Pope St. Silverius

Pope St. Silverius (reigned 536–537) was the son of Pope Hormisdas, born before his father entered the priesthood, and was elevated to the papacy during the turbulent years of the Gothic wars in Italy. His pontificate was caught between the Ostrogoths and the reconquering Byzantine forces, and between orthodoxy and the Monophysite sympathies of the imperial court at Constantinople.

The empress Theodora pressed him to restore the deposed Monophysite patriarch Anthimus of Constantinople; when Silverius refused to betray the Catholic faith, he was falsely accused of treason, deposed, stripped of his dignity, and exiled by the Byzantine general Belisarius, with Vigilius installed in his place. He died in banishment on the island of Palmaria, worn down by ill treatment, and the Church has venerated him as a martyr who gave his life rather than yield to heresy.