[2] He may be identical with the subdeacon John who made a collection of extracts from the Greek Fathers and completed the translation of the Vitae patrum into Latin which Pope Pelagius I had begun.
The first was the death of Emperor Justinian I in 565, after which the Eastern Roman Empire turned its attention from Rome and the rest of Italy to pressing problems in the Balkans, from the Avars, Persians and the Arabs.
[6] As the Lombards poured south into Italy, the newly appointed governor Longinus sat powerless in Ravenna, unable to stop them.
Pope John took it upon himself to go to Naples, where the former governor Narses was preparing to return to the imperial capital, Constantinople, and beg him to take charge.
[6] One recorded act of Pope John involved two bishops, Salonius of Embrun and Sagittarius of Gap, who had been condemned in a synod at Lyons (c. 567).