Pope Sisinnius

During the course of his twenty-day papacy, Sisinnius consecrated a bishop for Corsica and ordered the reinforcement of the walls surrounding the papal capital of Rome.

[1] The Eastern Byzantine emperors sought a theological compromise to hold their domains together, but the popes in Rome (the papal capital) suspected them of harboring heretical sympathies and accordingly attempted to resist imperial claims of dominance over the Church.

[7] The change has its origins in the restoration of Byzantine dominion over Italy under Justinian I (r. 527–565), which saw the phasing out of the Roman senate as an institution as senatorial families were either executed or fled to the East.

[8] During the Ostrogothic kingdom's rule over Rome from the late-fifth to the mid-sixth century, the senate held major sway over the selection of new popes, but following the imperial reconquest, control over the papal throne was no longer in its hands.

[10] Sisinnius' predecessor, John VII (r. 705–707) was installed as the bishop of Rome the same year that the Byzantine emperor Justinian II (r. 685–695, 705–711) was restored to his throne.

[12] The issue of the Quinisext canons continued into the reign of Sisinnius' successor, Constantine, who travelled to Constantinople in 711 to negotiate with the East over the matter.

[15] The historian Jean Durliat stated that "[t]he concision of his biography may be interpreted as the result of aversion to him on the part of the Roman clergy, or perhaps a reflection of the absence of anomaly in an ecclesiastical career that led naturally to the pontificate".

[16] Sisinnius was respected for his upright, moral disposition and concern for the people of Rome, politically and militarily part of the Exarchate of Ravenna.