The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter LVIII, from Empress Galla Placidia to Empress Pulcheria

Synopsis: Galla Placidia writes to Pulcheria Augusta to declare that she considers it impious if she and Valentinian are seen to have tolerated the faith handed down since the time of Constantine being disturbed at the will of one man, and through military intimidation against Flavian and the bishops sent by the Roman bishop to the council, and to urge Pulcheria’s piety to move Theodosius to command an Italian council so that — with all called from the fullness of the faith and the Christian nations gathered — all matters may be adjudicated and the disturbed state of affairs may be corrected.

Galla Placidia, most pious, ever Augusta — to Aelia Pulcheria, most pious, ever Augusta and daughter.

The Faith Has Been Disturbed by One Man’s Will; Galla Placidia Urges Pulcheria to Move Theodosius to Command an Italian Council

Knowing that to come to Rome frequently for the sight of this ancient city is for you as well a matter of the love of religion, and that you hasten to offer your veneration to the most blessed Apostle Peter and in that same place to receive our holy presence — whom it is true to say are in heavenly places according to their own virtue — we therefore also consider it irreligious if, while we are present there, we fail to attend to the customary order of sacred duties.

We assert therefore that it is impious for Us if We seem to have tolerated that the faith which has been kept in order for so many years — first entrusted by the most blessed Apostle Peter and since then by his successors — has been disturbed at the will of one man: by the military presence and terror reaching for the bishop Flavian of Constantinople, and treating all the bishops of these parts through those who had been sent by the Roman bishop to the council, most dear and most honored daughter.

We beg and beseech the faith of your piety — which we know to be in all things devout and full of the love of God — that you move the most pious emperor your brother to issue his command: that a council be held, and all called from the fullness of the faithful and of the Christian nations assembled in Italy, where all things adjudicated may be corrected — and that the most holy bishops everywhere not cease their appeals to the most reverend Roman bishop, so that what pertains to the honor of your empire and to ours, and to the profit of the faith, may receive fitting care. For We believe this to be of the greatest profit — that there be present there what the truth of our fathers has handed down; and that you, now strengthened by God, strive to bring this about so that what has been disturbed may be restored, and the condition of all the Churches may be renewed.

Source/Reference

PL 54:863

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter LVIII is Galla Placidia’s second letter in the late-449 imperial correspondence — this one addressed not to Theodosius but to his sister Pulcheria Augusta. The choice of recipient is strategically significant: Pulcheria was the most religiously committed member of the Eastern imperial family, the driving force behind the Council of Ephesus I (431) and the empress whose influence with her brother was substantial. If anyone in Constantinople could move Theodosius to reverse the Latrocinium’s outcome, it was Pulcheria. Leo himself had written to her (Letter XLV) as the one “commissioned with a Petrine legation” — the imperial figure most naturally aligned with Rome’s theological position.

The phrase “at the will of one man” — repeated from Leo’s own correspondence and from Letter LV — is Galla Placidia’s characterization of what Dioscorus accomplished at Ephesus II: not a legitimate conciliar judgment but the imposition of a single will through military intimidation. The reference to “those who had been sent by the Roman bishop to the council” acknowledges Leo’s legates as the representatives of the Roman bishop’s authority at what was supposed to be a general council — representatives whom Dioscorus prevented from functioning. Galla Placidia’s framing is exact: the Roman bishop sent his representatives to judge the matter; those representatives were suppressed; therefore the council’s outcome is not legitimate.

The closing request — that “the most holy bishops everywhere not cease their appeals to the most reverend Roman bishop” — is one of the most explicit endorsements of Roman appellate jurisdiction in the imperial correspondence. Galla Placidia is not merely asking for an Italian council as a venue; she is identifying the Roman bishop as the ongoing court of appeal for the bishops of the whole Church, and urging that the appeals already flowing to him (from Flavian, Theodoret, and others) be treated as the legitimate process for resolution. The Western empress’s letter thus independently confirms what the Eastern bishops’ own letters (LII, Theodoret’s appeal) demonstrate from the other side: the Apostolic See was understood, in the crisis of 449, as the institution with authority to receive and adjudicate what a flawed council had wrongly decided.