In Frosinone, June 20th is the day dedicated to the celebrations for Saint Hormisdas and Saint Silverius, the city’s patron saints. The two saints share history and blood, because (something not everyone knows) they were father and son.
Hormisdas was a man of culture and is presumed to have lived in moderate comfort. He was widowed when Silverius was very young. The bereavement shook him to the point of prompting him to go to Rome with his young son to join the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. Monastic life and his father’s sole guidance led Silverius to develop a deep vocation, although it was not linked to any particular desire to pursue a career.
When Silverius was 34 years old, in 514, his father Hormisdas (upon the death of Pope Symmachus) was elected Pope, which gave him the opportunity to access further humanistic and divine studies, for which he was particularly gifted. Despite his lack of ambition, Silverius was also destined to hold the office of Pontiff; in fact, even though he was only a subdeacon of the church of Rome, on June 8th, 536, he was elected pope. That same year, on June 20th, he was proclaimed Bishop of Rome.
Unlike his father’s pontificate, Pope Silverius’s was short, difficult, and likely shrouded in slander. After just one year, Pope Silverius was deposed, leaving his place to Pope Vigilius, mainly due to his conflicts with Empress Theodora. This enmity stemmed from Empress Theodora’s desire to place at the head of the church of Byzantium a prelate who had previously been expelled on charges of heresy, but who was favorable to her and other politicians, in place of Patriarch Menas. Pope Silverius traveled to Byzantium and showed all his indignation at such an idea.
According to some testimonies (in the writings of Procopius), Theodora requested the intervention of General Belisarius so that Pope Silverius would be deposed, grasping at any pretext, even a futile one. It is said that Belisarius was positively impressed by the figure of Pope Silverius, but he did not evade the order received: following several controversial hearings, he not only had Pope Silverius deposed but also sentenced him to exile.
Following the sentence of exile, Saint Silverius traveled in the Tyrrhenian area, finally finding refuge in a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Mary, in the city of Ponza. Old, tired, and tried by the last period, Silverius died on November 21, 537.
Those of St. Hormisdas and St. Silverius are two historically somewhat nebulous figures, but certainly characterized by an exemplary pious life of ecclesiastical studies, used to work for the Church. Still today, in Frosinone, a celebratory feast is held in their honor on the day dedicated to them.
