Vigilius, Pope

VIGILIUS, Pope. - The turbulent events of his pontificate find their explanation in the conditions of the city, agitated between the party of the ruling Goths and the one that looked to the Eastern Empire despite its theological dissensions. V. belonged to an aristocratic family and was a deacon when Boniface II designated him as his successor, but he later revoked that designation in the face of the discontent of the clergy (532).

Apocrisiarius at Constantinople when Agapetus arrived there, he enjoyed the protection of Theodora, wife of Justinian, who wanted to make him pope in the hope of having him as an accomplice in her machinations on behalf of the Monophysites. Having come to Rome with the remains of Pope Agapetus, he found there Pope Silverius (v.) elected under the influence of the Gothic king Theodahad. In March 537 the siege of Rome by the new king Witigis began; Belisarius, who was defending the city in the name of Justinian, wished at once to rid himself of Silverius, whom he accused of conspiring with the Goths, and drove him from Rome. Vigilius was then elected pontiff and consecrated on 29 March 537. To Theodora, who reminded him of earlier promises, he replied proudly. He shared in all the dangers of the long siege, and when it ended in March 538 with the retreat of the Goths, he strove to repair the damage they had caused to the suburban basilicas and to the cemeteries of the Gordiani on the Salaria, of Callixtus, of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, etc. His replies to the consultations of Profuturus, bishop of Bracara in Lusitania, survive. On 22 May 545 he created Ausanius, bishop of Arles and successor of St. Caesarius, "vicar of the Apostolic See," and then in 546 Aurelian; in 544 he attended the reading that the aforementioned Arator gave from his poem on the Acts of the Apostles in the basilica of St. Peter in Chains. The second siege of Rome by the Gothic king Totila had begun in 545 when, on 22 November, V. was compelled by the will of Justinian to leave Rome for Sicily, from where he sought to aid the besieged. On 25 January 547 he arrived at Constantinople, where long, exhausting negotiations awaited him with the Emperor and then with the Council concerning the Three Chapters (v.). In 553 he obtained from Justinian the Pragmatic Sanction to reorganize the conditions of Italy after the devastating Gothic wars. Having obtained permission to return to Rome, he died at Syracuse during the journey on 7 June 555.

Pio Paschini