Pope Pelagius II

Pope Pelagius II reigned from 579 to 590, a Roman of Ostrogothic descent who was consecrated bishop of Rome while the city lay under Lombard siege, without waiting for the customary imperial confirmation from Constantinople. His surviving letters are dominated by two crises of his pontificate: urgent appeals to the emperor and to the exarch at Ravenna for military relief against the Lombards, and a sustained effort to heal the schism of the Three Chapters, in which the bishops of Istria and Aquileia had broken with Rome over the condemnations affirmed at the Second Council of Constantinople (553). He drew on the rhetorical and theological skill of his deacon, the future Gregory the Great, in composing letters to the Istrian schismatics. Pelagius died in early 590 during the devastating plague that swept Rome, and was succeeded by Gregory I.