Pope Agapetus appears in Constantinople in February…

Pope Agapetus appears in Constantinople in February 536.

He is received with all the honors befitting the head of the Catholic Church, but his attempt fails: Justinian will not be swerved from his resolve to reestablish the rights of the Empire in Italy.

The current patriarch of Constantinople, Anthimus, had without the authority of the canons left his episcopal see of Trebizond to join the crypto-Monophysites who, in conjunction with the Empress Theodora, had been intriguing to undermine the authority of the Council of Chalcedon.

Against the protests of the orthodox, the Empress had finally seated Anthimus in the patriarcilal chair.

No sooner had the Pope arrived than the most prominent of the clergy entered charges against the new patriarch as an intruder and a heretic.

Agapetus orders him to make a written profession of faith and to return to his forsaken see; upon his refusal, he declines to have any relations with him.

This vexes the Emperor, who had been deceived by his wife as to the orthodoxy of her favorite, and the Emperor threatens the Pope with banishment.

Agapetus is said to have replied "With eager longing have I come to gaze upon the Most Christian Emperor Justinian. In his place I find a Diocletian, whose threats, however, terrify me not."

This language gives Justinian pause; and eventually Justinian, convinced that Anthimus is unsound in faith, makes no objection to the Pope's exercising the plenitude of his powers in deposing and suspending Anthimus and, for the first time in the history of the Church, personally consecrating his legally elected successor, Mennas.

Shortly afterwards, Agapetus falls ill and dies on April 22, 536.

Agapetus had appointed Vigilius papal representative (Apocrisiary) at Constantinople, where Empress Theodora has sought to win him as a confederate, to revenge the deposition of Anthimus by Agapetus and also to gain aid for her efforts in behalf of the Monophysites.

Vigilius is said to have agreed to the plans of the intriguing empress, who promises him the Papal See and a large sum of money (seven hundred pounds of gold).