beheld Popes and Kings concert together in raising its prerogatives and glory to the highest pitch.

No Monastic Church on this side of the Channel would compare with Saint Alban’s in its privileges; and just as Alban is counted England’s first Martyr, so was the Abbot of his Monastery held first in dignity among all Abbots of this realm.

For a thousand years, Alban too reigned with Christ. At last, came the epoch when the depths of the abyss were to be let loose for a little time, and Satan, unchained, would once again seduce Nations.

Vanquished formerly by the Saints, power was now given him to make War with them, and to overcome them in his turn. The disciple is not above his Master: Like his Lord, Alban, too, was rejected by his own. 

Hated without cause, he beheld the illustrious Monastery destroyed, that had been Albion’s pride in the palmy days of her history; and scarce was even the Venerable Church itself saved, wherein God’s athlete had so long reposed, shedding benefits around far and near.

But, after all, what could he now do, in a profaned Sanctuary, in which strange Rites had banished those of our forefathers, and condemned the Faith for which the Martyrs had bled and died ?

So, Alban was ignominiously expelled, and his ashes scattered to the winds.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Confessor. Feast Day, Today, 21 June. White Vestments.

San Luigi Gonzaga Basilica,

Mantua, Italy.

Photo: 10 May 2012.

Source: Own work.

This File is licensed under the 

Creative Commons Attribution 

3.0 Unported Licence.

Author: Dguendel.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
   By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
      Volume 12.
      Time After Pentecost.
      Book III.

“Oh, how exceeding great is the glory of Aloysius, son of Ignatius ! Never could I have believed it, had not my Jesus shown it to me. Never could I have believed that such glory was to be seen in Heaven !”

Thus cries out Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, whose memory we were celebrating a month ago; she is speaking in ecstasy. From the heights of Carmel, whence her ken may reach beyond the heavens, she reveals to Earth the splendour wherewith the youthful hero of this day shines amidst the celestial phalanxes.

Yet, short was the life of Aloysius, and it had offered nothing to the superficial gaze of a vast majority, save the preliminaries, so to say, of a career broken off in its flower before bearing fruit of any kind.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.

Available on YouTube

HERE

Ah !, God does not take account of things as men do; of very slight weight are their appreciations in His judgement ! Even in the case of Saints, themselves, the mere fractional number of years, or brilliant deeds, goes far less to the filling up of a lifetime, in His view, than does love.

The usefulness of a human existence ought surely to be measured by the amount produced in it of what is lasting. Now beyond this present time charity remains along, fixed for ever at the precise degree of growth attained during this life of passage.

Little matters it, therefore, if without any long duration or any apparent works, one of God’s Elect has developed in himself a love as great as, or greater than, some others have done, in the midst of many toils, be they never so holy, and throughout a long career admired of men.

English: Saint Aloysius Gonzaga at Prayer.

Français: Tableau “Saint-Louis de Gonzague priant”. 

Alsace, Bas-Rhin, Abbatiale Saint-Étienne de Marmoutier.

Photo: 24 July 2011.

Source: Own work.

Author: © Ralph Hammann - Wikimedia Commons

(Wikimedia Commons)

The illustrious Society that gave Aloysius Gonzaga to holy Church owes the sanctity of her members and the benedictions poured upon their works to the fidelity she has ever professed to this important truth, which throws so much light on the Christian life.

From the very first age of her history, it would seem that Our Lord Jesus, not content with allowing her to assume His own Blessed name, has been lovingly determined so to arrange circumstances in her regard that she may never forget wherein her real strength lies, in the midst of the actively militant career which He has especially opened before her.

The brilliant works of Saint Ignatius her Founder; of Saint Francis Xavier, the Apostle of The Indies; of Saint Francis Borgia, the noble conquest of Christ’s humility; manifested truly wondrous holiness in them, and to the eyes of all; but these works had no other spring or basis than the hidden virtues of that other glorious triumvirate, in which, under the eye of God alone, by the sole strength of contemplative Prayer, Saint Stanislaus Kostka, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, and Saint John Berchmans, rose to such a degree of love, and consequently to the sanctity of their heroic fathers.

