CONSTANTINE I, Pope. - After the very brief pontificate of Sisinnius, C. was elected as his successor, a Syrian by origin, who was consecrated on March 25, 708. He was invited to Constantinople by the emperor Justinian II, perhaps to obtain approval for the canons promulgated at the Trullan Synod of 692, which his predecessors Sergius I and John VII had not accepted. In 710 C. met with Justinian II at Nicomedia. The details of the conversations between the Pope and the Emperor are not known, but C. approved only those canons that were not in opposition to the faith, to good morals, and to the decrees of Rome. Of great help to the Pope was the Roman deacon Gregory, who on every occasion knew how to give the Emperor exhaustive answers on the questions discussed.
On Oct. 24, 711, C. returned to Rome, where he learned that the exarch John, nicknamed Rizocopo, had imprisoned and sent to death without trial certain distinguished ecclesiastics. Barely three months had passed since the Pope's return when at Constantinople Philippicus Bardanes, having rebelled, had Justinian II beheaded.
The new Emperor was a Monothelite, and therefore annulled the decrees of the Sixth Ecumenical Council and sent to Rome his profession of faith, which was naturally rejected. Indeed, the clergy and people, in protest, had a large painting made in St. Peter's in which the six ecumenical councils were depicted; the people then refused to receive the duke Peter, because he was the representative of a heretical sovereign, and for the most part remained faithful to the duke Christopher, who had been elected under Justinian II. The civil war that followed was quelled by the intervention of the Pope, and then by the news that at Constantinople on June 4, 713 Anastasius II had been proclaimed emperor. He hastened to cancel the decrees of his predecessor and to send to Rome an orthodox profession of faith. When a dispute arose between the bishop of Pavia, who wanted to be consecrated by the Pope, and Benedict, archbishop of Milan, who claimed the right to consecrate him, C. intervened, deciding in favor of the bishop of Pavia. He died on Apr. 9, 715 and was buried in St. Peter's.