POPE JOHN VII, THE TIMID POPE

Pope John VII stands out as being the first pope who was of the family of a Byzantine official. Plato (620-686), of Greek descent, was the curator of Palatine Hill. His job was to rehabilitate the imperial palace on that famous hill. Then he proceeded to make it his home. Plato was the son of Theodorus Chilas (c600-655?), a Senator. Plato’s wife, and John’s mother was Blatta (627-687).

John was known as a man of learning and eloquence. He was seen as remarkable in his filial affection. Soon after his parents died (687), John, now the rector of the papal patrimony on the Appian Way, erected a memorial to his parents, placed near the home he had lived in, saying "with a broken heart to a most loving and incomparable mother, and to the kindest of fathers".

 In 703, John was named a cardinal deacon. On 1 March 705, he was consecrated pope, only two months after the death of Pope John VI.

During this time, three powers were vying for control of the Italian peninsula, the exarch of Ravenna who was representative of the emperor, the Lombard hordes who occupied a large portion of the land and the Papacy. In addition to that, the empire was in an uproar over who was the emperor. Justinian II had been emperor from 681 to 695. He was the one who tried to have Pope Sergius arrested until the Roman militia stood up to him. In 695, he was deposed and Leonidas put on the throne. Three years later, Leonidas was sent to a monastery and Tiberius Apsimarus took over. Justinian spent ten years fighting and plotting to regain his throne, which he did the same year that John was consecrated pope.

Justinian set out to kill as many of his enemies as he could. He started with Leonidas and Tiberius. As soon as possible, to show his strength, Justinian had the eyes of the Patriarch Callinicus gouged out and sent the man to Pope John as a warning. The patriarch was accompanied by a list of 102 decrees pronounced at the 692 Council of Trullo, now thirteen years in the past. Justinian wanted the pope to accept the decrees, which Pope Sergius refused to do years earlier. These decrees included disapproval of the Roman customs of celibacy of clergy and fasting on Saturdays. John, a timorous man, apparently, was fearful of accepting or rejecting these decrees and sent them back, unsigned. He has been found wanting for doing that, by historians.

It was during John’s papacy that the Lombards finally released the southwestern Alpine region back to the papal patrimony. He developed good relations with the Lombards after that.

Apparently, John was anxious that clerics should look the part at all times. The Anglo-Saxon clerics in Rome did not dress the part. They dressed for services, but not for public. John insisted on their renouncing secular clothes and wrote to England for the clerics there to do the same. After the visit of Bishop Wilifred some years earlier, John was probably sure of his position with the English clerics.

In the meantime, John was noted for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin. As well, he was very involved in building and restoring old churches. He erected a chapel to Saint Mary at the old St. Peter’s basilica. When it was destroyed, while building the new basilica, the mosaics were catalogued and moved to Sancta Maria in Cosmedin and other churches. Studies have been done to show the relationship of Rome’s art to Byzantine design in recent years.

John also had a papal palace built near the Sancta Maria Antiqua, near his childhood home. That is where he died.

Unfortunately, the reign of Pope John VII marks the beginning of construction of the Great Mosque of Damascus, the fourth holiest mosque of the Moslem religion.

After his death, on 18 October 707, Pope John VII was buried under the new chapel he had just finished building.