From Felix, Bishop of Messina, to Saint Gregory

To the most blessed and honored lord, the holy father Pope Gregory, from Felix, who loves your welfare and holiness. [a]

The claims, under God, of your most blessed welfare and holiness are plain to see. For although the whole earth was filled with the keeping of the true faith through the preaching and teaching of the apostles, yet the orthodox church of Christ, founded by the apostles’ own ordering and most firmly established by the faithful fathers, is built up still further by the teaching of divine discourses, while it is instructed by your encouraging counsel. To this church all the most blessed apostles, endowed with an equal share of dignity and authority, converted hosts of peoples; and by saving precepts and counsels, devoutly and in holiness, they brought those who were foreknown in the grace of divine predestination from darkness to light, from error to the true faith, from death to life. Following the merits of these holy apostles and living up perfectly to their example, your honored paternity adorns the church of God along with them by upright conduct and holy deeds. Strong in sacred faith and Christian conduct, you command what should be done to please God, and you unceasingly carry out and fulfill the duties of a pontiff, so keeping the precepts of the divine law; since, as the apostle says, “Not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be counted righteous.” [b]

As we were thinking over these things, news was brought to us by some who came from Rome that you had written to our companion Augustine, afterward ordained bishop for the nation of the Angles and sent there by your venerable holiness, and to the Angles, whom we have long known to have been converted to the faith through you, that persons related in the fourth degree of descent, if they are married, should not be separated. Now this was not the custom in the past, either in those parts or in these, when I was brought up and taught together with you from childhood. Nor have I read it in any decrees of your predecessors, or in the rulings of other fathers, whether general or particular, or learned that it had been allowed until now by any of the wise. But I have found from your holy predecessors, and from the rest of the holy fathers, assembled both in the Nicene synod and in other holy councils, that this prohibition should be kept down to the seventh degree of descent; and I know that this is carefully observed by men who live rightly and fear the Lord. While these things were being discussed among us, other matters also came up on which it seems necessary for us to consult your authority. For Benedict, bishop of the church of Syracuse, came to us, and other brothers of ours who are bishops as well, weeping and saying that they were greatly troubled and distressed in mind because of the excessive actions of people in secular life and of lay people, as a result of which some unjust things were also being said against them. [d]

There are also some churches in our province about whose consecration there is doubt; because they are old, and because their keepers have been careless, it is not known whether they have been dedicated by bishops or not. On all these things we ask to be instructed by your holiness and by the authority of your holy see. And we ask to be told by your letters whether what, as we said before, we have heard you wrote to our companion Augustine and to the nation of the Angles was written to them in particular or to everyone in general; and we wish to be fully informed both on this matter and on the others written above.

For we do not tell you what we have read, and what we know to be observed by the faithful, by way of finding fault, far be that from us; but we seek to know what we may reasonably and faithfully observe in this matter. And since there is no small grumbling among us on this question, we seek an answer from you, as from the head, as to what we should reply to our brothers and fellow bishops. We do so that we may not remain in doubt on the matter, and that this grumbling may not stay among us, both in your times and in times to come, and that your reputation, which has always been good and excellent, may not be torn or belittled through slanders, or your name, God forbid, be spoken ill of in later times. For we, keeping under God what is right with a humble heart, bound to you in one bond of love, and defending your religion in all things as faithful pupils, seek knowledge of what is right from you. For we know that, as the apostles who first presided over the holy see, and their successors afterward, have always done, so you also take care of the universal church, and especially of the bishops, who because of their contemplation and their watchfulness are called the eyes of the Lord; and that you think continually about our religion and law, as it is written, “Blessed is he who will meditate on the law of the Lord day and night.” This meditation of yours is not only seen in your reading, through the outward expression of letters, but, by the grace of Christ abounding in you, is known to be immovably planted in your conscience, while the most holy law of Christ the Lord never departs from your heart; as the prophet says in the Psalms, “The mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom, and his tongue will speak of judgments; the law of God is in his heart”: written not with ink but in secret by the Spirit of the living God, not, then, on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of the heart. We pray you, let all gloom of darkness be driven away by your most wise replies and help, so that the morning star may shine on us through you, most holy father, and a definition of doctrine may bring joy to all everywhere; for the glorious fathers of holy church are known to have preached right and most holy teachings, to the secure inheritance of eternal life. [e]

The closing words: May the Lord keep you safe and pleasing to God forever, holy father of fathers, while you pray for us.