Letter 142

From: Unknown sender To: Unknown recipient (bishops) 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.]

)rmisdae papae ad Enuodium et Peregrinum episcopos. 12 A^rU t profectis se episiolas a Johanne Nicopolitano ejusque synodo accepisse, qui- se a Dorotheo Thessalonicensi vehementer affligi querebantur ei utrum ad tdem relationem suhindehniiiere sibi ticeret consulebant. Se id negasse nuntiat ei de aliis instructionem insinuat. Hormisda Ennodio et Peregrino episcopis. Posteaquam profecta est caritas vestra, Nicopolitanus diaconus, vobis etiam occurrit in itinere, Romam venit^). Quem praeter un vidimus, cogitantes, ne forte esset quod ad instructionem datae vobis legationis adjicere deberemus; quod et rationabiliter im ipsa res evidenter ostendit. Obtulit enim nobis epistolam nnis episcopi sui et aliam synodi subjacentis') ecclesiae Nicopoli- J, qua queruntur ab episcopoThessalonicensi excitatas adversum se ^rincipales quam judiciarias potestates : concussionibus et dispen- te vehementer affligi propter hoc, quia de ordinatione sua ad ^pum relationem secundum^) prisca exempla non miserit. Pro Adeoque intra 5 Aprilis diem, quo legati profecti sunt. £d. add. sihi. Moxque prindpales potestates idem est, quod imperatoris ties, nisi quis hoc verbo malit intelligi IHyrici praefecturam et sublimissi' nter mundanos apices poiestatem, quam Leonis temporibus Anastasium pa- rhessalonicensem antistitem adiisse atque Attico ejusdem ecdesiae !Nico- iiae episcopo indignissima intulisse, Leo ipse epist. 14 c. 1 testatur. Johannem episcopum Nicopolitanum una cum sjnodo Epiri veteris rela- a de ordinatione ad Hormisdam misisse testes sunt superiores epistolae 15 In libro autem V de concordia sacerd. et imp. c. 25 n. 9 Steph. Baluzius ff^at, id contra morem veterem factum fuisse, ac de ordinatione Nicopoli* piscopi ad Thessalonicensem antistitem, non ad Romanum referri debuisse. ter etiam arbitratur, hac discordia Hormisdae datam esse occasionem di- a. 617. qua causa speraverunt, ut de remedio cogitare deberemiis, consu- lentes etiam nos , utrum *) daremus eis licentiam relationem ad de- signatum ejnscopum secundum consuetudinem destinandi. Unde ep. 35. tractavimus , et episcopum quidem Nicopolitanum admonuimus, ne tale aliquid audere tentaret, si nobiscum velit in communione per- sistere : ne per illum , si ab eo qui a communione nostra alienus est, confirmationem petiisset, nostra quoque communio contagium snsti- neret. Haec vos, ut omnia sciretis, instruximus. Quid autem pro- pitio Deo vobis de hac causa agendum sit, subjecta declarant. Data pridie Tdus Aprilis, Agapito consule.