Marinianus & Pope Gregory the Great

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. Moved by the benevolence of the Apostolical See and the order of ancient custom, we have thought fit to grant the use of the pallium to your Fraternity, who art known to have undertaken the office of government in the Church of Ravenna. And remember thou to use it in no other way but in the proper Church...

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. As unjust demands should not be conceded, so the petition of such as desire what is lawful ought not to be set aside. Now your Fraternity's presbyters, deacons and clergy have presented to us a petition complaining that the late John, your predecessor, made a will burdening his Church with various bequests.

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We have received by the deacon Virgilius the letter of your Fraternity, in which you inform us that certain of the clergy and people have cried out that it is contrary to the laws and canons that the cause between your Church and the abbot Claudius should be examined and decided here. But, had they paid ...

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We wonder why the discernment of your Fraternity should have been so changed in a short time that it does not consider what it asks for. On this account we grieve, since you afford manifest proof that the words of evil counsellors have availed with you more than the study of divine lore has profited you.

Gregory to Marinianus, Archbishop of Ravenna. Your Fraternity has been long aware after what manner the Church of Ariminum has been hitherto deprived of pastoral government by reason of the known bodily affliction of the priest who was ordained by us. Now we, moved by the prayers of the inhabitants of that place, having frequently exhorted him t...

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We find from the information given in your Fraternity's letter that the sons of the Church of Cornelium are continually supplicating you to consecrate a bishop for them in place of their former bishop who has lapsed, and that you are in doubt as to what should be done in the matter, and await our plain c...

Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. It has for some time reached us from the report of many that the monasteries constituted in the district of Ravenna are everywhere aggrieved by the domination of your clergy; so that — grievous to be said — under the pretext of government they take possession of them as if they were their own. Condoling ...

How necessary it is to provide for the quiet of monasteries , and to take measures for their perpetual security, you are aware from the office you formerly filled in government of a monastery. And so, seeing that we have learned how the monastery of the blessed John and Stephen in the city of Classis, over which our common son, the abbot Claudiu...

John, the bearer of these presents, complains that his wife, flying from the molestations of one George, has long been residing within venerable precincts , and has so far met with no assistance. Since she asserts that there is a dispute about her condition , and has asked that it should be commended to your Fraternity, we hereby exhort you that...

The bearers of these presents, the most distinguished men, Vicedominus and Defensor , came to us asserting that a certain bishop, by name John, coming from Pannonia, had been constituted in the castle which is called Novæ, to which castle their island, which is called Capritana, had been appended as a diocese . They add that, the bishop having b...

What is to be done in the case of Maximus you have learned from the letters which we have before sent to you. But, since we have ascertained from the report of our Chartulary Castorius, the bearer of these presents, what is the wish, or rather the request, of your Fraternity in this matter, therefore if the said Maximus, in the presence of you a...

When the bearer of these presents, Candidus the abbot, came hither to ask for relics (which have also been granted), as much as I rejoiced in your Fraternity's nursing aid, your Fraternity's care for me being therein apparent, so much was I distressed that I could not enjoy his presence as I wished to do, seeing that he found me sick, and, when ...

On the arrival here of a certain man of Ravenna, I was smitten by most grievous sorrow for that he told me of your Fraternity being sick from vomiting of blood. On this account we have caused enquiry to be made carefully and severally of those here whom we know to be well-read physicians, and have sent in writing to your Holiness their several o...

Great infirmity constrains us, dearest brother, from which if we were free, we should seem justly blamable. But since, while we are in this fragile body, we cannot subsist but by subservience to its weaknesses, we ought not to blush for what necessity imposes on us. And so, since physicians all say that to those who suffer from eruption of blood...