Theodoret's appeal in vain. The acts of the Council of Chalcedon (451) expressly say that St. Leo restored him to his see.[1] The same Robber Synod of Ephesus, in 449, deposed Flavian of Constantinople. Liberatus (c. 566), the historian of the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies, says: "Flavian appealed by letter to the Apostolic See, through its legates, against the sentence which had been pronounced against him";[2] and the Emperor Valentinian III (423–455) writes to Theodosius II (408–450), his partner in the East, to explain the matter: "We must," he writes, "in our time, too, keep unchanged the honour of reverence that we owe to the blessed Apostle Peter, inasmuch as that the most blessed Bishop of the Roman city, to whom ancient use has given the primacy of the priesthood over all, must have occasion and power to judge in cases of faith and in the affairs of bishops. … Because of this the Bishop of Constantinople, according to solemn use and according to the custom of the Council, has appealed to him by letter."[3] Pope Gelasius I (492–496), writing to Faustus, his Legate at Constantinople,[4] and again to the Bishops of Dardania,[5] and maintaining the ancient law according to which "the appeals of the whole Church come to this see to be examined, but no one may ever appeal from Rome," is able to quote a long list of famous cases to prove his point. The Syrian archimandrites and monks, surrounded by Monophysites, appeal to "Hormisdas (Pope, 514–523), the most holy and blessed Patriarch of the whole world, who holds the See of the Prince of the Apostles … whom Christ our God has set up as Chief Shepherd and Teacher and Physician of souls."[6] It was this Pope Hormisdas who drew up the famous formula (p. 85). Pope Theodore I (642–649) is not satisfied with the right of Paul to be Patriarch of
- ↑ Mansi, vi. 590: "Let the most reverend Bishop Theodoret be admitted because the most holy Archbishop Leo has restored his bishopric to him."
- ↑ Lib. Brev. xii. M.P.L. lxviii. 1006.
- ↑ Val. ad Theod. among St. Leo's letters, 55. Flavian's letter of appeal itself has been found lately. Cf. Zeitschrift für kath. Theologie (Innsbruck), 1883, pp. 193, seq.
- ↑ Ep. 10, Gelas. 5.
- ↑ Ep. 26, 5, ad eppos Dardaniæ, M.P.L. cxxxvi. 251.
- ↑ Ep. 19, ed. Thiel. an. 517.
