GIOVANNI I, POPE, saint. — Of Tuscan origin, he succeeded Pope Ormisda in Aug. 523 and died at Ravenna on 18 May 526. Following one of his inquiries,
Dionigi il Piccolo, around Easter 526, established the paschal cycle still in use today. G. restored the basilica of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, also called that of S. Petronilla, on the via Ardeatina. Toward the end of 525, G., although ill, was summoned by King Teodorico to Ravenna, where he was compelled to lead a delegation to Costantinopoli, to ask the emperor Giustino I to revoke the edict published the previous year, by which all the churches were taken from the Arians of Costantinopoli and access to public offices was forbidden to them. Teodorico also demanded that the Pope ask the Emperor to permit the Arians who had converted to Catholicism to return to their faith, or rather to annul the conversions that he considered forced. The delegation, which, besides the Pope, included
senators and bishops, among them Ecclesio of Ravenna, reached Costantinopoli before Christmas 525 and was triumphantly received by the people and the Emperor, since it was the first time that the Pope had gone to the eastern capital. Giustino I, after paying homage to G. “as to S. Pietro,” was crowned anew by him. To avoid worse complications with Teodorico, the Emperor agreed to restore some churches to the Arians, but the return of the converts to Arianism was not even taken into consideration. On 19 Apr. 526, G. solemnly celebrated the Easter liturgy in Latin according to the Roman rite and sat in the place of honour, before the patriarch himself. After Easter the delegation departed for Italy, but Teodorico, disappointed and irritated by the meagre success achieved, as soon as G. and his companions reached Ravenna had them placed under strict surveillance. G., already ill and exhausted by the journey, died a few days later, perhaps as a result of mistreatment. For this reason he was immediately venerated as a martyr; his body, initially buried outside the walls of Ravenna, was transported to Rome and laid to rest in S. Pietro on 27 May, the day on which his feast is celebrated.