Now in St. Gregory's time a discussion arose, which served to draw forth statements on his part most remarkably bearing on the present claims of the See of Rome. In the year 589 Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch, accused of a grievous crime, appealed to the Emperor and his Council. He accordingly went to Constantinople, and was tried. All the Patriarchs of the East in person, or by their deputies, attended this trial, the Senate likewise, and many Metropolitans; and the cause having been examined in several sittings, Gregory was absolved, and the accuser flogged through the city and banished. At this Council John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, took the title of Universal Bishop. Immediately the Roman Pontiff Pelagius heard of it, he sent letters by which, of St. Peter's authority, he annulled the acts of this Council, save as to the absolution of Gregory, and ordered his deacon, the Nuncio, not to attend the mass with John. But he left the contest about the name Ecumenical, or Universal, Bishop or Patriarch, to his successor Gregory. We have many letters of Gregory on the subject, of which I will give extracts. The Pope foresaw the great danger there was that the Patriarch of Constantinople would reduce completely under him the other three Eastern Patriarchs, and perhaps attempt to gain the Primacy of the whole Church; for this, among other reasons, neither St. Leo, nor any of his successors, had ever allowed in the West the 28th Canon of Chalcedon, giving him the next place to Rome. And now this title of Ecumenical, combined with the fact that the Bishop of that See was, from his position, the intermediary between all the Bishops of the East and the imperial power, seemed to point directly to such a consummation. He was the natural president of a Council continually sitting at Constantinople, which might be said to lead and give the initiative to the whole East. Accordingly St. Gregory appears in this matter the great defender of the Patriarchal equilibrium. "Gregory to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch."[135]... "As your venerable Holiness is aware, this name Universal was offered by the holy Synod of Chalcedon to the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, a post which by God's providence I fill. But no one of my predecessors ever consented to use so profane a term, because plainly, if a single _Patriarch is called Universal, the name of Patriarch is taken from the rest_. But far, far be this from the mind of a Christian, that any one should wish to claim to himself that by which the honour of his brethren may seem to be in any degree diminished. Since, therefore, we are unwilling to receive this honour when offered to us, consider how shameful it is that any one has wished violently to usurp it to himself. Wherefore let your Holiness in your letters _never call any one Universal, lest in offering undue honour to another you should deprive yourself of that which is your due_....