Pope Donus (died on 11 April 678) was the bishop of Rome from 676 to his death. Few details survive about him or his achievements beyond what is recorded in the Liber Pontificalis.
Election
Donus was the son of a Roman named Mauricius or Maurice.[1] He became pope on 2 November 676, having been selected to succeed Adeodatus II.[2] By that time, Donus was already elderly.[1]
Pontificate
Donus expanded the clergy of Rome with twelve new priests and five deacons. He also consecrated six bishops for various sees.[3] One of these may have been Vitalianus of Arezzo.[4] He had the atrium of Old St. Peter's Basilica paved with large blocks of white marble, and restored other churches of Rome, notably the church of St. Euphemia on the Appian Way and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.[5] Donus was shocked to discover a colony of Nestorian monks in Boetianum, a Syrian monastery in Rome. He gave their monastery to Roman monks and dispersed them through the various religious houses of the city in the hope that they would accept Chalcedonian Christianity. The Nestorians were possibly refugees fleeing the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[6]
During the pontificate of Donus, Archbishop Reparatus of Ravenna returned to the obedience of the Holy See, thus ending the schism created by Archbishop Maurus, who had aimed at making Ravenna autocephalous.[7] Donus' relations with Constantinople tended towards the conciliatory. On 10 August 678, Emperor Constantine IV addressed him as "the most holy and blessed archbishop of our ancient Rome and the universal pope," hoping to attract him to engage in negotiations with the patriarch of Constantinople and the Monothelites.[8] He ordered that Pope Vitalianus' name be put back in the diptychs of those bishops in communion with Constantinople, an act which caused him a great deal of trouble from the Monothelites and Patriarch Theodore I of Constantinople.[9]
Donus died on 11 April 678 and was buried the same day in Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was succeeded by Agatho.[10]
References
^ abAttwater, Aubrey (1939). A Dictionary of Popes: From Peter to Pius XII. p. 74.
^John Moorhead. The Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity. p. 198.
^Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis I, p. 348, who conjectures in note 2 that the church in question was not the Basilica, but instead a small church commemorating the parting of Peter and Paul on their way to execution. Mann, pp. 20-21.
^John Moorhead (27 Nov 2014). The Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity. Routledge. ISBN9781317578260. ...the advances of Persians and then Arabs in the middle east that were responsible for the coming of Maximos to Africa and, presumably, Theodore of Tarsus to Rome, could easily have brought many more, such as the Syrian monks whom pope Donus discovered were Nestorians.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Donus". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Doglu, Paolo. "Il papato tra l'impero bizantino e l'Occidente nel VII e VIII secolo," in: Gabriele De Rosa and Giorgio Cracco, ed. (2001). Il papato e l'Europa. Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro): Rubbettino Editore. pp. 55–79, at pp. 61–64. ISBN978-88-498-0222-1.
