Leo, bishop, to the bishops gathered at the holy Synod of Chalcedon.
Chapter I: Leo Formally Confirms His Agreement With Chalcedon’s Faith Definition, and Explains Why He Is Writing Directly to the Bishops
I have no doubt that your entire brotherhood knows that I embraced with my whole heart the definition of the holy synod held at Chalcedon for the confirmation of the faith — for no reason could allow me, who was grieving at the disturbance of the unity of the Catholic faith by heretics, not to rejoice with exultation at its restoration. You could have recognized this not only from the effect of your most blessed agreement but also from my letters sent to the bishop of Constantinople after the return of my legates — had he chosen to make the response of the Apostolic See known to you.
Lest malicious interpreters make it appear doubtful whether I approve your unanimous decrees on the faith accomplished at Chalcedon, I send these letters to all our brothers and fellow bishops who were present at that council. The most glorious and clement prince will deign, as I requested, to cause them to be communicated to all out of love for the Catholic faith — so that your fraternal company and all the hearts of the faithful may know that I have united my judgment with yours, through the actions of my legates and through the approval of the synodal acts: solely in the cause of the faith, for which the general council was assembled by the command of Christian princes and the consent of the Apostolic See, to leave no doubt about the true Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ by the condemnation of the unrepentant heretics. Whoever dares to defend the perfidy of Nestorius or the impious doctrine of Eutyches and Dioscorus — let him be cut off from Catholic communion, having no share in the body whose truth he denies, most beloved brothers.
Chapter II: Leo Declares He Will Never Ratify Anything Done at Chalcedon Contrary to the Nicene Canons
I also admonish your holiness to observe the decrees of the holy Fathers established inviolably at the Nicene synod — so that the rights of the churches, ordained by the three hundred and eighteen divinely inspired Fathers, may endure. Let no impious ambition covet another’s rights, nor let anyone seek increase through another’s diminution. However much vain pride may arm itself with coerced agreements — deeming its desires strengthened by the name of councils — anything contrary to the canons of those Fathers is weak and void. Your holiness may learn from my writings — by which the attempts of the bishop of Constantinople were repelled — how reverently the Apostolic See upholds these rules; and with the Lord’s aid, I remain the guardian of the Catholic faith and the paternal constitutions.
Dated the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ This letter is addressed not to a single bishop or to the emperor but to the entire body of assembled bishops — a formal act of the Apostolic See directed at the council as a collective entity. The opening chapter constitutes the public confirmation that Emperor Marcian had explicitly requested in Letter CX, where he reported that doubt had spread about whether Leo had confirmed the synod’s acts and that he himself had withheld imperial enforcement action pending Leo’s public affirmation.
- ↩ The PL apparatus preserves a significant detail about why this letter is necessary. In the Rustici codices, the opening of the letter adds: “But since in those same letters I had reproved what had been illicitly attempted at the synod’s occasion, the aforesaid bishop preferred to suppress my expression of gratitude rather than make his own ambition public.” Anatolius had deliberately withheld Leo’s previous letter from the assembled bishops because it contained the Canon 28 condemnation — choosing to hide the whole letter rather than let the bishops see that Leo had confirmed the faith definition while simultaneously nullifying Canon 28. This is the context for Leo now writing directly to all the bishops, bypassing Anatolius entirely.
- ↩ The phrase ex generalium conciliorum more, Christianorum principum iussu et apostolicae sedis consensu — “by the command of Christian princes and the consent of the Apostolic See” — names the two conditions for a legitimate general council: imperial convocation and apostolic consent. Leo places his own consent alongside the imperial command as a necessary condition of the council’s legitimacy. A general council assembled without the Apostolic See’s consent would lack this second condition — the same principle Leo had stated regarding Constantinople I in Letter XCIII and Letter CVI.
- ↩ This paragraph is Leo’s simultaneous maintenance of the Canon 28 nullification within the same letter that formally confirms the Chalcedonian faith definition. The two acts — confirmation of the faith, nullification of the disciplinary overreach — are performed in the same letter, directed to the same recipients, on the same date. The distinction Leo has consistently drawn throughout Letters CIV, CVI, CV, CVII, and CX is here enacted definitively: Leo confirms what belongs to the faith, and declares void what is contrary to Nicaea, and both judgments are his to render. The reader who has followed the Canon 28 sequence from Letter XCVIII will recognize this as the formal completion of the arc: Leo has now confirmed Chalcedon to all the assembled bishops while making clear, in the same letter, that Canon 28 remains without force.
- ↩ March 21, 453 — ten days after Letter CXIII to Julian of Cos (March 11) and eleven days after Letters CXI and CXII (March 10). This is the formal public confirmation of Chalcedon that Emperor Marcian had requested in Letter CX, where he reported that doubt had spread about whether Leo had confirmed the synod. The dateline confirms that Leo issued both acts — the faith confirmation and the Canon 28 maintenance — simultaneously and publicly, to the assembled bishops of Chalcedon, ten days after his coordinated letters to Marcian, Pulcheria, and Julian on the Aetius crisis.
Historical Commentary