PELAGIUS I, POPE. — Son of John, a Roman official of aristocratic family, he was already a deacon in 536 and apocrisiarius of Pope Agapetus at Constantinople: in May of that year he took part together with the deacon Theophanes in the synod that condemned Patriarch Anthimus. A trusted counsellor of Emperor Justinian, he worked to prevent the return to Rome of the deposed Pope Silverius (2 November 537), and in 538, after the deposition of Theodosius, Severian bishop of Alexandria, he had the monk Paul ordained for that see; a few years later (539) he himself had to depose him at the Synod of Gaza, whither he had gone on the Emperor’s commission. On his return to Constantinople, P. stopped at Jerusalem, where some monks of Mar Saba presented him with extracts from the works of Origen for him to have condemned by Justinian. P. willingly accepted the task, and in 543 there appeared the condemnation subscribed to by the Eastern patriarchs and by Pope Vigilius himself. This condemnation later gave rise to the controversy of the “Three Chapters” (v. 1) which agitated the Church and in which P. himself played a major part.
Soon after the condemnation of Origen, P. had returned to Rome, and in the absence of Pope Vigilius, who had been taken to Constantinople, he worked to alleviate the miseries and tribulations of the Gothic war. Towards the end of 546, by commission of Justinian and the Roman Senate, he went to Totila to obtain a truce, but without success; and when in December Rome was occupied, P. awaited the barbarian before the basilica of St Peter, asking and obtaining mercy for the people: the persons were spared but the city was sacked. A few days later P. took part in the session of the Senate convoked by Totila at the Palatine, where once again he succeeded in calming the barbarian’s wrath; then Totila invited him, together with the advocate Theodorus, to Constantinople as an ambassador of peace, on condition that he would promote the king’s interests and return immediately to Rome. At the Byzantine court, whither many senators had fled from Rome, he found the spirits obdurate, and Justinian, in reply, sent Belisarius to Italy who in the spring of 547 occupied Rome. In the early months of 552 P. again returned to Constantinople to assist Pope Vigilius, harassed by the court over the question of the “Three Chapters,” and in May 553 he drew up and subscribed, together with others, the constitutum of Vigilius against the condemnation: for this he was arrested and shut up in various monasteries. Meanwhile Vigilius yielded, approving the Council of 553 and condemning the “Three Chapters.” P., though a prisoner, composed several libelli against the condemnation and against the Pope himself, depicting him as inconstant and venal. Of these only the In defensione trium Capitulum has survived, and even that is incomplete: of six books, the first is entirely missing, and the second and last are mutilated. Relying on the Constitutum of Vigilius and on the work of Faunus of Hermiana, P. sought to prove how the condemnation meant an offence to the Council of Chalcedon and an offence to Pope Leo. Having achieved his aim, Justinian released Vigilius, who died at Syracuse in June 555. To succeed him the Emperor himself designated P., who accepted the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” and the acts of the Council of 553.
On his return to Rome, P. found the clergy and nobility hostile, as though he had been the cause of the sorrows and death of Pope Vigilius. Finally, with the strong support of Narses, he was able to be consecrated on 16 April 556 by the bishops of Perugia and Ferentino, to whom was added a priest of Ostia. Since the hostility towards the new Pontiff did not abate, in agreement with Narses, P., after a solemn procession from the church of St Pancras to St Peter’s, mounted the ambo and holding the Gospels and the Cross in his hands solemnly declared that he was innocent of Vigilius’s death and that he accepted the decisions of the four Ecumenical Councils. This attitude did not succeed in removing the opposition, which manifested itself especially in Gaul where King Childebert repeatedly sent envoys to ask for explanations about P.’s faith; in Africa, in Illyricum and especially in northern Italy, where a painful schism arose on the part of the metropolitans of Milan and Aquileia.
During his brief pontificate, P. worked to reinstate the Roman clergy decimated during the preceding years, to provide for the miseries of the population, to redeem slaves, and to repair churches and other damage caused by the Gothic wars. He died on 4 March 561 and was buried in St Peter’s.