The ceiling of the Cappella dell’Immacolata 

(Chapel of The Immaculate Conception) is located in 

Monte Isola, which is part of the Lombardy region in Italy.

The ceiling is richly decorated by stucco work and by the representation of Saint Charles Borromeo, Founder of the Oblates, and of Aloysius Gonzaga, protector of the youth, in the act of adoring Our Lady with The Child Jesus.

Photo: 4 December 2023.

Source: Own work.

Author: Dode2004

(Wikimedia Commons)

Again, it is by Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, the depositary of the secrets of the Spouse, that this Mystery is revealed to us. In the rapture, during which the glory of Aloysius was displayed before her eyes, she thus continues, while still under the influence of The Holy Ghost: “Who could ever explain the value and the power of interior acts ? The glory of Aloysius is so great simply because he acted thus interiorly.

“Between an interior act and that which is seen, there is no comparison possible. Aloysius, as long as he dwelt on Earth, kept his eye attentively fixed on The Word; and this is just why he is so splendid. Aloysius was a hidden Martyr; whosoever loveth Thee, my God, knoweth Thee to be so great, so infinitely lovable, that keen indeed is the Martyrdom of such a one, to see clearly that he loves Thee not so much as he desireth to love Thee, and that Thou art not loved by Thy creatures, but art offended !”

The Vocation of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.

Artist: Guercino (1591–1666).

Date: Circa 1650.

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Source/Photographer:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, online collection 

(The Met object ID 436604)

This File: 28 November 2010.

User: Mathiasrex

(Wikimedia Commons)

To love God, to allow His grace to turn our heart towards infinite Beauty, which alone can fill it, such is then the true secret of highest perfection.

Who can fail to see how this teaching of today’s Feast answers to the end pursued by The Holy Ghost ever since His coming down at our glorious Pentecost.

Coat-of-Arms of Vincenzo Gonzaga, 

Duke of Mantua, Italy.

Date: 23 September 2022.

Source: Own work.

This Vector Image includes elements 

that have been taken or adapted from this File: 

Arms of Francesco III Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.svg.

This Vector Image includes elements 

that have been taken or adapted from this File: 

Earl of Malmesbury COA.svg.

This Vector Image includes elements 

that have been taken or adapted from this File:

AUT Gaming COA.svg.

This File is licensed under the 

Creative Commons Attribution-

Share Alike 4.0 International Licence.

Author: MostEpic

(Wikimedia Commons)

The following Text is from Copilot.

The Coat-of-Arms of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga’s family 

is the historic Arms of the House of Gonzaga, the ruling dynasty of Mantua, Italy.

Blazon.

Argent, a Cross Pattée Gules, 

between four Eagles displayed Sable, 

affronted two and two;

Overall (in escutcheon): 

Quarterly —

1 & 4: Gules, a Lion Argent Crowned Or (Lombardy);

2 & 3: Barry of six Or and Sable (the Ancient Arms of Gonzaga).

This is the form used by the Marquises and Dukes of Mantua, the Senior Line to which Saint Aloysius belonged through the Gonzaga of Castiglione delle Stiviere Branch.

What each Element means:

Silver field with Red Cross Pattée — 

The Imperial Grant of 1433 from Emperor Sigismund, when The Gonzaga became Marquises of Mantua.

Four Black Eagles — Imperial Eagles, 

marking the family’s status as Imperial Vicars.

In Escutcheon with Lion of Lombardy — 

Symbol of their Territorial authority in Lombardy.

Barry Or and Sable — The ancient Gonzaga Arms, 

used before the Imperial augmentation.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Confessor. Feast Day, Today, 21 June. White Vestments.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.
   Confessor.
   Feast Day 21 June.

Double.

White Vestments.

The Vocation of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga.

Artist: Guercino (1591–1666).

Date: Circa 1650.

