Vigilius

Vigilius , pope (537-55), a Roman; successor of St. Silverius . Empress Theodora exiled Silverius and made Vigilius pope in the expectation that he would compromise with the Monophysites. After Silverius' death Vigilius' pontificate was legalized. Vigilius at first resisted coercion, refusing to condemn the Three Chapters in the quarrel over Monophysitism . Emperor Justinian forced him to come to Constantinople, where he eventually consented to their condemnation by the Second Council of Constantinople, provided that the canons of the Council of Chalcedon would not be thereby discredited. His action was intensely disliked in the West. He remained a virtual prisoner at Constantinople for eight years. He died on his way back to Rome. He was succeeded by Pelagius I.

Vigilius (d.555), Pope from 537. In the Three Chapters Controversy he at first refused his assent to Justinian's condemnation of the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas of Edessa. After he had been brought to Constantinople, he repudiated the Three Chapters in his ‘ludicatum’ of 548, though not without reservations in favour of the Council of Chalcedon. His capitulation met with great opposition in the W. and the Pope retracted the ‘ludicatium’. In 553 he refused to preside at the Second Council of Constantinople, but after the Council had condemned the Three Chapters, he eventually accepted its decision. The case was cited at the First Vatican Council by opponents of Papal infallibility.