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Pope John V (Latin: Ioannes V) was Pope from 23 July 685 to his death in 686. He was the first pope of the Byzantine Papacy permitted to be consecrated without prior consent of by the Byzantine Emperor, and the first in a line of ten consecutive popes of Eastern origin. His papacy was marked by reconciliation between the city of Rome and the Empire.
John V's papacy saw a continuation of improving relations with Byzantium. The Emperor greatly reduced taxes on the papal patrimonies of Sicily and Calabria and abolished other taxes, such as a surtax on grain that had been paid only with difficulty in recent years. A letter from Justinian II assured John V that a "synod of high-ranking civil and ecclesiastical officials", including the apocrisiarius and the Byzantine military, had read and thereafter sealed the text of the Third Council of Constantinople, to prevent any alteration to its canons. The letter was addressed to "John pope of the city of Rome", written while the Emperor believed the pope to still be alive, but received by Pope Conon.
Like his immediate predecessors, John V was unusually generous towards the diaconies of Rome, distributing 1,900 solidi to "all the clergy, the monastic diaconies, and the mansionarii" for the poor.
After a pontificate of little more than a year, John V died in bed and was succeeded by Pope Conon. John V's death in August 686 gave rise to a "heated debate over his successor", with the clergy favoring an archpriest Petros, and the army supporting another priest named Theodoros. The faction of the clergy gathered outside the Constantinian basilica and the faction of the military met in the Church of St. Stephen. Shuttle diplomacy proved futile and eventually the clergy elected Conon, a Greco-Sicilian, instead of their original candidate.
John V was buried among the papal tombs in Old St. Peter's Basilica. | 
