As part of the empire's religious policies, efforts were made to suppress idolatry, leading to the burning of pagan books, destruction of images, and imprisonment and flogging of adherents of the old religion.
In 519, a year prior to his election, he was sent, along with John Cappadocia and count Licinius, to Macedonia to collect documents known as "libellos" or subscriptions from those seeking reunification with the Catholic Church, upon the request of Dorotheus, bishop of Thessalonica's apocrisiarius.
[2] Epiphanius accepted the peace conditions previously established between the East and West by his predecessor, Patriarch John Cappadocia, and Pope Hormisdas, and ratified them at a council held in Constantinople.
[4] The strict measures implemented by Emperor Justin to establish Catholic supremacy in the East provoked Theodoric the Great, the Arian and Ostrogothic ruler of Italy, to retaliate in the West.
Pope John I, who succeeded Hormisdas, became concerned, and in 525, he traveled to Constantinople in response to Theodoric's demands to revoke the edict against the Arians and restore their churches (according to Marcellinus Comes).
With great solemnity, the Pope conducted the Latin office on Easter Day, communing with all the bishops of the East except for Patriarch Timothy IV of Alexandria, a staunch opponent of Chalcedon.