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Source/Photographer: THE MET MUSEUM

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Holy Ghost, "distributor of Heavenly Gifts" (Collect), made of Aloysius, a young Prince of the noble family of Gonzaga, an Angel on Earth, uniting in him all the marvels of innocence and mortification (Ibid.). Wherefore, The Church applies to him the Verse of the Psalm, where the humanity of Adam, before The Fall, and that of Christ, are declared hardly inferior to Angelic nature (Introit).

His birth to a Heavenly Life preceded in a certain manner his natural birth, for he was born at the Castle of Castiglione, in Italy, in such perilous circumstances, that they hastened his Baptism (Gradual). As an infant, all those who carried him in their arms thought they held an Angel.

At the age of nine, at Florence, Italy, he made a Vow of Virginity before the Altar of The Blessed Virgin, and practised during his whole life the strictest modesty in his looks. Amid the seductions of the Princely Courts, to which his father sent him, he kept his first innocence so faithfully that he seemed confirmed in Grace (Epistle).

Towards the age of eleven, he received for the first time The Bread of Angels from the hands of Saint Charles Borromeo (Communion). At sixteen, he entered at Rome The Company of Jesus, of which he is one of the glories. He so distinguished himself, by his mortification and love of God, that he is compared to The Elect in Heaven. "They live like Angels," says Jesus, because the Soul will exercise full command over the body, which will participate in its Spiritual nature.

At the age of twenty-two (1591), wearing his innocence like a nuptial robe, on which shone the pearls of his continual tears, he died a victim to his devotion to the plague-stricken and ascended The Holy Mountain to take part in The Heavenly Banquet to which God invites The Pure of Heart (Secret, Offertory, Gradual).

Let us have recourse to the merits and intercession of Saint Aloysius.

Pope Benedict XIII (reigned 1724-1730) gave him as a pattern to young people, in order that, not always having imitated him in his innocence, they may at least imitate him by doing Penance (Collect).

Mass: Minuisti eum.

Remember All The Fallen In Your Prayers. Always.

“Gluck, Das Mir Verblieb”. Sung By: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. From: “Die Tote Stadt”. Composer: Erich Korngold.

“Gluck, Das Mir Verblieb”.

Sung By: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

From: “Die Tote Stadt”.

Composer: Erich Korngold.

Available On YouTube

HERE

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,

unless stated otherwise.

“Die Tote Stadt” (German: “The Dead City”), Op. 12, is an Opera in three Acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 – 1957), set to a Libretto by Paul Schott, a collective pseudonym for the Composer and his father, Julius Korngold. 

It premiered in 1920 and is based on the 1892 novel “Bruges-la-Morte” by Georges Rodenbach.

“Die Tote Stadt”: “The Dead City”.

Libretto cover published in 1921.

Opera in Three Acts.

Founded on G. Rodenbach’s “Das Trugbild”.

Date: Published by G. Ricordi, 1921.

Source: 

https://books.google.com/books?id=8RU6AAAAIAAJ

Author: Composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Written by Paul Schott.

Based on Georges Rodenbach's novel.

(Wikipedia Commons)

Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, DBE 

(9 December 1915 – 3 August 2006) was a German-born Austro-British Lyric Soprano. 

She was among the foremost singers of Lieder, and is renowned for her performances of Viennese Operetta, as well as the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss.[1][2] 

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf an den Musikfestwochen in Luzern.

Date: 1948-1958.

Source: Stiftung Fotodokumentation Kanton Luzern.

This File is licensed under the 

Creative Commons Attribution 

2.5 Switzerland Licence.

Author: Max Albert Wyss.

(Wikimedia Commons)

After retiring from the stage, she was an International Voice Teacher. 

She is considered one of the greatest Sopranos of the 20th-Century.[3]

Pope Saint Agatho. Reigned 678 A.D. - 681 A.D. Feast Day 10 January. White Vestments.

Pope Saint Agatho depicted in the Menologion of Basil II 

(circa 1000). [The Menologion of Basil II is a Greek illuminated manuscript, designed as a Church Calendar, or Eastern Orthodox Church Service Book (Menologion) that was compiled circa 1000 for the Byzantine Emperor, Basil II (reigned 976 A.D. – 1025).]

