Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Ambrose, was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was the Roman governor of Liguria and Emilia, headquartered in Milan, before being made bishop of Milan by popular acclamation in 374. Ambrose was a staunch opponent of Arianism. Ambrose was one of the four original Doctors of the Church, is the patron saint of Milan, he is notable for his influence on Augustine of Hippo. Traditionally, Ambrose is credited with promoting "antiphonal chant", a style of chanting in which one side of the choir responds alternately to the other, as well as with composing Veni redemptor gentium, an Advent hymn. Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family about 340 and was raised in Gallia Belgica, the capital of, Augusta Treverorum, his father is sometimes identified with a praetorian prefect of Gaul. His mother was a woman of intellect and piety and a member of the Roman family, Aurelii Symmachi and thus Ambrose was cousin of the orator Q.
Aurelius Symmachus. He was the youngest of three children, who included Marcellina and Satyrus venerated as saints. There is a legend that as an infant, a swarm of bees settled on his face while he lay in his cradle, leaving behind a drop of honey, his father honeyed tongue. For this reason and beehives appear in the saint's symbology. After the early death of his father, Ambrose went to Rome, where he studied literature and rhetoric, he followed in his father's footsteps and entered public service. Praetorian Prefect Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus first gave him a place in the council and in about 372 made him governor of Liguria and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan. In 286 Diocletian had moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Mediolanum. Ambrose was the Governor of Aemilia-Liguria in northern Italy until 374, when he became the Bishop of Milan, he was a popular political figure, since he was the Governor in the effective capital in the Roman West, he was a recognizable figure in the court of Valentinian I.
In the late 4th century there was a deep conflict in the diocese of Milan between the Nicene Church and Arians. In 374 the bishop of Milan, Auxentius, an Arian and the Arians challenged the succession. Ambrose went to the church where the election was to take place, to prevent an uproar, probable in this crisis, his address was interrupted by a call, "Ambrose, bishop!", taken up by the whole assembly. Ambrose was known to be Nicene Christian in belief, but acceptable to Arians due to the charity shown in theological matters in this regard. At first he energetically refused the office, for which he was in no way prepared: Ambrose was neither baptized nor formally trained in theology. Upon his appointment, Ambrose fled to a colleague's home seeking to hide. Upon receiving a letter from the Emperor Gratian praising the appropriateness of Rome appointing individuals evidently worthy of holy positions, Ambrose's host gave him up. Within a week, he was baptized and duly consecrated bishop of Milan; as bishop, he adopted an ascetic lifestyle, apportioned his money to the poor, donating all of his land, making only provision for his sister Marcellina.
This raised his popularity further, giving him considerable political leverage over the emperor. Upon the unexpected appointment of Ambrose to the episcopate, his brother Satyrus resigned a prefecture in order to move to Milan, where he took over managing the family's affairs. Ambrose studied theology with a presbyter of Rome. Using his excellent knowledge of Greek, rare in the West, to his advantage, he studied the Old Testament and Greek authors like Philo, Origen and Basil of Caesarea, with whom he was exchanging letters, he applied this knowledge as preacher, concentrating on exegesis of the Old Testament, his rhetorical abilities impressed Augustine of Hippo, who hitherto had thought poorly of Christian preachers. In the confrontation with Arians, Ambrose sought to theologically refute their propositions, which were contrary to the Nicene creed and thus to the defined orthodoxy; the Arians appealed to many high level clergy in both the Western and Eastern empires. Although the western Emperor Gratian supported orthodoxy, the younger Valentinian II, who became his colleague in the Empire, adhered to the Arian creed.
