PELAGIO I, PAPA. — Son of Giovanni, a Roman official from an aristocratic family, he was already a deacon in 536 and apocrisarius of Pope Agapitus in Constantinople; in May of that year he took part, together with the deacon Theophanes, in the Synod that condemned the patriarch Anthimus. A trusted adviser of the emperor Justinian, he worked to prevent the return to Rome of the deposed Pope Silverius (2 Nov. 537), and in 538, after the deposition of Theodosius, the Severian bishop of Alexandria, he had the monk Paul ordained for that church; a few years later (539), he himself had to depose him at the Synod of Gaza, to which he had gone on the Emperor’s commission. On his return to Constantinople, P. stopped in Jerusalem, where some monks of Mar-Saba presented him with excerpts from the works of Origen so that he might have them condemned by Justinian. P. willingly accepted the task, and in 543 the condemnation was issued, subscribed by the Eastern patriarchs and by Pope Vigilius himself. This condemnation subsequently gave rise to the controversy of the «Three Chapters» (v.), which kept the Church in turmoil and in which P. himself played a major part.
Shortly after Origen’s condemnation, P. had returned to Rome and, during the absence of Pope Vigilius, who had been taken to Constantinople, worked to alleviate the misery and suffering caused by the Gothic War. Toward the end of 546, on the commission of Justinian and the Roman Senate, he went to Totila to obtain a truce, but without success; and when Rome was occupied in December, P. awaited the barbarian before the Basilica of St Peter, asking for and obtaining mercy for the people: the inhabitants were spared, but the city was plundered. A few days later P. took part in the meeting of the Senate convened by Totila on the Palatine, where once again he succeeded in calming the barbarian’s anger. Totila then sent him, together with the advocate Theodore, to Constantinople as an ambassador of peace, on the promise that he would further the king’s interests and return immediately to Rome. At the Byzantine court, where many senators who had fled Rome had taken refuge, he found the spirits obstinate; and Justinian, in response, sent Belisarius to Italy, who occupied Rome in the spring of 547. In the first months of 552 P. returned once again to Constantinople to assist Pope Vigilius, who was being harassed by the court over the question of the «Three Chapters»; in May 553 he drafted and co-signed, together with others, Vigilius’s constitutum opposing the condemnation. He was consequently arrested and confined in various monasteries. Meanwhile Vigilius yielded, approving the Council of 553 and condemning the «Three Chapters». Although a prisoner, P. composed several pamphlets against the condemnation and against the Pontiff himself, accusing him of inconsistency and venality. Of these, only the In defensione trium Capitulorum has survived, and even that is incomplete: of its six books, the entire first is missing, while the second and the last are mutilated. Relying on Vigilius’s Constitutum and on the work of Facundus of Hermiana, P. sought to prove that the condemnation constituted an offense against the Council of Chalcedon and an offense against Pope Leo. Once his purpose had been achieved, Justinian released Vigilius, who died at Syracuse in June 553. To succeed him, the emperor himself designated P., who accepted the condemnation of the «Three Chapters» and the proceedings of the Council of 553.
On his return to Rome, P. found the clergy and nobles hostile, as though he had been responsible for the sufferings and death of Pope Vigilius. Finally, through the strong support of Narses, he was able to be consecrated on 16 Apr. 556 by the bishops of Perugia and Ferentino, joined by a priest from Ostia. Since hostility toward the new Pontiff showed no sign of diminishing, P., in agreement with Narses, 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 suffice to eliminate the opposition, which manifested itself especially in Gaul, where King Childebert repeatedly sent ambassadors to request explanations concerning P.’s faith; in Africa; in Illyricum; and especially in northern Italy, where a painful schism originated among the metropolitans of Milan and Aquileia.
During his brief pontificate, P. worked to restore the Roman clergy, decimated during the preceding years; to provide for the needs of the populace; to ransom slaves; and to repair the churches and other damage caused by the Gothic wars. He died on 4 March 561 and was buried in St Peter’s.