A
Greek born in
Sicily of wealthy and devout parents, he allegedly gave away his inheritance after their death and retired to a monastery in
Palermo. This belief is based on a letter written by
St. Gregory the Great to the
abbot of St. Hermes in Palermo, a
Benedictine Monastery, mentioning an Agatho. In this letter, Gregory wrote that the abbot could receive Agatho into his monastery if Agatho's wife was willing to enter a convent. While there are reasons to believe that Pope Agatho is this monk, he would have been over 100 years old at the time of his election.
Shortly after Agatho became Pope,
St Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, arrived at
Rome to invoke the authority of the
Holy See in his behalf. Wilfrid had been deposed from his see by
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had carved up Wilfrid's diocese, appointing three bishops to govern the new sees. At a
synod which Pope Agatho convoked in the
Lateran to investigate the affair, it was decided that Wilfrid's diocese should indeed be divided, but that Wilfrid himself should name the bishops.
The major event of his pontificate was the
Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–1), which ended the
Monothelite heresy that had been tolerated by previous popes (
Honorius among them). The council began when Emperor
Constantine IV, desired to heal the
schism that separated the two sides. He wrote to
Pope Donus suggesting a conference on the matter, but Donus was dead by the time the letter arrived. However, Agatho was quick to seize the olive branch offered by the emperor. He ordered councils held throughout the West so that legates could present the universal tradition of the Western Church. Then he sent a large delegation to meet the Easterners at Constantinople.
The legates and patriarchs gathered in the imperial palace on
November 7, 680. The
Monothelites presented their case. Then the letter of Pope Agatho was read which explained the traditional belief of the Church that
Christ was of two wills, divine and human. The council agreed that
Peter spoke through Agatho. Patriarch George of Constantinople accepted Agatho's letter, as did most of the bishops present. The council proclaimed the existence of the two wills in Christ and condemned Monothelitism, with
Pope Honorius being included in the condemnation. When the council ended in September of 681 the decrees were sent to the Pope, but Agatho had died in January. The Council had not only ended the Monothelite heresy, but had healed the schism.
Agatho also undertook negotiations between the Holy See and Constantine, concerning the relations of the
Byzantine Court to
papal elections. Constantine promised Agatho to abolish or reduce the tax that the popes had had to pay to the imperial treasury on their
consecration.
He is venerated as a saint by both Latins and Greeks.
Some
Traditionalist Catholics say he was the first pope to take, as part of his inauguration, what they call the
Papal Oath.