Ambrose did not sway the young prince's position. In the East, Emperor Theodosius I professed the Nicene creed. In this contested state of religious opinion, two leaders of the Arians, bishops Palladius of Ratiaria and Secundianus of Singidunum, confident of numbers, prevailed upon Gratian to call a general council from all parts of the empire; this request appeared so equitable. However, Ambrose feared the consequences and prevailed upon the emperor to have the matter determined by a council of the Western bishops. Accordingly, a synod composed of thirty-two bishops was held at Aquileia in the year 381. Ambrose was elected president and Palladius, being called upon to defend his opinions, declined. A vote was taken, when Palladius and his associate Secundianus were deposed
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt and the Middle East. The head of the Church and the See of Alexandria is the Patriarch of Alexandria on the Holy See of Saint Mark, who carries the title of Coptic Pope; the See of Alexandria is titular, today the Coptic Pope presides from Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The church follows the Alexandrian Rite for its liturgy and devotional patrimony. With 18–22 million members worldwide, whereof about 15 to 20 million are in Egypt, it is the country's largest Christian church. According to its tradition, the Coptic Church was established by Saint Mark, an apostle and evangelist, during the middle of the 1st century. Due to disputes concerning the nature of Christ, it split from the rest of the Christendom after the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, resulting in a rivalry with the Byzantine Orthodox Church. In the 4–7th centuries the Coptic Church expanded due to the Christianization of the Aksumite empire and of two of the three Nubian kingdoms and Alodia, while the third Nubian kingdom, recognized the Coptic patriarch after being aligned to the Byzantine Orthodox Church.
After AD 639 Egypt was ruled by its Islamic conquerors from Arabia, the treatment of the Coptic Christians ranged from tolerance to open persecution. In the 12th century, the church relocated its seat from Alexandria to Cairo; the same century saw the Copts become a religious minority. During the 14th and 15th centuries, Nubian Christianity was supplanted by Islam. In 1959, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was granted independence; this was extended to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in 1998 following the successful Eritrean War of Independence from Ethiopia. Since the Arab Spring in 2011, the Copts have been suffering increased religious discrimination and violence; the Egyptian Church is traditionally believed to be founded by St Mark at around AD 42, regards itself as the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says "In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, a pillar to the LORD at its border".
The first Christians in Egypt were common people. There were Alexandrian Jewish people such as Theophilus, whom Saint Luke the Evangelist addresses in the introductory chapter of his gospel; when the church was founded by Saint Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a great multitude of native Egyptians embraced the Christian faith. Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria, as is clear from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa, in Middle Egypt, which date around the year AD 200, a fragment of the Gospel of John, written in Coptic, found in Upper Egypt and can be dated to the first half of the 2nd century. In the 2nd century, Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, scriptures were translated into the local languages, namely Coptic; the Coptic language is a universal language used in Coptic churches in every country. It uses Greek letters. Many of the hymns in the liturgy have been passed down for several thousand years.
The language is used to preserve Egypt's original language, banned by the Arab invaders, who ordered Arabic to be used instead. Some examples of these hymns are Coptic: translit. Ep.ouro, lit.'The King',Coptic: Ⲉⲕⲥⲙⲁⲣⲱⲟⲩⲧ, translit. Ek.esmaro'oot, lit.' Blessed', Coptic: Ⲧⲁⲓϣⲟⲩⲣⲏ, translit. Tai.shouri, lit.'This Censer', many more. The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world. St. Jerome records. Around AD 190, under the leadership of the scholar Pantanaeus, the school of Alexandria became an important institution of religious learning, where students were taught by scholars such as Athenagoras, Clement and the native Egyptian Origen, considered the father of theology and, active in the field of commentary and comparative Biblical studies. Many scholars such as Jerome visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars; the scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, 15 centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use there by blind scholars to read and write.
The Theological college of the catechetical school was re-established in 1893. The new school has campuses in Ireland, New Jersey, Los Angeles, where Coptic priests-to-be and other qualified men and women are taught among other subjects Christian theology, the Coptic language and art – including chanting, music and tapestry. Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, remained there to pray and work and dedicate their lives to seclusion and worship of God; this was the beginning of the monastic movement, organized by Anthony the Great, Saint Paul of Thebes, the world's first anchorite, Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Pachomius the Cenobite in the 4th century. Christian monasticism was born in Egypt and was instrumental in the formation of the Coptic Orthodox Church character of submission and humility, thanks to the teachings and writings of the Great Fathers of Egypt's Deserts. By the end of the 5th century, the
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most-populous continent, being behind Asia in both categories. At about 30.3 million km2 including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west; the continent includes various archipelagos. It contains 54 recognised sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition; the majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Africa's average population is the youngest amongst all the continents. Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, Nigeria is its largest by population. Africa central Eastern Africa, is accepted as the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade, as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors as well as ones that have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster—the earliest Homo sapiens, found in Ethiopia, date to circa 200,000 years ago.
