Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/356

 284 13th year of the reign of Maurice, and in the 13th indiction, summoned a council of 24 bishops to the shrine of the blessed apostle Peter, and made decrees concerning essential church matters. He also sent to Britain Augustine, Mellitus, and John, and with them many other godly monks, who converted the English to Christ; moreover Ethelbert on being converted to the grace of Christ, with the kingdom of Kent which he governed, and the adjacent provinces, rewarded his instructor Augustine and the other holy prelates, with an episcopal seat. The nations of the Angles to the north of the Humber, under Ella and Ethelfrid, had not yet heard the word of life. In the 19th year of Maurice, in the 4th indiction, Gregory, in a letter to Augustine, directed that the bishops of London and York should be metropolitans, on receiving a pall from the Apostolic See.

A.M. 4565 [614].

Phocas reigned 8 years. In the 2nd year of his reign, in the 8th indiction. Pope Gregory departed to the Lord. At the request of Pope Boniface, Phocas decreed that the see of the Roman and apostolic church should be the head of all the churches; whereas the church of Constantinople claimed this dignity. At the request of another Pope Boniface, he ordered that the old temple. Called the Pantheon, should be purged of its idolatrous pollutions, and be converted into a church of the ever blessed Virgin and all the martyrs; so that in the spot where all the devils were worshipped, the memory of all the saints was thenceforth venerated.