From: Pope Hormisdas, Rome
To: Unknown recipient (Germanus, Dioscorus, 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 GERMANO ET lOHANNI EPISCOPIS FELICl ET DIOSCORO
DiAcoNis ET BLANDO PRESBYTERO. Opinionum diucrsitas diu nos facit de prosperitate uestra uel de susceptae actionis qualitate soUicitos, praecipue cum nihil certum tam diuturno tempore uestrae diiectionis potuissemus rescriptione cognoscere. 25 nos taraen reperta latoris occasione haec ipsa significare maluimus. quapropter salutantes, cum dei omnipotentis auxilia incolomes nos esse cognoscite, quod et de uobis audire 2 desideramus. sed ut de omnibus, quae gesta sunt, nostram
Epist. ccxvni 3 — CCXXI 1.
681
plenius possitis instruere notionem, a quibus personis uel in quibus locis bene, sicut credimus, suscepti fueritis uel ubi aut sub qua festiuitate resun-ectionis dominicae caritas uestra tenuerit diem et quid deinceps egeritis, per omnia rescriptis currentibus declarate, quatenus cogitationem nostram de uestra et actuum prosperitate releuare possitis et, si quid instructioni, quam suscepistis, causae defuerit, subiungere cum dei nostri solatio ualeamus. Data VII. Kal. Maias Eutharico cons.
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.