From: Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To: Unknown recipient (Juliana Anicia)
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.]
8611
(a. 519 il. Exempbim epistolae Julianae Anioiae ad Hormifldam.
2*2 April.;
ConslantinopolUanos in die sanciae resurrectionis ad ubera materna Ecclesiae con-
congregatos csse; ne permitlat Hormisda legatos ahscedere, donec pax omnino
firmata sit.
Domino beatissimo patri Hormisdae Juliana')
Anicia.
Precibus vestrae beatitudinis, adventu legatorum principaKs
sedis apostolicae elisis erroribus haereticorum, in unitatem fidei ca-
tholicae convenimus, congregati simul ad ubera matema Ecclesiae
iu die sanctae resurrectionis. Quapropter stilo venerationis alloqaen-
tes sanctitatem vestram, admonemus, ut intimetis destinatis a vobis
reverendissimis viris, nullo modo abscedere, antequam, sicut prae-
videritis ut oportet, firmentur ea quae bene disposita sunt ab eis:
ut, amputatis omnibus reliquiis transacti^) erroris, impendiis vestrae
beatitudinis roborata unitas ad efl*ectum perpetuum deducatur.
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From:Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To:Unknown recipient (Juliana Anicia)
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.