Felix (3) III., (otherwise II.), bp. of Rome from Mar. 483 to Feb. 492. The clergy having met in St. Peter's church to elect a successor to Simplicius, Basilius (Praefectus Praetorio and Patrician) interposed in the name of his master Odoacer the Herulian, who since 476 had ruled the West as king of Italy, alleging, as a fact known to his hearers, that Simplicius before his death had conjured the king to allow no election of a successor without his consent; and this to avoid the turmoil and detriment to the church that was likely to ensue. Basilius expressing surprise that the clergy, knowing this, had taken independent action, proceeded in the king's name to propound a law prohibiting the pope then to be elected and all future popes from alienating any farms or other church possessions; declaring invalid the titles of any who might thus receive ecclesiastical property; requiring the restitution of alienated farms with their proceeds, or the sale for religious uses of gold, silver, jewels, and clothes unfitted for church purposes; and subjecting all donors and recipients of church property to anathema. The assembled clergy seem to have assented to this, and to have been then allowed to proceed with their election, their choice falling on Caelius Felix, the son of a presbyter also called Felix. The Roman synod under pope Symmachus (498-514) protested against this interference of laymen with the election of a pope, and Symmachus consented to declare it void, but required the re-enaction of the law against the alienation of farms, etc.
The pontificate of this Felix was chiefly remarkable for the commencement of
the schism of 35 years between Rome and the Eastern patriarchates. In 451 the council of Chalcedon had condemned the Monophysite or Eutychian heresy, adopting the definition of faith contained in the famous letter of pope Leo I. to Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople. The council had also enacted canons of discipline, the 9th and the 17th giving to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople the final determination of causes against metropolitans in the East; and the 28th assigning to the most holy throne of Constantinople, or new Rome, equal privileges with the elder Rome in ecclesiastical matters, as being the second after her, with the right of ordaining metropolitans in the Pontic and Asian and Thracian dioceses, and bishops among the barbarians therein. This last canon the legates of pope Leo had protested against at the council, and Leo himself had afterwards repudiated it, as contrary (so he expressed himself) to the Nicene canons, and an undue usurpation on the part of Constantinople. In connexion with the heresy condemned by the council of Chalcedon and with the privileges assigned by its canons to Constantinople, the schism between the East and West ensued during the pontificate of Felix.