Прп. Агафон, папа Римский

Константинополь. 985 г.

Миниатюра Минология Василия II.

Ватиканская библиотека. Рим.

Date: 985 A.D.

Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/51649.htm

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.

Pope Agatho (circa 577 A.D. – 10 January 681 A.D.), served as the Bishop of Rome from 27 June 678 A.D. until his death on 10 January 681 A.D.[2] 

He heard the appeal of Saint Wilfrid of York, who had been displaced from his See by the division of the Archdiocese ordered by Archbishop Saint Theodore of Canterbury. 

During Agatho’s tenure, the Sixth Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople, was convened to deal with Monothelitism. 

He is Venerated as a Saint by both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. He is said to have been the longest-lived Pope ever.[3]

The details of Agatho’s early life are uncertain. It has been written that he was born around 577 A.D.[4] in Palermo, Sicily, and was a Greek, whose parents died when he was young. 

After the death of his parents, it is said that he joined the Monastery of San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Palermo.[5] 

Due to the Rashidun Caliphate’s raids on Sicily that began in 652 A.D., many Sicilian Clergy had fled to Rome, and Agatho may have been among them.[6]

He served several years as Treasurer of the Church of Rome. He succeeded Pope Donus, and ascended to the Papacy on 27 June 678 A.D., a Sunday.[7]

Shortly after Agatho became Pope, Bishop Wilfrid of York arrived in Rome to invoke the authority of the Holy See on his behalf. 

Wilfrid had been deposed from his See by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, who had carved up Wilfrid’s Diocese and appointed three Bishops to govern the new Sees. 

At a Synod, which Pope Agatho convoked in the Lateran to investigate the affair, it was decided that Wilfrid’s Diocese should indeed be divided, but that Wilfrid should name the Bishops.[8]

The major event of Agatho’s Pontificate was the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680 A.D. – 681 A.D.), following the end of the Muslim Siege of Constantinople,[9] which suppressed Monothelitism, which had been tolerated by previous Popes (Honorius I among them). 

The Sixth Ecumenical Council began when Emperor Constantine IV, wanting to heal the Schism that separated the two sides, wrote to Pope Donus suggesting a Conference on the matter, but Donus was dead by the time the Letter arrived. 

Agatho was quick to seize the Olive Branch offered by the Emperor. 

He ordered Councils held throughout the West, so that Legates could present the Universal Tradition of the Western Church. 

Then he sent a large delegation to meet the Easterners at Constantinople.[8]

The Legates and Patriarchs gathered in the Imperial Palace on 7 November 680 A.D. 

The Monothelites presented their case. Then, a Letter of Pope Agatho was read that explained the Traditional belief of The Church that Christ was of two Wills, Divine and Human. 

Patriarch George of Constantinople accepted Agatho’s Letter, as did most of the Bishops present. The Council proclaimed the existence of the two Wills in Christ and condemned Monothelitism, with Pope Honorius I being included in the condemnation. 

When the Council ended in September 681 A.D., the decrees were sent to the Pope, but Agatho had died in January 681 A,D. The Council had not only ended Monothelism, but also had healed the Schism.[8]

Agatho also undertook negotiations between the Holy See and Emperor Constantine IV concerning the interference of the Byzantine Court in Papal Elections. 

Constantine promised Agatho to abolish or reduce the tax that the Popes had to pay to the Imperial Treasury on their Consecration.[8]

Church records state that Agatho served as Pope as a Centenarian, dying between the ages of 103 and 104.[10][11] 

Recent research has cast doubt on his age, with some claiming that Pope Agatho and a Monk, called Agathon, have been confused, and are two different people.[12]

Anastatius says that the number of his Miracles procured Pope Agatho the title of Thaumaturgus (Miracle Worker). 

He died in 681 A.D., having held the Pontificate about two and a half years.[4][7] 

He is Venerated as a Saint by both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.[13] His Feast Day in Western Christianity is 10 January.[14] Eastern Christians, including Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic Churches, Commemorate him on 20 February.[15]