Africa encompasses numerous climate areas. Africa hosts a large diversity of ethnicities and languages. In the late 19th century, European countries colonised all of Africa. African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, headquartered in Addis Ababa. Afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of then-known northern Africa to the west of the Nile river, in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean; this name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe, an ancestor of modern Berbers. The name had been connected with the Phoenician word ʿafar meaning "dust", but a 1981 hypothesis has asserted that it stems from the Berber word ifri meaning "cave", in reference to cave dwellers; the same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, a Berber tribe from Yafran in northwestern Libya. Under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province it named Africa Proconsularis, following its defeat of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War in 146 BC, which included the coastal part of modern Libya.
The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land. The Muslim region of Ifriqiya, following its conquest of the Byzantine Empire's Exarchatus Africae preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while "Asia" was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east. A definite line was drawn between the two continents by the geographer Ptolemy, indicating Alexandria along the Prime Meridian and making the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa; as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of "Africa" expanded with their knowledge. Other etymological hypotheses have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa": The 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus asserted that it was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham according to Gen. 25:4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya. Isidore of Seville in his 7th-century Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests "Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning "sunny".
Massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and the "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace." Michèle Fruyt in 1976 proposed linking the Latin word with africus "south wind", which would be of Umbrian origin and mean "rainy wind". Robert R. Stieglitz of Rutgers University in 1984 proposed: "The name Africa, derived from the Latin *Aphir-ic-a, is cognate to Hebrew Ophir." Ibn Khallikan and some other historians claim that the name of Africa came from a Himyarite king called Afrikin ibn Kais ibn Saifi called "Afrikus son of Abrahah" who subdued Ifriqiya. Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the human species originating from the continent. During the mid-20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation as early as 7 million years ago.
Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern man, such as Australopithecus afarensis (radiometrically dated to 3.9–3.0 million years BP, Paranthropus boisei and Homo ergaster have been discovered. After the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens 150,000 to 100,000 years BP in Africa, the continent was populated by groups of hunter-gatherers; these first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to 50,000 years BP, exiting the continent eith
Lupus of Troyes
Saint Lupus was an early bishop of Troyes. Around 426, the bishops in Britain requested assistance from the bishops of Gaul in dealing with Pelagianism. Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus were sent. Born at Toul, he was the son of Epirocus of Toul, he has been called the brother of Vincent of Lérins. Having lost his parents when he was an infant, Lupus was brought up by his uncle Alistocus. Lupus was brother-in-law to Hilary of Arles, as he had married one of Pimeniola. Lupus held a number of estates in Maxima Sequanorum, worked as a lawyer. After six years of marriage, he and his wife parted by mutual agreement. Lupus gave the money to the poor, he entered a community led by Saint Honoratus, where he stayed about a year. In 427 Honoratus was named Bishop of Arles, Hilary accompanied him to his new see. Lupus retired to Macon where he came to the attention of Germanus of Auxerre, who appointed Lupus bishop of Troyes. Lupus was reluctant to assume this office and at first declined, but relented. In the autumn of 429, the Council of Arles, at the request of the bishops in Britain, sent Lupus and Germanus of Auxerre to combat Pelagianism.
They returned to Gaul just after Easter in the spring of 430. Lupus was bishop for fifty-two years and died at Troyes in 479. Sidonius Apollinaris called him "The father of fathers and bishop of bishops, the chief of the Gallican prelates, the rule of manners, the pillar of truth, the friend of God, the intercessor to him for men." Lupus was credited with saving Troyes from the Huns under Attila, in 451. According to the accounts, after praying for many days, dressed in full episcopal regalia, went to meet Attila at the head of a procession of the clergy. Attila was so impressed with Lupus that he spared the city. Attila went on to lose the Battle of Châlons. Lupus ran into trouble when his army after Châlons. However, Lupus was accused by the Romans of helping the Huns escape. Lupus was forced to leave Troyes, he became a hermit in the mountains, but "many scholars doubt the veracity of the account of the Attila incident." A similar story is told of Saint Genevieve. Donald Attwater writes that the tale of Attila is hagiographical rather than historical.
However, the historical kernel it might contain is that Troyes was spared being sacked by Attila's army and that its inhabitants considered this a miraculous deliverance. Lupus of Troyes Index of Saints website with thousands of saints, sources
Milan
Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,372,810 while its metropolitan city has a population of 3,245,308. Its continuously built-up urban area has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres; the wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age. Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, design, entertainment, finance, media, services and tourism, its business district hosts Italy's stock exchange and the headquarters of national and international banks and companies.
