Justin, Augustus, to Pope Hormisdas

When we dismissed the most blessed Bishop Germanus and those who had been sent by you from this royal city, we delivered to them a mandate of this kind: that the chapters pertaining to the perfect unity of the Churches would be made known to your apostolic authority through the most reverend Bishop John, whom we were to send subsequently. These matters, however, had already been declared to them while they were present here.

But it has happened that the aforementioned Bishop John has been detained by a long illness. Therefore, so that no adverse judgment might come to your reverence, as if our promises to you were being delayed by some deliberate negligence, we have deemed it necessary to explain the cause of the delay to you through Eulogius, a most noble tribune and notary, whom we have sent to the exalted King Theodoric on certain matters. We also add that, as soon as the gracious majesty of our Lord and God is pleased to restore the same most religious man John to his former health, we shall immediately send him to your holiness, as we once promised.

We hope that your holiness will deign to obtain divine protection for us through your prayers. Given on the day before the Kalends of September, in Constantinople. Received in Rome on the Kalends of October, in the consulship of the illustrious Rusticus (year of our Lord 520).