Saint Hormisdas-Pope

Catholic Saint

Feast Day : August 6

Patronage: grooms; stable-boys

Hormisdas was born at Frosinone (Frusino) in the Campagna di Roma (Italy). He married and had at least one son, but after his wife died he entered the Roman clergy. He served as archdeacon under Pope St. Symmachus, succeeding him in the Chair of St. Peter on July 21, 514. The signal event of his pontificate was the healing of the schism that had existed between the Eastern Church and Western Church since 484. This was accomplished on March 28, 519, with the signing of the Formula of Hormisdas in Constantinople. Hormisdas’s formula condemned the heretical beliefs that had brought about the schism and affirmed unequivocally the primacy and infallibility of the Roman see. The document was signed by Patriarch John of Constantinople along with some 250 Eastern bishops. The healing of the schism with the East was not the only important event of Hormisdas’s pontificate. Shortly before his death he received word that Thrasamund, king of the Vandals, had died, ending the persecution of Christians in northern Africa. Hormisdas died in Rome on August 6, 523, and was buried at St. Peter’s. In art, he is portrayed as a young man with a camel.