From: Unknown correspondent
To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Anastasia, Gratus, Palmatia)
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.]
(a.5i9m. Homiisdae papae ad Anastasiam et PalmatiauL
Jan.)
Misfis legatis ui pro ecclesiasiicae redintegratione concordiae labarem
impendant, postulat,
Hormisda Anastasiae^) et Palmatiae a pari.
Bouae voluntatis studium diviuae semper comitatur prosperitatis
effectus. Dei uostri providentia temporis facultas oblata est, in qna
pro fidei vestrae praemio debeatis anniti. De supema primitos mi-
sericordia, deinceps de conscientia clementissimi principis praesu-
menteS; legatos pro religionis catholicae causa direximus^ per quos
amplitudinem yestram debitae reverentiae salutamua officio^ posio-
lanteS; ut pro ecclesiasticae redintegratione concordiae vestram labo-
. rem atque operam non negetis: quatenus quum repulsis remotisque
iis^ quos apostolicae sedis damnavit auctoritas^ ad unam quae recta
est communionem plebs Christiana redierit, beatum Petrum aposto-
lum; pro cujus fide nitimur, in vestris possitis habere actibus ad-
jutorem,
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.