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There was an interval of 138 days between the death of Adeodatus and the consecration of Donus his successor, an interval filled with remarkably bad weather. Lightning killed men and beasts, and storms so raged that the people prayed in daily litanies that the necessary farm work might go on.

Donus was a Roman, the son of Maurice. He had the satisfaction of receiving the submission of Reparatus, archbishop of Ravenna, who had revolted from papal control. At Constantinople, however, the Patriarch Theodore showed a disquieting tendency towards the One Will heresy. Right at home, the Pope found a colony of Syrian monks, in a monastery called Boethius, who were Nestorians. Donus broke up the heretical community dispersing the monks throughout Italy. The Boethius monastery he staffed with Romans.

Donus paved the courtyard of St. Peter's with large marble blocks. He also restored the Church of St. Euphemia on the Appian Way and another on the Ostian way the identity of which is obscure.

Donus died in 678 and was buried in St. Peter's, April 11.

Excerpted from "Popes Through the Ages" by Joseph Brusher, S.J.