Leo, bishop, to Marcian Augustus.
Chapter I: Leo’s Initial Suspicion of Anatolius’s Ordination Overcome by Marcian’s Testimony and Anatolius’s Profession of Faith
The whole world recognizes how excellently the glorious zeal of your clemency has in our time restored the integrity of the Christian faith — securing through you, by the Lord, a singular protection of salvation. If any opposition arising from a contrary spirit should contend against the completion of this great work, it must be recalled to the aid of your piety — prepared by divine providence to guard the Catholic truth — since your authority can suppress scandals even at a distance, and far more those that dare to rise under your own eyes. As for Anatolius’s ordination: God is my witness that it was suspect to me, I confess, on account of his consecrators — and I judged the elect to be like those who elected him. Thus, while he remained a stranger to the communion of the Apostolic See, I long abstained from sending him letters of peace when he sought them. But your piety’s testimony was added in support of him — promising that his faith and intention for unity were desirable and pleasing — so I believed his profession to be sincere, and yet I ceaselessly urged proper conduct, diligently admonishing him to shun the persecutors of blessed Flavian’s memory and to truly abhor the followers of Eutychian heresy as enemies of Christ. He seemed to comply: he wrote to me that he had expelled Andrew the deacon, a defender of Eutyches’s heresy; and he wrote to me about the Catholic definitions of the faith established by the synod, as befits a Catholic bishop.
Chapter II: Leo Condemns the Demotion of Aetius and the Promotion of the Eutychian Andrew
With these praiseworthy beginnings, I do not know what cause or occasion arose for him to degrade from the archdeaconry — under the guise of honor — a man of Catholic faith who steadfastly opposes both Nestorian and Eutychian heretics: suddenly transferring all the care of ecclesiastical affairs to Andrew the Eutychianist. So greatly disturbed was he by this that he performed this consecration — given as an injury — on a Saturday, ignorant or forgetful of apostolic tradition: as though the fault of ordination pertained more to a bishop than a presbyter. Finding no fault in faith or conduct, he accomplished the demotion of an innocent man through feigned promotion — adding to the injury by assigning him to a cemetery, a form of exile that is itself a sentence. I commend him to your piety, that he suffer no further harmful schemes — for I learn that the Lord has placed him under your protection.
Chapter III: Leo Urges Marcian to Reprove Anatolius and to Support Julian of Cos as Leo’s Delegate
I add this further plea: deign to reprove the said bishop as necessary — discordant as he is with his own profession and too forgetful of your testimony and favor. Let him cease to oppress Catholics, to crush those who were pleasing to blessed Flavian, and to choose the company of those he had condemned. We cannot extend brotherly charity to him unless he proves himself to execrate the enemies of the Catholic faith and severs all connection with the one he had rightly rejected. For even if Andrew had been greatly purified by satisfaction, after his doubtful return from error he should have been placed in subordination to the Catholic deacons, not elevated above them. Furthermore, I seek from your clemency the goodwill of holding my brother Julian, your venerator, in your affection — since, trusting in the sincerity of his faith, I delegated to him My role against the heretics of this time, requiring his presence with you for the custody of the churches and of peace. Deign to hear his suggestions for the concord of Catholic unity as Mine, pleasing God — who grants you not only a royal crown but a priestly palm.
Dated the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ The PL apparatus preserves the fuller Latin of this clause: dum communione apostolicae sedis existeret alienus, diu dandis ad eum epistolis pacis me abstinerem — “while he remained a stranger to the communion of the Apostolic See, I long abstained from sending him letters of peace.” The withholding of communion-letters is Leo’s standard instrument for exclusion from the Apostolic See’s fellowship: compare the formula in Letter X on Hilary of Arles (*exsors apostolicae communionis*) and the conditions set for Anatolius’s reconciliation of the Eastern episcopate in Letters LXXX and LXXXI. Here Leo applies the same structure to Anatolius himself: receiving letters of peace from the Apostolic See is the operative sign of being in its communion, and Leo withheld them until he was satisfied with Anatolius’s profession.
- ↩ Andrew had been identified in Chapter I as the Eutychian deacon whom Anatolius had claimed to expel. His reinstatement — at the expense of Aetius the orthodox archdeacon — reveals the gap between Anatolius’s written professions to Leo and his actual conduct at Constantinople. Aetius the archdeacon was a well-known defender of the Chalcedonian faith at Constantinople. By removing him from the archdeaconry and assigning him to a cemetery church — a standard form of ecclesiastical marginalization in the Constantinopolitan system — Anatolius was effectively placing the administration of the church of Constantinople in Eutychian hands while maintaining a surface of compliance in his correspondence with Rome.
- ↩ The Saturday ordination is a canonical violation Leo had addressed directly in Letter IX to Dioscorus of Alexandria: ordinations are to be celebrated on Saturday night (at the dawn of Sunday) or on Sunday morning itself — not on Saturday. The phrase traditionis apostolicae aut nescius aut oblitus — “ignorant or forgetful of apostolic tradition” — is pointedly double-edged: either Anatolius does not know the rule, or he knows it and disregards it. Neither reflects well on a bishop who had just written Leo about his orthodoxy.
- ↩ The reader should observe what Leo is doing in this chapter: he is issuing specific directives about the internal personnel arrangements of the Church of Constantinople — who holds the archdeaconry, who is to be expelled, which deacon is to be subordinated to which. These are not observations or suggestions; they are the conditions Leo sets for Anatolius to remain in communion with the Apostolic See. A first among equals has no authority to dictate the internal administration of a peer’s church. A superior does. Letter CXXXII will confirm that Anatolius obeyed: he writes to Leo to report that he has expelled Andrew and restored Aetius to his proper place, framing his compliance explicitly as obedience to Leo’s directives.
- ↩ Julian, bishop of Cos — Leo’s permanent personal representative in Constantinople. The phrase vice mea contra hujus temporis haereticos illi delegavi — “I delegated to him my role against the heretics of this time” — applies the vicariate formula to Julian’s ongoing pastoral role at Constantinople, not merely his function at the council. Julian is not just the legate Leo sent to Chalcedon; he is the standing vehicle of Leo’s pastoral authority at the imperial court.
- ↩ March 10, 453. This is Leo’s reply to Letter CX — the letter in which Marcian had requested Leo’s formal public confirmation of the Chalcedonian synod and praised Leo’s steadfastness in maintaining the Nicene canons. Leo’s reply addresses not the confirmation request directly but the immediately pressing situation created by Anatolius’s treatment of Aetius — evidence that Anatolius’s conduct at Constantinople continues to require imperial restraint. The full public confirmation of Chalcedon’s doctrinal definitions — the substance of Marcian’s request — appears in subsequent letters.
Historical Commentary