AGAPETUS I, POPE, ST.

Pontificate: May 13, 535 to April 22, 536. The successor of Pope john ii was the archdeacon Agapetus, member of an old Roman family and the son of Gordianus, priest of the titular church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. He appears to have been the candidate of the party that had supported dioscorus some years before. Immediately after the election, a council was held, and the document that Pope boniface ii had forced the supporters of Dioscorus to sign was solemnly burned. This was a conciliatory gesture that was much appreciated by the clergy. So too was his repudiation of the uncanonical attempts of recent popes to appoint their own successors. He took a hard line against Arianism, even forbidding converts from Arianism to serve as clergy.

Since Queen Amalasuntha had placed herself under imperial protection, Justinian I decided to use her assassination by King Theodatus (535) as an excuse for liquidating Ostrogothic rule in Italy. He ordered his commanders to occupy Sicily and Dalmatia. King Theodatus threatened to put to death all the Roman senators, with their wives and children, unless the emperor desisted from his purpose. Under this pressure Agapetus agreed to the king's request to go to Constantinople and persuade the emperor to give up his plans. The Byzantines gave him a triumphant reception, but the emperor ignored his request to cancel the invasion. Nothing could deflect the emperor from his designs, and belisarius began the reconquest of Italy in July 536. During his brief stay in Constantinople, however, Agapetus was able to accomplish a few successes. Either shortly before or soon after his arrival, he was informed by some of the clergy that Patriarch anthimus, installed on the throne of Constantinople through the influence of Empress theodora (1), was tainted by the Monophysite heresy. When the fact came to light, Agapetus ordered the patriarch's deposition on the grounds that he had been uncanonically translated from the See of Trebizond to Constantinople. The emperor supported this order. Agapetus then secured the election of an orthodox patriarch, mennas, whom he personally consecrated (March 13, 536). His firm stand strengthened the Chalcedonian cause in Constantinople.

Agapetus praised the profession of faith that the emperor submitted to him, but refused to acknowledge the right of laymen to teach in the Church. Shortly afterward he became ill and died. Before expiring, he begged the emperor to summon a general council to condemn Anthimus and submitted to him a petition from the monasteries of Constantinople, Syria, and Palestine, urging that the Monophysites, protected by Empress Theodora, should be expelled from Constantinople. But Theodora's influence upon her husband was immense, and nothing came of this request. The pope's body was sealed in a leaden coffin and taken back to Rome, where he was buried in the portico of St. Peter's. Agapetus converted his own family house on the Clivus Scauri into a library, which was intended to form part of a Roman university he hoped to found with the help of cassiodorus. The library was later incorporated by Pope gregory i in his own monastery nearby on the Caelian. Six genuine letters of Agapetus are extant.

Feast: April 22 and Sept. 20.

Bibliography: Clavis Patrum latinorum, ed. e. dekkers (Streenbrugge 1961) 1693. Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne (Paris 1878–90) 66:35–76. Liber Pontificalis, ed. l. duchesne (Paris 1886–1958) 1:287–289; 3:91. h. leclercq, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. f. cabrol, h. leclercq, h. i. marrou (Paris 1907–53) 13.1:1217–18. f. dvornik, Byzance et la primauté romaine (Paris 1964). e. ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (New York 1997) 1:25–26. h. jedin, History of the Church (New York 1980) 2:444–445; 627. j. n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 58–59. j. richards, Popes and Papacy the Early Middle Ages (London 1979) 126–127.

[j. chapin]