Pope Agapetus I

Agapetus was born around 489 or 490, son of a Roman priest named Gordianus, possibly related to two other popes. He became bishop of Rome on 13 May 535. The following year King Theodahad of the Ostrogoths sent him to Constantinople to persuade Emperor Justinian I to abandon a planned Byzantine invasion of the Ostrogoth kingdom — the embassy failed. While there, Agapetus deposed the sitting patriarch Anthimus I and personally consecrated the replacement, Menas of Constantinople. Four letters from this period survive: two to Justinian, one to the bishops of Africa, one to the Bishop of Carthage.…