From: Unknown correspondent
To: Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Germanus)
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.]
^^s^^\t Hormisdae papae a<1 Oeriiianum viram illustrem.
Pi'0 officiis Ecclesiae praestitis grntias agens, causam Eliae, Tkomae ei Sioh p.tU
strati impense commendai.
Hormisda Germano viro illustrissimo*).
Excubantibus vobis probabili pro ecclesiastica pace proposito et
tanto fidei calore ferventibus gratiarum actio sola nen sufficit; quia
nec vos liumanae laudis praerogativa sollicitat, sed divinae exspectatio
retributionis inflammat. Quod igitur maxime debemus, exsolvimiB,
et Deum nostrum, cujus vos causis impenditis, pro incolumitate
vestra quotidie deprecamur, rogantes, ut studiura vestrum in omiii
pro ecclesiasticae unitatis attectu parte sic ferveat, ut nuUus boni
relinquatur locus ofticii, ubi non paternis regulis vestrae patrocinium
defensionis assistat. Praecipue tamen Eliae, Thomae atque Xico-
strati fratrum et coepiscoponim nostrorum causa nos commovet, qui-
primi mundo necessariam secuti concordiam, ecclesiarum suarum
privatione perculsi, cum venerabilivmi quoque canonimi coutumelia
deprimuntur, fitque illis propriae reconciliationis gloria causa ditfi-
cilis, quasi ipsi magis pertinaci mente restiterint, et aliis ad sedis
apostolicae redeuntibus unitatem ipsi Ecclesiae magis membra dis-
cerpserint. Quod quam nobis durum sit quamque clemeutissimi
temporibus imperatoris indignum, pnidentiam vestram convenit
aestimare, et tandem praestare remedium, quod et illorum labores
et nostram grato possit solamine auferre moestitiam.
◆
From:Unknown correspondent
To:Pope Hormisdas, Rome (Germanus)
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.