JOHN VII, Pope. - Elected on 1 March 705, d. 18 Oct. 707. A Greek, the son of an imperial official, in 687 he was rector of a "pontifical patrimony" on the Appian Way. Justinian II sent him the acts of the Quinisext Council, which the preceding popes had refused to approve, inviting him to convene a council with the power to approve or annul them. J. sent them back without having emended or formally approved them, and the Liber Pontificalis accuses him of having been humana fragilitate timidus. He obtained from the Lombard king Aripert II the restitution of the Church's patrimony in the Cottian Alps. He had a reputation for being eruditissimus et facundus eloquentia and, making allowance for the times, gave proof of patronage.

Important works of his are remembered. Among these, the restoration of the abbey of Subiaco, deserted after the destruction carried out by the Lombards; in Rome an oratory in St. Peter's opere pulcerrimo, of whose mosaics fragments remain in the Vatican grottoes and elsewhere, part of the painted decoration and an ambo in St. Maria Antiqua and, near this basilica, an episcopium, where he himself lived.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: Epistulae: Pl. 89, 59 ff.; Lib. Pont., I, pp. 385-87; Benedetto del Soratte, Chronicae (Fonti per la storia d'Italia), 55, edited by G. Zucchetti, Rome 1920, pp. 41-42; F. Gregorovius, Storia della città di Roma nel medioevo, edited by E. Pais, I, 1, Turin 1925, pp. 483-86; H. Leclercq, Jean VII, in DACL, VII, col. 2197 ff.

@incollection{ec6_giovanni_vii_papa, author = {Picotti, Giovanni Battista}, title = {Giovanni VII, papa}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {582}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/giovanni-vii-papa} }

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John VII, Pope

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