In terms of GDP, it has the third-largest economy among European cities after Paris and London, but the fastest in growth among the three, is the wealthiest among European non-capital cities. Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and one of the "Four Motors for Europe"; the city has been recognized as one of the world's four fashion capitals thanks to several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are among the world's biggest in terms of revenue and growth. It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015; the city hosts numerous cultural institutions and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students. Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that boast some of the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci; the city is served by a large number of luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world by Michelin Guide.
The city is home to two of Europe's most successful football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, one of Italy's main basketball teams, Olimpia Milano; the etymology of the name Milan remains uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum planus. However, some scholars believe that lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence Mediolanum could signify the central sanctuary of a Celtic tribe. Indeed, about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France bore the name "Mediolanum", for example: Saintes and Évreux. In addition, another theory links the name to the boar sow an ancient emblem of the city, fancifully accounted for in Andrea Alciato's Emblemata, beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool", explained in Latin and in French; the foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar.
Alciato credits Ambrose for his account. The Celtic Insubres, the inhabitants of the region of northern Italy called Insubria, appear to have founded Milan around 600 BC. According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; the Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC. They conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province "Cisalpine Gaul" – "Gaul this side of the Alps" – and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name of Mediolanum: in Gaulish *medio- meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", thus *Mediolanon meant " in the midst of the plain". In 286 the Roman Emperor Diocletian moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Mediolanum. Diocletian himself chose to reside at Nicomedia in the Eastern Empire, leaving his colleague Maximian at Milan.
Maximian built several gigantic monuments, the large circus, the thermae or "Baths of Hercules", a large complex of imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which fewer visible traces remain. Maximian increased the city area surrounded by a new, larger stone wall encompassing an area of 375 acres with many 24-sided towers; the monumental area had twin towers. From Mediolanum the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, thus paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of Roman Europe. Constantine had come to Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church the Orthodox Catholic Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with 200–260 million members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops in local synods, although half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Russia; the church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the Bishop of Rome, but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by all as primus inter pares of the bishops. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Near East. Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Nicene Creed; the church teaches that it is the One, Holy and Apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles. It maintains, its patriarchates, reminiscent of the pentarchy, autocephalous and autonomous churches reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation.
Of its innumerable sacred mysteries, it recognises seven major sacraments, of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ; the Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the God-bearer, honoured in devotions. The Eastern Orthodox Church shared communion with the Roman Catholic Church until the East–West Schism in 1054, triggered by disputes over doctrine the authority of the Pope. Before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Oriental Orthodox churches shared in this communion, separating over differences in Christology; the majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Southeast and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and other communities in the Caucasus region, communities in Siberia reaching the Russian Far East. There are smaller communities in the former Byzantine regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East where it is decreasing due to persecution.
There are many in other parts of the world, formed through diaspora and missionary activity. In keeping with the church's teaching on universality and with the Nicene Creed, Orthodox authorities such as Saint Raphael of Brooklyn have insisted that the full name of the church has always included the term "Catholic", as in "Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church"; the official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the "Orthodox Catholic Church". It is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the church as Catholic; this name and longer variants containing "Catholic" are recognised and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the church, "Eastern Orthodox Church", is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use. From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, Greek, being the language in which the New Testament was written, was the primary liturgical language of the church.
For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" before the Great Schism of 1054. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Catholic" did for communion with Rome; this identification with Greek, became confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of Southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to Rome, which also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, many of those same churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin, do not use Greek as the language of worship. "Eastern" indicates the geographical element in the Church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates the faith, as well as communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither Rome nor Constantinople, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox". While the church continues to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Roman Catholic Church; the first known use of the phrase "the catholic Church" occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. The letter states: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church." Thus from the beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the "One, Holy and Apostolic Church". The Eastern Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same early Church. A number of other Christian churches make a similar claim: the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox.
