Donus expanded the clergy of
Rome with twelve new priests and five deacons. He also consecrated six bishops for various
sees. One of these may have been Vitalianus of Arezzo. He had the
atrium of
Old St. Peter's Basilica paved with large blocks of white marble, and restored other churches of
Rome, notably the church of St. Euphemia on the Appian Way and the
Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Donus was shocked to discover a colony of
Nestorian monks in Boetianum, a Syrian monastery in Rome. He gave their monastery to Roman monks and dispersed them through the various religious houses of the city in the hope that they would accept
Chalcedonian Christianity. The Nestorians were possibly refugees fleeing the
Muslim conquest of the Levant. During the pontificate of Donus, Archbishop Reparatus of Ravenna returned to the obedience of the
Holy See, thus ending the schism created by Archbishop Maurus, who had aimed at making Ravenna
autocephalous. Donus' relations with Constantinople tended towards the conciliatory. On 10 August 678, Emperor
Constantine IV addressed him as "the most holy and blessed archbishop of our ancient Rome and the universal pope," hoping to attract him to engage in negotiations with the
patriarch of Constantinople and the
Monothelites. He ordered that
Pope Vitalianus' name be put back in the
diptychs of those bishops in communion with Constantinople, an act which caused him a great deal of trouble from the Monothelites and Patriarch
Theodore I of Constantinople. Donus died on 11 April 678 and was buried the same day in Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was succeeded by
Agatho. ==References==