Hormisdas, Bishop, to Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, and to all the bishops of the province of Vienne, and those residing under your diocese:

Anyone who desires to be well-informed about matters concerning Catholic discipline clearly shows the effort they have in regard to divine mandates. For such care can only exist where there is untainted faith. Therefore, we rejoice in the Lord for your sincerity of purpose, dearest brother, as we observe from the letters sent through Alexius, the priest, and Venantius, the deacon. You recall the decrees of the Apostolic See against the impious transgressors Eutyches and Nestorius, and you inquire about what our admonition might have achieved against them, through which the Eastern Churches are confounded. Truly, it is fitting concern for the faithful to lament the downfall of the wretched and to take care that they themselves are not defiled by another’s contagion.

But do not think that we have failed to provide you with a suitable report on whether anything was accomplished. We briefly justify our silence, which your affection finds troubling. The reason our warnings do not come to you frequently is because we have confidence in your conscience and the stability of your faith. Concern must perhaps be given to the doubtful; it is enough to indicate what is necessary to the perfected.

As for our delegation, which we sent once—not twice, as you wrote—if it had achieved the desired outcome, we would have been eager to share the good news with you, knowing that it is appropriate and in line with our purpose to share with those who are partakers in our concern the joy of restored unity. However, as for the Greeks, they express desires for peace more with their mouths than with their hearts. They proclaim their desire with words, but their actions reveal their unwillingness. They neglect what they professed and follow what they condemned.

For instance, when through our brother and co-bishop Ennodius they had promised to send clerics to confirm what the Apostolic See required and to fulfill many other requests we had made for the correction of their errors, they not only failed to send respected clerics, who could have provided a complete explanation of the matter according to their own regulations, but instead sent laymen unrelated to the ecclesiastical body (Theopompus, Count of the Domestics, and Severianus, Count of the Sacred Consistory), as though they considered this matter of little importance. They did not try to escape from the mire in which they were immersed, but even dared to believe they could obscure the bright clarity of the Catholic faith with their darkness, which God forbid.

This is the reason for our silence, which you have also understood with spiritual prudence. What could I communicate by letters about this matter when I saw that their perfidy was stubbornly maintained? New outcomes call for diligent inquiries. Whoever has nothing new to report shows that previous conditions remain unchanged.

Therefore, dearest brother, we exhort you and, through you, all others in Gaul who share the same faith with us to maintain the promised and God-pleasing constancy of faith, avoiding the company of transgressors and presenting your constancy as a chaste virgin to one man, Christ, as you have vowed. Be wary lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so some may be corrupted from the simplicity and purity that is in Christ Jesus. The flatteries of the harmful are dangerous, and thus you must remain vigilant, for the adversary of human salvation, like a roaring lion, roams about seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.

For this is what they, followers of their father who was cast down from heaven, do—they seek to obscure the light of truth and rejoice in the darkness they create, knowing they will suffer for their perversity and are eager to join the miserable to their own damnation. Why else would they, having been abandoned by their neighbors in Thrace, Dardania, and Illyricum, knowing their perversity, try to attract those far away with the hope of ignorance, deceit, and various tricks, except to pollute with their unholy contagion the light they themselves lack?

To inform you of the situation in these regions: many Thracians, though suffering from persecutors’ assaults, continue in our communion, knowing that faith becomes clearer through adversity. Dardania and Illyricum, regions near Pannonia, have asked us, as we have already done where necessary, to ordain bishops for them, rejoicing in separating themselves from the communion of the lost to the point that they seek remedies, provided they have nothing in common with the transgressors. The Metropolitan of Epirus, that is, the Bishop of Nicopolis, recently separated from the impious, joined the Apostolic communion, having made a profession that fulfilled all requirements.

We deemed it necessary to include these matters in writing, so that, while we grieve for the lost, we also rejoice for those who return to salvation, and so that those who are firmly established in faith may be taught how to flee their poison, as they see even their own being so justly avoided. Remembering our responsibilities, we must call them again through the duty of a renewed delegation so that if they are not moved by respect for God or reason, they may at least comply through persistent and urgent requests, and either return to the right path after turning from their errors or be judged inexcusable by all for their impenitent hearts, as they persist in obstinate perfidy despite repeated admonitions.

Pray, and join your prayers and petitions to God with ours, that by His mercy, our efforts working for the stability of the Catholic faith may succeed, keeping you spotless and intact from all association with the transgressors, so that we may either unite our hearts and minds with the corrected or remain untouched by their venom. For as we know, as you also testify with your conscience, that Eutyches and Nestorius were condemned by the authority of the Apostolic, that is, Catholic, judgment, how could we be saved if we cling in any way to the followers or descendants of these heretics, for Belial cannot have a share with Christ?

We believe it is necessary for your instruction to inform you of what has been done with the Nicopolitans and Dardanians and how they were received into communion, by making these matters known to you in the reading of these documents.

Given on the 15th of the Calends of March, during the consulship of Agrippa.