Litany of Saints
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Boniface IV

pope

SaintResearchedByzantine EmpireBenedictinesDate unknown

Feast: 8 May (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)

Born
550
Died
8 May 615
verified
Beatified
not on record
Canonised
not on record

Who they were

Boniface, son of a physician from the Marsi, served under St Gregory the Great as a deacon and administrator. He became pope on 25 August 608.

He turned the Pantheon into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs, the first pagan temple in Rome made into a Christian church, and received Mellitus, first Bishop of London. He turned his own house into a monastery and died there in monastic retirement on 8 May 615.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A pope who lived as a monk and gave Rome its church of all the Martyrs.

Connected on this site

  • Gregory I Saint
    “Boniface had served as a deacon under Pope Gregory I, and like his mentor, he ran the Lateran Palace as a monastery.” — Wikipedia
  • Virgilius of Arles Saint
    “On 23 August 613, Pope Boniface IV sent the pallium to Virgilius's successor Florian.” — Wikipedia
Sources

Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.

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