To Leo, most reverend bishop of the Church of the glorious city of Rome — Pulcheria, most venerable Augusta.
Anatolius Has Subscribed to the Tome; A Synod to Be Held with Leo as the Authority; Flavian Buried in the Basilica of the Apostles; Exiled Bishops Recalled
[Editorial note:] Sacred letters were sent by Pulcheria of divine memory to the same most holy man, announcing that the most God-beloved archbishop of Constantinople, Anatolius, having set aside all error, had subscribed without delay to the letter recently sent to the bishop of holy memory Flavian. It was also agreed that a synod be held in the Eastern regions; the body of the same Flavian of holy memory has been brought to Constantinople for burial in the basilica of the Apostles; and the bishops who were unanimous with Flavian, previously destined for exile, are to be recalled to await the synod’s judgment for reinstatement to their own churches.
We received the letters of Your Beatitude with all due episcopal veneration, recognizing through them your faith — pure and such as befits one offering it with sanctity to the sacred temple. I, like my lord, the most tranquil emperor, my spouse, have always remained and continue to remain in this same faith, rejecting all depravity, pollution, and malice. Thus the most holy bishop of the glorious Constantinople, Anatolius, has remained in the same faith and religion — embracing the apostolic confession of Your Letters and rejecting the error recently arisen by some, as Your Sanctity can more clearly discern from his own letters; and he has similarly subscribed without any delay to the letter of Catholic faith that Your Beatitude directed to the bishop of holy memory Flavian.
Therefore let Your Reverence deign to signify in whatever manner you discern, so that all the bishops of the entire East, Thrace, and Illyricum — as it also pleased my lord, the most pious emperor, my spouse — may swiftly convene in one city from the Eastern regions; and there, with a council held, they may decree concerning the Catholic confession and those bishops previously separated — as faith and Christian piety demand — with you as the authority.
Moreover, let Your Holiness know that by the command of my lord, the most tranquil prince, my spouse, the body of the bishop of holy memory Flavian was brought to the glorious city of Constantinople and fittingly placed in the basilica of the Apostles, where the predecessor bishops are customarily buried. Likewise, the bishops who were exiled for the same cause — having joined the most holy Flavian in the concord of Catholic faith — he commanded to return by the force of his pragmatic sanction; so that through the synod’s approval and the judgment of all the convening bishops, they may be decreed to recover their episcopates and their own churches.
Footnotes
- ↩ This is among the most significant “letters to Leo” in the entire corpus. Pulcheria writes as Marcian’s co-ruler — she had been empress in her own right for decades before marrying Marcian and had been the driving theological force at the Council of Ephesus I (431). Her letter to Leo (along with Marcian’s, sent the same day) represents the formal announcement that the program Leo had pressed since August 449 was now being implemented: Anatolius has accepted the Tome, a synod is being planned, Flavian has been rehabilitated, and the exiled bishops are being recalled. The Eutychian settlement of Ephesus II is being undone, item by item, by imperial authority acting in full alignment with Leo’s position.
- ↩ Tuarum litterarum apostolicam confessionem complectitur — “embracing the apostolic confession of Your Letters.” This is Pulcheria’s characterization of the Tome (Leo’s letter to Flavian): it is “the apostolic confession.” Not Leo’s theological opinion, not the Western position in a doctrinal dispute, but the apostolic confession — the authoritative articulation of the faith the Apostolic See holds and transmits. Anatolius’s subscription to it is his acceptance of the apostolic standard as the governing norm. The conditions Leo had imposed in Letters LXIX and LXX have been met.
- ↩ Te auctore decernant — “they may decree with you as the authority.” This phrase is among the most explicit acknowledgments of Leo’s governing role in the entire corpus of letters addressed to him. Pulcheria is not saying the council will proceed with Leo’s advice, or with Leo’s approval, or in accordance with Leo’s wishes: she is saying the council will decree things *te auctore* — “with you as the author/authority,” the one from whom the council’s authorizing principle derives. The ablative absolute construction makes the dependency structural: the council’s decrees have Leo as their constitutive source of authority. This is the language of the Apostolic See’s governing primacy stated directly, by the woman who had been the driving theological force of Eastern orthodoxy for decades, in a letter announcing what Chalcedon would be.
- ↩ Flavian’s remains being brought to Constantinople for burial in the basilica of the Apostles — the traditional resting place of the see’s bishops — is the symbolic reversal of Ephesus II’s verdict. Flavian had been deposed, humiliated, and died from injuries inflicted at the council. His burial with full episcopal honor in Constantinople’s most prestigious ecclesiastical site is Marcian and Pulcheria’s declaration that Flavian was the legitimate bishop and that what was done to him at Ephesus was unjust. The rehabilitation is physical and symbolic before it is yet conciliar.
Historical Commentary