From: Pope Hormisdas, Rome
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.]
HORMISDA HEIIAE THOMAE ET NIGOSTRATO EPISCOPIS. QuautO
mens nostra doloris uestri participio fatigetur, superuacuum 10 est apud probantes mutuam caritatem uerbis adsti'uere ; sed ille, qui et nostrum animum et uestros labores scrutator praescius intuetur, maerorem nostrum uestra in gaudium prosperitate conuertat. uerum ne uraquam pro uestro negotio 2 sub allegatione iustissima et blanda intercessione cessemus, 15 noueritis nos tam ad clementissimum principem quam ad praecellentissimam Augnstam nec non ad illustres et magni- ficos uiros lustinianum atque Germanum filios nostros litteras destinasse uestrum specialiter negotium continentes, quas uiro sublimi Eulogio ita tradidimus, ut in uestro primum ponat «0 arbitrio, utrum per uos eas eligatis offerre an per ipsum potius perlatorem tam principi porrigantur quam ceteris, quas designauimus supra, personis.
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From:Pope Hormisdas, Rome
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.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.