The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter CXLVI, from Pope Leo to Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople

Synopsis: Leo acknowledges Anatolius’s report of the outrages perpetrated at Alexandria under cover of Emperor Marcian’s death, tending toward the destruction of the Chalcedonian synod — and reports that, following Anatolius’s urging, he has supplicated the new Emperor Leo I for the preservation of the synod’s decrees.

Leo to Anatolius, bishop.

Chapter I: Anatolius Has Reported the Alexandrian Crisis; The Emperor Has Acted Promptly of His Own Accord

It is clear enough from the letter of your brotherhood which We have received what pious and commendable care you have lately devoted to the grief of all the Churches — making known to Us what you have learned was done at Alexandria to the disgrace of the Christian religion, so that the glorious and most clement emperor might be sought through my petitions as well regarding the provision of remedies. His faith indeed is so praiseworthy and his devotion so prompt that, as you yourself indicate, he has of his own accord performed what was fitting for ecclesiastical peace, without the intercession of anyone — repelling all the snares of heretics, who thought they had found in the circumstances of the times an opportunity to overturn the decrees of the holy Council of Chalcedon.

Chapter II: Leo Has Petitioned the Emperor; Anatolius Must Press the Case for Chalcedon’s Inviolability

But thanks be to God, who after the passing of the holy and venerable memory of Marcian provided such a prince by the election of all, that both the Roman commonwealth and the Christian religion might rejoice in his virtues. Following the exhortation of your charity, I have supplicated the glorious prince as much as was my duty, that heretical audacity might claim for itself nothing further toward the seizure of the Church of Alexandria — but that, with a wholesome limit set to their wicked ventures, provision be made for ecclesiastical freedom and peace.

It remains that your brotherhood also, taking advantage of your nearness to the most faithful emperor, strive earnestly to press his mind concerning the preservation of the statutes of the holy Council of Chalcedon without any reconsideration — since those things which were decreed with God inspiring cannot be permitted to be corrupted by any change. But to what progress this concern for piety advances, you will need to keep Me informed by frequent letters of your charity, so that we may equally rejoice in the Lord over the holy endeavors of the most clement prince.

Given on the fifth day before the Ides of July, Constantinus and Rufus being consuls.

Source/Reference

PL 54:1115

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter CXLVI was written on the same day as Letter CXLV — July 11, 457 — and forms with it a coordinated campaign. Leo had written to Emperor Leo I (CXLV) to present the universal Church’s supplication and to direct the appointment of an orthodox bishop for Alexandria. Now, on the same day, he writes to Anatolius of Constantinople to report what he has done and to direct Anatolius to reinforce the message from his own position at the imperial court. The two letters are not parallel communications; they are sequential moves in a single strategy, with Leo as its architect.

The structure of the campaign illuminates the nature of Leo’s authority over the eastern situation. Leo does not simply write to the emperor and hope for the best; he simultaneously activates his most important eastern contact to press the same case from proximity. Anatolius had prompted Leo to write — he had sent the report of Alexandria’s crisis and urged Leo to petition the emperor — and Leo now reports that he has done so “as much as was his duty,” and directs Anatolius to follow through from his end. The pattern is worth observing: Anatolius supplies information and prompting; Leo acts in response; Leo then directs Anatolius on the next step. The initiative and the direction both flow from Rome. Anatolius is an instrument of the campaign, not a co-equal strategist running a parallel operation.

The phrase “as much as was my duty” deserves particular attention. Leo is not describing his petition to the emperor as a personal intervention or a collegial gesture; he is describing it as the discharge of an obligation belonging to his office. The Roman pontiff owes the universal Church this intercession before secular power. It is the ordinary exercise of the jurisdiction he holds — immediate and universal — that makes petitioning the emperor not an extraordinary measure but a duty. This is how immediate jurisdiction operates in a fifth-century political context: the Roman bishop’s direct engagement with the emperor on behalf of all the churches is not exceptional; it is what the office requires.

The closing theological argument — that Chalcedon’s decrees, having been issued with God inspiring, cannot be corrupted by any change — connects to one of the most important formulae in the entire Leo corpus. In Letter X, Leo had described his own rulings as issued “with God inspiring and the most blessed Apostle Peter.” Here the same divine inspiration is attributed to Chalcedon’s acts. The logic is consistent: the council’s definitions carry the divine inspiration that flows through Peter’s succession, because the Roman pontiff’s confirmation of those acts is what gives them their irreformable character. What God inspired through the See of Peter cannot be revised by any subsequent assembly. The irreformability of Chalcedon and the irreformability of Rome’s definitions of faith share the same root.

Taken together, Letters CXLV and CXLVI display the Roman pontiff’s ordinary and immediate jurisdiction operating on two fronts simultaneously: directly upon the emperor through formal supplication, and upon the eastern patriarchate through direction. Neither front requires Leo’s physical presence; neither requires a council or a synodal process. The office acts; the instruments — emperor and patriarch — are set in motion by it. This is the structure that runs through the entire Leo corpus, visible here with particular clarity because the coordination of the two letters is explicit.