From his appointment in 401, Innocent lost no opportunity to maintain the authority of the
Roman apostolic See, seen as final arbiter for all ecclesiastical disputes. That such opportunities were numerous and varied is evident from his communications with
Victricius of Rouen,
Exuperius of Toulouse, Alexander of Antioch and others, as well as how he acted when
John Chrysostom appealed to him against
Theophilus of Alexandria. On the
Pelagian controversy he took a decided view. He reinforced the decisions of the synod of the province of proconsular
Africa, held in
Carthage in 416. He accordingly confirmed the condemnation in 411 against Cælestius, who was of the Pelagian view. In the same year he wrote likewise to the fathers of the
Numidian synod of Mileve who had appealed to him. Soon after this, five African bishops, among them St. Augustine, wrote a personal letter to Innocent explaining their own position on Pelagianism. In addition he acted as metropolitan over the bishops of Italia Suburbicaria. The historian Zosimus, in his
Historia Nova, suggests that during the
sack of Rome in 410 by
Alaric I, Innocent I was willing to permit private pagan practices as a temporary measure. However, Zosimus also suggests that this attempt by pagans to restore public worship failed due to lack of public interest, suggesting that Rome in the previous century had been successfully and permanently won over to Christianity. He died on 12 March 417. Accordingly, his feast day is now celebrated on 12 March, though from the thirteenth to the twentieth century he was commemorated on 28 July. His successor was
Zosimus. In 405, Pope Innocent sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop,
Exsuperius of Toulouse, identical with
that of Trent (which took place more than 1000 years later), except for some uncertainty in the manuscript tradition about whether the letters ascribed to Paul were 14 or only 13, in the latter case possibly implying omission of the
Epistle to the Hebrews. Previously in 367,
Athanasius of Alexandria had circulated the 39th
Easter Letter mentioning the list of Scripture, both Old and New Testament, which he referred to as "canonized". ==Relics==