To Romanus, Patrician and Exarch of Italy, on Bishop Blandus

Gregory to Romanus, and so on. [a]

Even if there were no immediate reason for writing to your excellency, we ought still to show concern for your health and safety, so as to learn through frequent exchange of letters what we want to hear about you. Besides this, it has come to our knowledge that Blandus, bishop of the city of Hortanum, has now been held for a long time by your excellency in the city of Ravenna. The result is that the church decays, being without a ruler, and the people, being without a shepherd; and infants there, for their sins, die without baptism. And again, since we do not believe that your excellency has held him except on the ground of some likely offense, it is proper that a synod be held to bring to light any crime that is charged against him. And if such a fault is found in him as to lead to his removal from the priesthood, we must look for another to be ordained, so that the church of God may not remain untended and destitute in what the Christian religion does not allow it to be without. But if your excellency sees that the case with him is otherwise than it is said to be, allow him, I pray you, to return to his church, so that he may fulfill his duty to the souls entrusted to his charge. [b] The month of March, the ninth indiction. [c]