Hierarch Pelagius I of Rome (Pope)

HONEST CAVEAT (CRITICAL): Pelagius I IS NOT VENERATED AS A SAINT IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH — he has no feast day, liturgical commemoration, or iconography in Orthodox tradition; the Orthodox Encyclopedia (pravenc.ru) deliberately withholds the "святитель" (holy hierarch) honorific it applies to other popes in the same article series, discussing him purely as a historical-political figure of the "Byzantine papacy." The stub's "February 3" date is unsupported by any source and appears to be erroneous — the only reliably attested date connected to him is his death, March 3/4, 561.

Pelagius I (c. 500–561) was Bishop of Rome from April 16, 556, until his death in March 561, a central figure in the ecclesiastical politics of Justinian I's reign. Born to a noble Roman family, he served as a deacon and apocrisiarius (permanent representative) of the Roman Church in Constantinople.

During the controversy over condemning the "Three Chapters" (writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa), Pelagius initially defended their orthodoxy and resisted imperial pressure, for which he was imprisoned; but after Pope Vigilius, and then Pelagius himself, accepted the decisions of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) condemning the Three Chapters under Justinian's pressure, Pelagius was installed as pope as the emperor's chosen candidate.

Much of the Western episcopate refused to recognize him, viewing him as an instrument of caesaropapism and "an apostate from the Orthodox faith"; he had to swear a public oath of innocence in Vigilius's death to secure acceptance.