Hierarch Vitalian, Pope of Rome

St. Vitalian occupied the papal see in Rome from 657 to 672 (other sources place his election in 654). The chief achievement of his pontificate was the restoration of ecclesiastical communion between Rome and Constantinople, which had been broken over the Monothelite disputes under his predecessors — he struck the name of Patriarch Peter of Constantinople from the diptychs, but later softened his position in seeking reconciliation between East and West. In 663 he received in Rome the Byzantine Emperor Constans II, who arrived on a state visit — the only visit to Rome by a reigning Byzantine emperor in two centuries. He sent missionaries, including St. Theodore of Tarsus, to organize church life in England, where Theodore became Archbishop of Canterbury and carried out important reforms of the English church. He is credited with introducing the organ into Western worship. He died in 672.