03 — The Reluctant Pope
In 590 plague returned to Rome and killed Pope Pelagius II; the clergy, senate, and people of Rome turned with one voice to Gregory, the former prefect, envoy, and abbot. Gregory did not want the office: he is said to have written to the emperor begging that the election not be confirmed, and tradition holds he even attempted to flee the city. Confirmed and consecrated, he took the title that became his signature — servus servorum Dei, “servant of the servants of God” — and threw himself into the work that the ruin of Rome had left to its bishop: administering the vast estates of the patrimony of St. Peter, feeding the starving, ransoming captives, and holding the city together. These files treat the unwilling accession and the working papacy that followed.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Pope of Rome; Great Hierarch)
Gregory’s reluctance was not a pious pose but the genuine grief of a contemplative torn from the cloister, and it is the autobiographical root of his greatest book, the Pastoral Rule, which he wrote at the very start of his pontificate to justify and instruct the office he had been forced to assume (see The Regula Pastoralis). Once in office he proved one of the most capable administrators ever to govern the Roman Church. The papacy he made was, above all, a ministry of service to a stricken people — and the title he chose, “servant of the servants of God,” was both a confession of monastic humility and, in time, a name the papacy never relinquished. This section treats the election and the administration.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Election 590 | The plague of 590 and the death of Pelagius II; the unanimous choice of Gregory by clergy, senate, and people; his attempt to refuse, his letter to the emperor, and the legend of his flight; the procession against the plague and his consecration on 3 September 590. |
| Servus Servorum Dei | The title “servant of the servants of God”; the administration of the patrimony of St. Peter (the papal estates in Sicily, Italy, and beyond); famine relief and the grain dole; the ransoming of captives from the Lombards; the bishop as the de facto governor of Rome. |
See Also
- From Prefect to Monk — the contemplative dragged into office
- Rome After the Gothic Wars — the ruined city the new pope had to feed and defend
- The Regula Pastoralis — the book Gregory wrote to justify and guide the office he had not wanted
- The Pre-Schism Church — the undivided Church of the sixth century
References
- Markus, R. A. Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
- Richards, Jeffrey. Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
- Moorhead, John. Gregory the Great. The Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 2005.
- Gregory the Great. The Letters of Gregory the Great. Trans. John R. C. Martyn. 3 vols. Toronto: PIMS, 2004.