To Alcyson, Bishop of Corcyra, on the Body of Saint Donatus

Gregory to Alcyson, and so on. [a]

Kindness is not to be refused to brothers who think better of it and return to sound counsel, so that a fault may not seem to weigh more in the minds of bishops than love. We have therefore received, in the presence of your love’s representatives, Peter, reader of the church of Euria, who came to us with letters from our brother and fellow bishop John. When the letters he had brought had been read, we took care to ask him whether he had anything to say against the charges of those representatives of yours. He stated that he had been charged with nothing, and had no answer to make beyond what his bishop’s letter contained; and so, under God, we promptly decreed what agreed with the canons. After a long time, however, this same Peter brought out a document that he said his bishop had given him, and so the case was delayed. But in this document the bishop was found to say that he had hoped to be allowed to lay the holy and venerable body of the blessed Donatus in the church of the blessed John, which is within the fortress called Cassiopus; and he said that, since the place has been proved to be in your diocese, he is ready to give your love a written guarantee that no harm to your rights would come from it. We therefore thought it right that his petition should not go unanswered, since in a time of need he asks that provision be made for him in such a way as to secure his acknowledgment, in every respect, of your church’s jurisdiction. [b]

Moved, then, by this reason, we urge your fraternity by this present letter to give him the opportunity, without any delay or excuse, to lay the venerable body of that saint in the church of the blessed John we have named; on this one condition, that he first protect you by a written guarantee that he will never, on any plea whatever, claim for himself any jurisdiction or privilege in that church or fortress, as though he were the bishop of the place, but will keep there, unbroken, all the right and power of your church, since the place is in your diocese. At the same time it is fitting for you also, as our same brother has asked, to answer him that whenever, once peace has been restored by the mercy of God, he is free to return to his own place, he will be allowed to take that venerable body away with him without any objection. Here, so that what is done may not seem to bind only the present persons, and no occasion may perhaps be found for stirring up the quarrel again, your successors also should be included in every respect in this promise to keep things as they are. So, through this guarantee given in advance, he may not presume in future to claim anything there in your diocese against fairness and the decrees of the sacred canons, and the rights of your church may never in any way suffer harm from this concession.