Zacharias (2)
Zacharias pope from A.D. 741 to 752. He induced the Lombard king Luitprand to restore the cities taken from Rome in 739, to conclude a truce for twenty years, and subsequently to desist from the siege of Ravenna and restore all the territory taken from the exarchate. He was equally successful in influencing Luitprand's successor, Rachis, as respects the interruption of his conquests, and even received that monarch and his queen and daughter into the number of his clergy (749) after their abdication of the throne. He also consecrated Carloman to the clerical office (747). He advised the Byzantine emperor Copronymus to replace the images in the churches. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, found in Zacharias an energetic and able manager of-the interests of Rome, and became his agent in the elevation of the Carlovingian dynasty. Zacharias held a synod in 743 at which fifty-nine bishops were present, and which dealt with questions of discipline. He translated the Dialogues of Gregory the Great into Greek, and purchased the liberty of many slaves destined by the Venetians for Africa. See Jaff, Regesta Pontificum; Migne, Patrologie, tom. 89; Würtwein and Giles, collections of Boniface's letters, St. Bonij. Opera (Lond. 1845), vol. 1; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s v.
