Pope John I

Pope Saint John I
Papacy began	13 August 523
Papacy ended	18 May 526
Predecessor	Hormisdas
Successor	Felix IV
Personal details
Born	470 Tuscany
Died	18 May 526 Ravenna, Ostrogothic Kingdom
Sainthood
Feast day	18 May

Pope John I (Latin: Ioannes I; 470 – 18 May 526) was Pope from 13 August 523 to his death in 526. He was a native of Siena (or the "Castello di Serena", near Chiusdino), in Italy. He is the first pope known to have visited Constantinople during papacy.

While a deacon in Rome, he is known to have been a partisan of the Antipope Laurentius, for in a libellus written to Pope Symmachus in 506, John confessed his error in opposing him, condemned Peter of Altinum and Laurentius, and begged pardon of Symmachus. He would then be the "Deacon John" who signed the acta (ecclesiastic publication) of the Roman synod of 499 and 502; the fact the Roman church only had seven deacons at the time makes identifying him with this person very likely. He may also be the "Deacon John" to whom Boethius, the 6th-Century philosopher, dedicated three of his five religious tractates, or treatises, written between 512 and 520.

John was very frail when he was elected to the papacy as Pope John I. Despite his protests, Pope John was sent by the Arian King Theodoric the Great—ruler of the Ostrogoths, a kingdom in present-day Italy—to Constantinople to secure a moderation of a decree against the Arians, issued in 523, of Emperor Justin, ruler of the Byzantine, or East Roman, Empire. King Theodoric threatened that if John should fail in his mission, there would be reprisals against the orthodox, or non-Arian, Catholics in the West. John proceeded to Constantinople with a considerable entourage: his religious companions included Bishop Ecclesius of Ravenna, Bishop Eusebius of Fanum Fortunae, and Sabinus of Campania. His secular companions were the senators Flavius Theodorus, Inportunus, Agapitus, and the patrician Agapitus.

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