Vigilius then, worn out with the long strife, gave in, confirmed the acts of the council, and condemned the Three Chapters in another Constitutum (February 23, 554). He now only wanted to be set free and to go home. He was allowed to do so. But the unhappy Pope never again saw Rome. Worn out by that miserable time in Constantinople, he fell sick and died, on his return journey, at Syracuse in June 555. Never has there been so pitiful a Roman Pontiff as Vigilius.
In the West there was furious opposition to the council. In Africa especially, the bishops thought the Pope had betrayed the faith utterly, and they went into formal schism against their own Patriarch. In Northern Italy, Gaul, Spain and Britain too, there was great indignation. Pope Pelagius I (555~561) accepted the council, which his predecessor had at last confirmed. But the provinces of Africa, Illyricum, Milan and Tuscany remained in schism. This Western schism as the final result of the Three Chapters lasted a long time. Most of Africa returned to union with Rome in 559. Milan came back in 571, after Justin II's Henotikon (p. 206). In Illyricum the schism produced a result which lasts till now. The Metropolitan of Illyricum at Aquileia had already begun to assume (without any warrant) the title Patriarch.[1] Macedonius of Aquileia (539-556), leader of the schismatics, took the title definitely. His successor, Paulinus (557-571), moved his residence to Grado, a small island opposite Aquileia, keeping the title "Patriarch of Aquileia." This line of bishops returned to union with Rome in 606. As generally happens, they were allowed to keep the title they had already used for so many years.[2] Meanwhile, their schismatical suffragans restored the line of schismatical Patriarchs at Aquileia itself. There were now two "Patriarchs" — one of Aquileia-Grado, a Catholic, and a schismatical one at Aquileia itself. Aquileia-Grado then became Grado alone. It was not till 700 that a synod at Aquileia put an end to the schism altogether. Both lines of Patriarchs are now merged in the title of Venice. Venice absorbed
