Apocrisiarius
(Gr. ἀπόκρισις,
an answer; cf. Lat. responsalis, from responsum). This term indicates
in general the ecclesiastical envoys of Christian antiquity, whether
permanent or sent temporarily on missions to high ecclesiastical
authorities or royal courts. In the East the patriarchs had their
apocrisiarii at the imperial court, and the metropolitans theirs at
the courts of the patriarchs. The popes also frequently deputed
clerics of the Roman Church as envoys, either for the adjustment of
important questions affecting the Church of Rome, or to settle points
of discipline in local dioceses, or to safeguard the interests of the
Church in religious controversies. In the letters of St. Gregory the
Great (590-604) very frequent mention is made of such envoys
(responsales). In view of the great importance attaching to the
relations between the popes and the imperial court of Constantinople,
especially after the fall of the Western Empire (476), and during the
great dogmatic controversies in the Greek Church, these papal
representatives at Constantinople took on gradually the character of
permanent legates and were accounted the most important and
responsible among the papal envoys. The first of these apocrisiarii
seems to have been Julianus, Bishop of Cos, accredited by St. Leo the
Great to the court of Emperor Marcian (450-457) for a considerable
period of time during the Monophysite heresies. From then until 743,
when all relations between Rome and Constantinople were severed
during the iconoclastic troubles, there were always, apart from a few
brief intervals, apocrisiarii in Constantinople. On account of the
importance of the office, only capable and trustworthy members of the
Roman Clergy were selected for such missions. Thus Gregory I, while
Deacon of the Roman Church, served in Byzantium for several years as
apocrisiarius. At the court of the exarch at Ravenna the Pope also
had a permanent apocrisiarius. In turn, at least during the reign of
Gregory I, the archbishop of that city had a special responsalis at
the papal court. From the reign of Charlemagne (d. 814) we find
apocrisiarii at the court of the Frankish kings, but they are only
royal archchaplains decorated with the title of the ancient papal
envoys.
THOMASSINUS, Vetus
et nova eccl. disciplina circa beneficia (ed. London, 1706, I, 569
sqq.) Pt. I, Bk. II, cvii-cxi; BINGHAM, Origines sive antiquitates
ecclesiasticæ (ed. Halle, 1725) II, 77 sqq.; III, xiii, art. 6;
LUXARDO, Das päpstliche Vordekretalen-Gesandtschaftsrecht
(Innsbruck, 1878).
J.P. KIRSCH