EUGENIUS I, SAINT

born , Rome died June 2, 657, Rome; feast day June 2 pope from 654 to 657. He was elected while his predecessor, Pope St. Martin I, was still alive in exile. Later, in a letter of September 655, Martin acknowledged Eugenius to be the legitimate pope. The Byzantine emperor Constans II Pogonatus urged Eugenius to recognize Patriarch Peter of Constantinople, but Eugenius refused because Peter was a Monothelite i.e., advocator of a condemned doctrine proposing that Christ had only one will. Eugenius was buried at St. Peter's.