Dionysius Exiguus, around Easter 526, established the Paschal cycle still in use today. J. restored the basilica of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, also known as that of St Petronilla, on the Via Ardeatina. Towards the end of 525, although ill, J. was summoned by King Theodoric to Ravenna, where he was ordered to lead a legation to Constantinople to ask Emperor Justin I to revoke the edict published the previous year, by which all churches were taken from the Arians of Constantinople and they were forbidden from holding public office. Theodoric also demanded that the Pope ask the Emperor, on behalf of Arians converted to Catholicism, for permission to return to their former faith, or rather for the annulment of the agreements that he considered coercive. The legation, which besides the Pope
(from A. Silvegni, Manumesta epigraphica, Città del Vaticano (II), tav. II, 3) JOHN II, pope — J. II, mentioned in the inscription of the precentor Severus who offers a votive gift to St Peter in Chains (533-35) — Rome, basilica of St Peter in Chains.
, included senators and bishops, among them Ecclesius of Ravenna, arrived in Constantinople 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. Justin I, after paying homage to J. «as to St Peter», was crowned anew by him. To avoid worse complications with Theodoric, the Emperor granted the return of some churches to the Arians, but the return of converts to Arianism was not even considered. On 19 April 526, J. solemnly celebrated the Paschal liturgy in Latin according to the Roman rite and sat in the place of honour, before the patriarch himself. After Easter the legation returned to Italy, but Theodoric, disappointed and angered by the meagre success achieved, as soon as J. and his companions reached Ravenna, had them placed under strict surveillance. J., already ill and weary from the journey, died a few days later, perhaps as a result of ill-treatment. For this reason he was immediately venerated as a martyr; his body, initially buried outside the walls of Ravenna, was brought to Rome and deposited in St Peter’s on 27 May, the day on which his feast is celebrated.