Letter 1.78 to the clergy and people of Mevania (August 591)
Gregory to the clergy, decurions, and the people belonging to the church of Mevania
Whenever some matter is entrusted to several people, while each has a different view from the others, it would likely lead to detriment rather than profit. Foreseeing this, and so that it cannot happen in your church, we have decided that the church's care and profits should be for now entrusted to the presbyter Honoratus. In this way, the property and profits of the church can be both administered and protected by him in every way. Therefore, we exhort your Beloved with the present writing to reach an agreement consistent with your wish through a worthy election, so that a priest [i.e. bishop] could be ordained for you, and the church of God would no longer suffer from the absence of a pontiff. Until the priest of this church is ordained, however, we entrust everything to the careful care of the aforementioned presbyter, as we have said. Let your Beloved, then, hurry to exhibit your love in all these matters, so that the devotion of a ready mind might reveal the love you have for the church.
(trans. Martyn 2004: 190, altered by J. Szafranowski)