From: Unknown correspondent
To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Germanus, 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.]
^'9 Jiin Hormisdae papae ad Germanom ceterosque legatos.
Ut apud imperatorem ejusgue conjugem agant, guo omnes ecdesiae^ praecipue
vero Alexandrina et Antiochena, ad apostolicae sedis communionem revocentur.
Hormi*sda Germano et Johanni episcopis, Felici
et Dioscoro diaconis, et Blando presbytero.
ep. (»4. De his, quae acta caritatis vestrae relatio comprehendit, gratias
Deo nostro referimus, qui laborem vestrum juvare dignatus est, et
hortamur, ut clementissimo principi et piissimae Augustae conjugi
ejus officiis imminere competentibus debeatis, et agere auxiliaute
Christo nostro universis sub ecclesiastica observatione dispositis, ut
oraues ecclesiae, quae in qualibet mundi parte sunt positae, ad com-
uumionem sedis apostolicae revocentur. De Alexandiina yero atque
Antiochena ecclesiis elaboratc, ut nostrae fidei sub observatione ra-
tionabili connectantur, quia tantae rei perfectio tam clemeutissimo
86 •) Qnao hiijua Grati dignitas fiicrit, ox epistolis 42 et 46 ropete. Amice cnm
eo oxpostiilat , qiiod PiiIlioDis opportunitato data, nnllas ab eo littoras ac-
c»'perit.
EPISTOLAE 85 — 89. 885
priiicipi quam vobis gratiam divinae propitiationis acquirit. Data (a. 519.)
quo^) supra consule.
◆
From:Unknown correspondent
To:Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Germanus, 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.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.