Pope Saint Agatho

Memorial

• 10 January

Profile

Married layman and successful businessman for most of his life. In maturity he finally followed a call to God, and with his wife’s blessing, he became a monk at Saint Hermes’ monastery in Palermo, Sicily. Vatican treasurer. Pope.

As pontiff, Agatho brought his business skills to the throne, maintaining the accounting records himself. He worked to resolve a dispute between Saint Wilfrid of York and Saint Theodore of Canterbury concerning diocesan boundaries in England; this was the first known occasion of English bishops appealing to Rome for a decision. He condemned the Monothelite heresy, and wrote definitive texts concerning the nature of Christ’s will; his writings and authority swayed the Council of Constantinople, and reunited Constantinople with Rome, though he died before the good news reaches him.

Born

• in Sicily, possibly at Palermo

Papal Ascension

• 27 June 678

Died

• 10 January 681 in Rome, Italy of natural causes

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

Patronage

• Palermo, Sicily, Italy

Representation

• pope holding a long cross

Additional Information

• Abbé Stéphane Ansart
• Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
• Dictionary of Saints, by John Delaney
• Heiligen 3s
• Katherine Rabenstein
• Kirken i Norge
• Lives of the Saints, by Father Alban Butler
• New Catholic Dictionary
• Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
• Santi e Beati

MLA Citation

• “Pope Saint Agatho“. Saints.SQPN.com. 10 January 2013. Web. 26 May 2013. <>