From: Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To: Unknown recipient (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.]
HORMisDA GERMANo iiLusTRissiMo. Excubautibus uobis proba- 25 bili pro ecclesiastica pace proposito et tanto fidei caiore
3 nota V, corrtxi
210. I)at. (simul cum epp, 189 190 202 203 207 211) a. 519 die 2 Sept. per Eulogium. Edd. Car. P 513; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 888; commemorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 9 participatio a, unde participatione 20 arbitrio ex aibitria corr. V elegatis V,
corr. 0
21J. Dat. ut ep. 210. Edd. Car. P 512; Collect. Concil; BTA I 435; Thiel 892; commeinorat Bar. ad a. 519, 134. 24 illustri Thiel <ixiro> illuatriBsimo Car,
670
lustinus Honnisda; suggestio Gerniani etc.
feruentibus gratiarum actio sola non sufGcit, quia nec uos humanae laudis praerogatiua sollicitat sed diuinae expectatio
2 retributionis inflammat. quod igitur maxime debemus, exol- uimus et deum nostrum, cuius uos causis impenditis, pro incolomitate uestra cotidie deprecamur, rogantes, ut studium uestrum in omni pro ecclesiasticae unitatis affectu parte sic ferueat, ut nuUus boni relinquatur locus officii, ubi non paternis regulis uestrae patrocinium defensionis adsistat.
S praecipue tamen Heliae Thomae atque Nicostrati fratrum et coepiscoporum uostrorum causa nos commouet, qui primi mundo necessariam secuti concordiam ecclesiarum suarum priuatione perculsi cum ueuerabilium quoque canonum contu- melia deprimuntur fitque illis propriae reconciliationis gloria causa difficilis, quasi ipsi magis pertinaci mente restiterint et aliis ad sedis apostolicae redeuntibus unitatem ipsi ecclesiae
4 magis membra discerpserint. quod quam nobis durum sit quamque clementissimi temporibus imperatoris indignum, prudentiam uestram conuenit aestimare et tandem praestare remedium, quod et illorum labores et nostram grato possit solamine auferre maestitiam.
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From:Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To:Unknown recipient (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.