Letter 3046: Gregory to John, Bishop of Calliopolis [Gallipoli, in Calabria]. From the reports sent to us by your Fraternity it appears that Andrew, our brother and fellow bishop, undoubtedly had a concubine. But, since it is uncertain whether he has touched her while constituted in sacred orders, it is necessary that you should warn him with earnest exhorta...
Gregory to John, Bishop of Gallipoli.
From the reports your Fraternity has sent us, it is clear that our brother and fellow bishop Andrew did in fact keep a concubine. Since it remains uncertain whether he had relations with her after his ordination to sacred orders, you must warn him with serious and urgent exhortation: if he knows himself to have had intercourse with her while in sacred orders, he should step down from his office and minister no longer. And if, knowing this to be true, he conceals his sin and presumes to continue ministering, let him understand that he faces peril before God's judgment.
Regarding the woman on the Church rolls whom he had beaten with clubs — though we do not believe she died as a result eight months later — since he ordered this punishment in a manner wholly unbecoming his sacred calling, suspend him from celebrating Mass for two months. Perhaps this disgrace will teach him how to conduct himself in the future.
Additionally, the clergy under the aforementioned bishop have submitted a petition to us, appended below, alleging that they suffer considerable mistreatment from him. Your Fraternity is to investigate all these allegations thoroughly, and to correct and settle them in a reasonable manner so that they have no cause to bring such complaints to us again. July, Indiction 11.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
That I have not replied to the many letters of your Blessedness attribute not to sluggishness on my part, but to weakness, seeing that, on account of my sins, when Ariulph, coming to the Roman city, killed some and mutilated others, I was affected with such great sadness as to fall into a colic sickness. But I wondered much why it was that that ...
The care of our pastoral office warns us to appoint for bereaved churches bishops of their own, who may govern the Lord's flock with pastoral solicitude. Accordingly we have held it necessary to appoint you, John, bishop of the civitas Lissitana (Lissus, hodie, Alessio?), which has been captured by the enemy, to be cardinal in the Church of Squ...
Gregory to John, bishop of Prima Justiniana. After the long afflictions which Adrian, bishop of the city of Thebæ, has endured from his fellow priests, as though they had been his enemies, he has fled for refuge to the Roman city. And though his first representation had been against John, bishop of Larissa, to wit that in pecuniary causes he had...
I have received your Fraternity's letters telling me of the sickness of my most sweet son the lord Venantius, and relating how all things are going on about him. But when I heard at one and the same time that he was desperately and grievously sick, and that unfair men were laying claim to the property of the orphans, the sorrow in my heart could...
In the first place this makes me sad; that your Fraternity writes to me with a double heart, exhibiting one sort of blandishment in letters, but another sort with the tongue in secular intercourse. In the next place, it grieves me that my brother John even to this day retains on his tongue those gibes which notaries while still boys are wont to ...