persons shall be judged according to their faults; and that in this council shall be publicly burnt all the copies of the acts[1] of the false council held against the Holy See, and that it be forbidden to preserve any of them under pain of anathema." Adrian then demanded the Roman priests who had gone to Constantinople to complain to Photius of Pope Nicholas. The letter to Ignatius is an instruction as to the treatment of those ecclesiastics who had declared for Photius, but were now willing to abandon his cause. Adrian added to these letters a formula to be signed by the members of the council, in which they agreed to recognize him as Sovereign Pontiff and Universal Pope.
The council was opened at Constantinople, in the Church of Saint Sophia, on the 5th of October, 869. There were present the three Papal legates, Ignatius, Thomas, Bishop of Tyre, self-styled representative of the Patriarch of Antioch, and the priest Elias, calling himself the representative of the Bishop of Jerusalem.
The bishops who declared against Photius were brought in. They were twelve in number. They were permitted to take seats, and formed the whole council at the first session. At the second, ten bishops who had adhered to Photius entered to crave pardon for their fault. It was readily granted, and they took their places with the others. Eleven priests, nine deacons, and seven sub-deacons imitated the ten bishops, and were pardoned in the same manner.
Two new bishops arrived at the third session, so that the assembly was composed of twenty-four bishops, without counting the presidents. At the fourth session two bishops, ordained by the former Patriarch, Methodius, asked leave to defend the Patriarch Photius, with
- ↑ The historians inimical to Photius nevertheless relate that but one copy existed, carefully hidden by Photius, who, they say, had invented the Acts, which copy was seized, carried to Rome, and burnt at the council held in that city.
