PIETRO MONGO. – Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria, born at the beginning of the 5th century, died on 29 October 489. He was probably a deacon of Dioscorus of Alexandria and his companion in exile.
After returning to his homeland, he led, together with Timothy the Cat, the Monophysite faction in the struggle against Dioscorus’s Chalcedonian successor, Proterius, who was killed in a popular tumult. He then succeeded, through secret manoeuvres, in isolating Timothy Salophaciolus and having himself elected in his place as Patriarch of Alexandria (477); but, opposed by the Emperor Zeno, he was forced to flee, wandering from house to house. He was officially reinstated in his dignity when, in 482, he gave his adherence to Zeno’s Henotikon, which, however, while implicitly entailing the repudiation of the Tome of St Leo the Great and of the Council of Chalcedon, was far from satisfying the extremist current of the Monophysite party: the opposition of the monks was fiercest; they refused to communicate with him and remained without a patriarch, hence their name of «acephali» (v.). M., then torn between the desire to preserve the friendship of the Emperor and the desire to reach an agreement with the most intransigent Monophysites, behaved ambiguously, earning the description of «one of the most skilful opportunists that Byzantine theology has produced» (L. Duchesne). His name is included in the Monophysite calendar.