The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Rescript of the Bishops of Dardania to Pope Gelasius

Synopsis: The bishops of Dardania write to Gelasius, addressing him as the holy apostolic lord and most blessed father of fathers, giving thanks for his pastoral admonition, professing their desire to obey his commands in all things and to preserve inviolate the precepts of the Apostolic See, and requesting that he send a representative from his angelic see to oversee the ordering of affairs in their region

To the holy apostolic lord and most blessed father of fathers, Gelasius, Pope of the city of Rome, the humble bishops of Dardania.

The Bishops Receive Gelasius’s Commands with Devotion and Give Thanks for His Pastoral Admonition

We have received with fitting devotion the most salutary precepts of Your Apostleship, delivered by Trypho, a religious man and our son, and we give the greatest thanks to Almighty God and to Your Beatitude, that you have deemed us worthy of pastoral admonition and evangelical teaching, holy apostolic lord and most blessed father of fathers.

For it is our desire and our prayer to obey your commands in all things, and, as we have received from our fathers, to preserve inviolate the precepts of the Apostolic See — which has been entrusted to your life and merits — and to guard the orthodox faith, of which you are the preachers, with faithful and blameless devotion, as far as the capacity of our simplicity allows.

The Contagion of Acacius and All Heretics Avoided; Those Who Separate from the Apostolic See Are Not Our Associates

For we have avoided the fellowship and communion of Eutyches and Peter and Acacius and all their followers, as certain pestilent contagions, even before your command, and all the more now after the admonition of the Apostolic See it is necessary to abstain from the same pollution. And if any others follow the sect of Eutyches, or of Peter and Acacius, or have followed it, or consider themselves to be mingled with their accomplices and associates, they too must be avoided by every means by us, who desire to serve the Apostolic See blamelessly, according to divine precepts and the statutes of the Fathers.

And if any by perverse intention — which we neither suppose nor desire — believe themselves separated from the Apostolic See, we profess ourselves to be alien from their fellowship; because, as has been said, guarding the precepts of the Fathers in all things, and following the inviolable institutions of the sacred canons, we strive to obey that apostolic and singular see of yours with common faith and devotion.

Request for a Representative from the Angelic See

And since Your Beatitude has granted us, by the kindness innate to it, the occasion to make suggestions, we have entrusted certain matters to be conveyed by the above-mentioned Trypho, a religious man and our son, the bearer of your precepts. And we beseech with just prayers that Your Apostleship deign to admit his petition — which we consider just and reasonable — with willing spirit as a supplication on our behalf (which our supplication deserves to be granted), and to command that one person from your angelic see be sent with the aforesaid religious man to us, so that in his presence those things which the orthodox faith and the sincerity of your command require may be set in order.

Subscriptions

Joannes, bishop of the most holy Church of Scupi, the metropolitan city, consenting to this rescript given by us, have subscribed with my own hand to all things contained above.

Bonosus, bishop, subscribed as above.

Samuel, bishop, subscribed as above.

Verianus, bishop, subscribed as above through Valentinus the archdeacon.

Faustinus, bishop, subscribed as above.

Ursinus, bishop, subscribed as above.

Source/Reference

PL 59:21

Notes / Historical Commentary

The Rescript of the Dardanian bishops is a short but remarkably dense acknowledgment of papal primacy, and it deserves to be read as carefully as any letter from a pope. Its value lies in what it shows about how the bishops on the receiving end of papal authority understood and described what they were receiving. These are not Roman claims about Roman authority; they are Eastern bishops’ claims about Roman authority, offered freely and without coercion in a formal document bearing individual episcopal subscriptions.

The address alone repays close attention. Gelasius is addressed as patri patrum — “father of fathers” — a title that places the Roman bishop not merely first among equals but above all other bishops as the father who governs fathers. The bishops call themselves humiles — “humble” — and describe themselves as men of rusticitas, “simplicity,” who receive and guard what Rome prescribes. This is not collegial language. It is the language of subordinates addressing a superior whose authority they acknowledge without qualification.

The substantive content reinforces the address at every point. The bishops profess their desire to obey Gelasius’s commands “in all things” — jussionibus vestris in omnibus obedire. They pledge to preserve the precepts of the Apostolic See “inviolate” — intemerate servare. They describe themselves as men who desire to “serve” the Apostolic See blamelessly — sedi apostolicae inculpati servire desideramus. And they declare that anyone who separates from the Apostolic See is no associate of theirs. The Apostolic See is the fixed reference point; everything else is defined by its relationship to that center.

The request for a papal representative is the practical application of the theological acknowledgment. The bishops ask Gelasius to send someone from his “angelic see” to oversee the ordering of affairs in their region. This is the Illyrian vicariate in operation: the pope’s authority over the Illyrian churches was not merely theoretical but was exercised through representatives sent from Rome, and the bishops themselves requested this oversight. The reader should compare this with Leo’s delegation of authority to Anastasius of Thessalonica in Letters V and VI — the same structure, operating under a different pope, with the local bishops actively seeking it rather than merely receiving it.

The six episcopal subscriptions — Joannes of Scupi (the metropolitan), Bonosus, Samuel, Verianus (signing through his archdeacon), Faustinus, and Ursinus — give the Rescript the character of a provincial synodal act. This is not a private letter from one bishop; it is a collective act of the Dardanian episcopate, formally subscribing to their obedience to the Apostolic See. The reader who wishes to evaluate the claim that papal primacy was a Roman invention imposed on unwilling Eastern churches will find this document difficult to accommodate to that narrative.