The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter XXIII, from Pope Leo to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople

Synopsis: Leo writes to Flavian to rebuke him for having failed to report the Eutyches affair to the Apostolic See before Leo heard of it from other sources — asserting that Flavian should have brought everything to Leo’s notice first — and demands a full account of the case so that a judgment grounded in evangelical and apostolic doctrine may be reached.

Leo, bishop, to the most beloved brother Flavian.

Chapter I: Flavian’s Silence Is Reproved; Flavian Should Have Reported to Rome First

The most Christian and clement emperor, zealous for the peace of the Catholic Church with holy and praiseworthy faith, sent us letters about the disturbances that have arisen among you. We marvel that your brotherhood could have maintained such silence about this scandal — not ensuring that your report reached Us first, so that We might not be left in doubt about the truth of what occurred.

We have received the petition of Eutyches the presbyter, who complains of having been unjustly deprived of communion on the accusation of Bishop Eusebius — asserting that he answered the summons and did not refuse to appear, and that he even submitted a petition of appeal at the judgment which was not accepted, so that he was compelled to post contestatory letters in Constantinople. We do not yet know, therefore, by what justice he was separated from the communion of the Church.

Considering the whole matter, We desire everything to be brought to Our notice and the reason for your action made known to Us — for We, who desire what the authority of the Apostolic See has established to be kept by the Lord’s priests, cannot judge any party’s case without having truly learned all that transpired.

Chapter II: A Full Report Is Required; Charity and Truth Must Both Be Preserved

Let your brotherhood therefore, through a most suitable person, fully disclose to Us what novelty against the ancient faith has arisen — judged worthy of so severe a sentence. Both Our ecclesiastical moderation and the pious emperor’s religious faith impose a great solicitude for Christian peace, so that with dissension removed the Catholic faith remain inviolate, and those who defend perverse beliefs may be recalled from error — strengthened by Our authority if their faith proves sound.

No difficulty ought to arise in this, since Eutyches himself, in his petition, professed readiness to correct whatever might be found worthy of reproof. In such cases We must take care that charity be preserved without contentious strife, and truth defended without injury. Since your beloved sees that We are necessarily concerned about this matter, hasten to disclose everything clearly and fully — as you should have done before — lest, kept uncertain by the conflicting claims of the parties, We nourish a dissension that should have been extinguished at its very beginning. Our heart holds, with God’s inspiration, that the divinely confirmed constitutions of the venerable Fathers, which pertain to the solidity of the faith, must not be violated through anyone’s perverse interpretation. May God keep you safe, dearest brother.

Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes, most illustrious men.

Source/Reference

PL 54:731

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter XXIII is the first letter Leo wrote in response to the Eutyches affair — directed not to Eutyches or to the emperor but to Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople whose synod had condemned Eutyches in November 448. By the time Leo wrote, he had received Eutyches’s appeal (Letter XXI) and apparently also the letter from Eusebius of Dorylaeum, but not Flavian’s own account. Letter XXII, Flavian’s report to Leo, was in transit or had not yet arrived. Leo therefore writes to Flavian in a state of incomplete information — and his primary complaint is precisely that: the incompleteness is Flavian’s fault.

The rebuke in Chapter I is sharp and its ground is specific. Leo does not say that Flavian erred in condemning Eutyches. He says that Flavian should have reported everything to Rome first — before Leo found himself receiving petitions from the condemned man and the accusing bishop without knowing what had actually happened at the synod. The implicit rule Leo is invoking is the one visible throughout the corpus: major ecclesiastical cases are referred to the Apostolic See; local judgments require Roman awareness, if not Roman confirmation, to stand on the firmest footing. Flavian acted, completed a major proceeding, and then said nothing. The order of authority was inverted: a major disciplinary action had been completed without reference to the see that, by the established practice of the apostolic tradition, ought to have been informed from the start.

The passage in the middle of Chapter I — “We, who desire what the authority of the Apostolic See has established to be kept by the Lord’s priests” — states the ground of Leo’s concern explicitly. The Apostolic See has established standards for how such cases are to be handled; Flavian’s silence was a failure to observe those standards. Leo is not claiming the right to retry the Constantinople synod from scratch; he is asserting that the proper conduct of such cases includes informing Rome, and that without that information Leo cannot properly evaluate the justice of what was done.

The date — February 18, 449 — places this letter ten days before Letter XXIV (to Emperor Theodosius, February 28). That sequence is itself significant. Leo wrote to the ecclesiastical authority first, then to the emperor. The emperor’s role is important but secondary to the apostolic governance of the case — a relationship established by the practice of Leo’s predecessors and visible throughout the corpus. It is the Apostolic See’s assessment of the case that must first be formed, and the emperor who then lends his support to the outcome. This is exactly the structure that governed Letters VIII and XI: the papal proceeding or judgment comes first; the imperial action follows from it.