In the Eastern Orthodox v
Valentinian III
Valentinian III was Western Roman Emperor from 425 to 455. His reign was marked by the ongoing dismemberment of the Western Empire. Valentinian was born in the western capital of Ravenna, the only son of Galla Placidia and Flavius Constantius, his mother was the younger half-sister of the western emperor Honorius, while his father was at the time a Patrician and the power behind the throne. Through his mother, Valentinian was a descendant both of Theodosius I, his maternal grandfather, of Valentinian I, the father of his maternal grandmother, it was through his mother's side of the family that he was the nephew of Honorius and first cousin to Theodosius II, eastern emperor for most of Valentinian's life. Valentinian had a full sister, Justa Grata Honoria, born in 417 or 418, his mother had been married to Ataulf of the Visigoths, had borne a son, Theodosius, in Barcelona in 414. When Valentinian was less than two years old, Honorius appointed Constantius co-emperor, a position he would hold until his death seven months later.
As a result of all these family ties, Valentinian was the son, great-grandson and nephew of Roman Emperors. In either 421 or 423, Valentinian was given the title of Nobilissimus by Honorius, but, not recognized in the eastern court of Theodosius II. After the death of his father in 421, Valentinian followed his mother and his sister to Constantinople, when court intrigue saw Galla Placidia forced to flee from her half-brother, Emperor Honorius, the young Valentinian went to live at the court of his cousin Theodosius II. In 423, Honorius died, the usurper Joannes took power in Rome. To counter this threat to his power, Theodosius belatedly recognised Valentinian's father as Augustus and nominated the 5-year-old Valentinian Caesar of the West in October 23, 424. Theodosius betrothed him to his own daughter Licinia Eudoxia, it was only in the following year, after Joannes had been defeated in a combined naval and land campaign, that Valentinian was installed by the eastern patricius et magister officiorum Helion as Western Emperor in Rome, on October 23, 425, at the age of six.
Given his minority, the new Augustus ruled under the regency of his mother Galla Placidia, one of whose first acts was to install Felix as the Magister utriusque militiae in the west. Her regency lasted until 437, for the duration, Theodosius II gave her his full support; this period was marked by a vigorous imperial policy and an attempt to stabilize the western provinces as far as the stretched resources of the empire could manage. In 425, the court at Ravenna negotiated with the Huns who had accompanied Flavius Aëtius to Italy in support of Joannes, they agreed to leave Italy, to evacuate the province of Pannonia Valeria, returned to the empire. This allowed Felix and the imperial government to restructure the defences along the Danubian provinces in 427 and 428. In addition, there were significant victories over the Visigoths in Gaul in 426/7 and 430 and the Franks along the Rhine in 428 and 432. There were significant problems that threatened the viability of the Roman state in the west.
The Visigoths could not be dislodged. The Vandals in Hispania continued their incursions, and, in 429, they commenced their invasion of Mauretania Tingitana; the loss of these territories impacted the state's ability to function. The burden of taxation became more and more intolerable as Rome's power decreased, the loyalty of its remaining provinces was impaired in consequence. In addition, the initial period of Valentinian's reign was dominated by the struggle among the leaders of the three principal army groups of the west – Flavius Felix, the senior Magister militum praesentalis, the Magister militum per Africam and Flavius Aëtius, the Magister militum per Gallias. In 427, Felix demanded that he return to Italy. Bonifacius defeated an army sent by Felix to capture him. Weakened, Felix was unable to resist Aëtius who, with the support of Galla Placidia, replaced him as Magister militum praesentalis in 429, before having him killed in 430. Bonifacius, in the meantime, had been unable to defeat Sigisvultus, whom Galla Placidia had sent to deal with the rebel.
Bonifacius, entered into an agreement with the Vandals to come to his aid and, in return, they would divide the African provinces between themselves. Concerned by this turn of events and determined to hold onto the African provinces at all costs, the court at Ravenna sought reconciliation with Bonifacius, who agreed in 430 to affirm his allegiance to Valentinian III and stop the Vandal king Gaiseric. In 431, Bonifacius was fled to Italy, abandoning western North Africa; the imperial court, Galla Placidia, worried about the power being wielded by Aëtius, stripped him of his command and gave it to Bonifacius. In the civil war that followed, Bonifacius defeated Aëtius at the Battle of Ravenna, but died of his wounds. Aëtius fled to the Huns and, with their help, was able to persuade the court to reinstate him to his old position of Magister militum praesentalis in 434; as a consequence, in 435, Valentinian was forced to conclude a peace with Gaiseric, whereby the Vandals kept all their possessions
