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.]
a. 516 d. Horinisdae uapac ad Johannem Nicopolitanum.
19 Nov. ^^
JAheUum ei a se mitti^ cui episcopi Epiri suhscrihant; ut suppleant^ quod in
eorum litteris deerat.
Hormisda Johanni episcopo Nicopolitano perPt»^^'
lionera subdiaconum.
Litterarum quas direxisti series et expositio tuae fidei, con^^
niens sedis apostolicae judiciis, nostros animos relevavit. Tot ia.^^*
tati gaudiis contenti non fuimus, nisi per Pullionem subdiacon»^
ecclesiae Romanae, quid plenius circa vos ageretur, cuperemus agE3.o-
scere; magnopere quia in relatione episcoporum sub ordinaticp*^
caritatis tuae degentium non imiversa, quae ad ecclesiastica con^^'
tuta pertinent, sicut in vestra, leguntur evidenter expressa. Uri.^^
et pro nostra soUicitudine et illorum integra nobiscum conjunctic^^^
libellum*) direximus, in quo eos oportet debere subscribere, quisu c^
omnes sacerdotes vestrarum partium^), qui ad sedis apostolicae
munionera reversi sunt, in eadem professione subscripserunt.
caritas, ista comraunis salutis excitavit ambitio, quod credo et
ternitatem vestram gratanter accipere : quia ubi de animarum sal^^t
res geritur, studii tui vel intentionis debes operam commodare, «
antecedendo fructum de tali possis laude percipere. Pullionem
dictum cum rescriptis caritatis vestrae ad nos juvante Deo sub
ritate remittite, quatenus desideria nostra diu suspensa esse rxoB
possint. Data XIII Cal. Decembres, Petro viro clarissimo consule.
◆
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.