From: Unknown correspondent
To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Anastasia)
Date: ~515-523 AD
Context: Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and Constantinople over the condemnation of the Monophysite patriarch Acacius. Pope Hormisdas (514-523) worked tirelessly to resolve this schism, which was finally healed in 519 under Emperor Justin I.
[This letter is part of the extensive diplomatic correspondence generated by the resolution of the Acacian Schism. The schism had divided the Eastern and Western churches for thirty-five years over the condemnation of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, who had promoted a compromise formula (the Henotikon) that Rome rejected as insufficiently orthodox. Hormisdas conducted negotiations through multiple embassies to Constantinople, exchanging letters with emperors, patriarchs, imperial officials, and powerful aristocratic women at court. The correspondence reveals the machinery of late antique ecclesiastical diplomacy: formal theological demands, careful diplomatic language, networks of lay and clerical allies, and the constant anxiety of a pope trying to manage events happening months away by letter.]
Aiiastasii iiiiperat^ris ad Uoriiiisdam papaiii. ^s^Dec
H. Ipsuin ad concilium fleracleae propler quasdam de /ide f/uaestiones in Scythia
motas celehrandwn invitat.
Anastasius Augustus Hormisdae papae.
Omiiibus negotiis diyinae res praeponendae sunt: Deo etenini
omnipotente propitio rempublicam et eonservandam et meliorandam
esse confidimus. Quia igitur dubitationes quaedam de oiiliodoxa
religione in Scythiae partibus videntur esse commotae, id specia-
liter clementiae nostrae placuit, ut venerabilis synodus in Heracleo-
tana civitate provinciae Europae celebretur^): quatenus concordanti-
bus animis et omni veritate discussa vera fides nostra orbi terrarum
omiii manifestius innotescat, ut deinceps nulla possit esse dubitatio
vel discorJia. Quapropter sauctitas tua cum quibus sibi placuerit
2Conf. Aviti ep. ad Honn. (1. c. ep. 21), ad Joh. Constantinopol. (od. Sir-
,11, 41).
1 ') Pacifl initae cum Vitaliano, qiii in gratiam cathoUcorum rebeUaverat,
una haec erat conditio secimdum Cedrenum ad an. 23, Anastasium scUicet im-
peratorem conciUum Heracleac acturum.
a. 514. reverentissimis*) episcopis, quos de ecclesiis sub sui sacerdotii cura
coustitutis idoueos et instructos erga orthodoxam religionem esse
probaverity ad praefatam Heracleotanam civitatem intra diemCalen-
darum Juliarum venire dignetur. Data V Cal. Januarii Constanti-
nopoli, Senatorc v. c. consule. Accepta pridie Idus Majas, Flo-
rentio v. c. consule.
◆
From:Unknown correspondent
To:Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Anastasia)
Date:~515-523 AD
Context:Part of the papal correspondence surrounding the Acacian Schism (484-519), the major breach between Rome and Constantinople over the condemnation of the Monophysite patriarch Acacius. Pope Hormisdas (514-523) worked tirelessly to resolve this schism, which was finally healed in 519 under Emperor Justin I.
[This letter is part of the extensive diplomatic correspondence generated by the resolution of the Acacian Schism. The schism had divided the Eastern and Western churches for thirty-five years over the condemnation of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, who had promoted a compromise formula (the Henotikon) that Rome rejected as insufficiently orthodox. Hormisdas conducted negotiations through multiple embassies to Constantinople, exchanging letters with emperors, patriarchs, imperial officials, and powerful aristocratic women at court. The correspondence reveals the machinery of late antique ecclesiastical diplomacy: formal theological demands, careful diplomatic language, networks of lay and clerical allies, and the constant anxiety of a pope trying to manage events happening months away by letter.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.