Anastasius II

Anastasius II was bishop of Rome (pope) from 496 to 498, reigning during the height of the Acacian Schism that divided the Roman and Eastern churches over the Henotikon and the legacy of the patriarch Acacius of Constantinople. He pursued a conciliatory policy toward the East, sending legates to Emperor Anastasius I and accepting the validity of baptisms and ordinations performed by clergy ordained by Acacius, a stance that scandalized rigorist factions in Rome who saw it as a betrayal of his predecessor Felix III's hard line. His sudden death in November 498 triggered the disputed double election of Symmachus and Laurentius; later tradition treated him so harshly that Dante placed an 'Anastasius the Pope' in Hell among the heretics, though that identification reflects medieval polemic rather than the historical record.