MASSENZIO, GIOVANNI. - Among the anti-Monophysite monks of Tomi (province of Scythia), who appeared in Rome and Constantinople in 519, defending the Theopaschite formula “Unus ex Trinitate passus est” and demanding the condemnation of Fausto di Reji as a Pelagian, there was a certain Giovanni surnamed M.
He presented to the legates of Pope Ormisda, who had arrived in Constantinople in 519 for a reconciliation concerning the Acacian schism, an Epistola ad legatos Sedis Apostolicae (PG 86, 75-86). After the failure of this action and of a personal intervention in Rome, the monks turned, with greater success, to the African bishops exiled in Sicily, with the Epistola de Incarnatione et Gratia (PL 62, 83-92), a work not by M. but by Pietro Diacono. In 520 the Pope complained, in an epistle, of the conduct of these monks, declaring that not Fausto but Agostino was the teacher of Grace. To this letter M. replied with a vehement Responsio (PG 86, 93-112). M. is the author of a dialogue Contra nestorianos (PG 86, 1, 115-58); he was a scholar equally well acquainted with Eastern and Western theology. He appears to have inspired canons 1-8 of the Synod of Orange (529).