ppealed to
pope Gregory, who sharply reprimanded the patriarch, exhorting him to
eject a certain wicked young man by whom he suffered himself to be
governed, and to do penance, and telling him: "If you do not keep the
canons, I know not who you are."[43] He absolved the monk, with his
colleague, a priest, re-established them in their monastery, and sent
them back into the East, having received their profession of faith. He
also absolved John, a priest of Chalcedon, who had been unjustly
condemned by the delegates of the Matriarch. This patriarch, John,
surnamed the Faster, usurped the arrogant title of [oe]cumenical, or
universal patriarch. This epithet was only used of a general council
which represents the whole church. In this sense an {577} ecumenical
bishop should mean a bishop who represents the whole church, so that all
other bishops are only his vicars. St. Gregory took the word in that
sense: which would be blasphemy and heresy, and as such he condemned
it.[44] John indeed only meant it in a limited sense for an archbishop
over many, as we call him a general who commands many; but even so it
savored of arrogance and novelty. In opposition to this, St. Gregory
took no other titles than those of humility. Gregoria, a lady of the
bedchamber to the empress, being troubled with scruples, wrote to St.
Gregory, that she should never be at ease till he should obtain of God,
by a revelation, an assurance that her sins were forgiven her. To calm
her disturbed mind, he sent her the following answer.[45] "You ask what
is both difficult and unprofitable. Difficult, because I am unworthy to
receive any revelation: unprofitable, because an absolute assurance of
your pardon does not suit your state till you can no longer weep for
your sins. You ought always to fear and tremble for them, and wash them
away by daily tears. Paul had been taken up to the third heaven, yet
trembled lest he should become a reprobate.--Security is the mother of
negligence."

The emperor forbade any to be admitted in monasteries, who, having been
in office, had not yet given up their accounts, or who were engaged in
the military service. This order he sent to each of the patriarchs, to
be by then notified to all the bishops of their respective districts.
St. Gregory, who was at that time sick, complied with the imperial
mandate, so far as to order the edict to be signified to the western
bishops,[46] as appears from a letter which he wrote to the empe