Canons of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451), 28–30

Canon 28

Following in all things the institutions of the holy fathers, and having regard now to the canon just read of the hundred and fifty most God-loving bishops assembled in council in the imperial city of Constantinople, new Rome, in the time of the emperor of blessed memory, the great Theodosius, we likewise decree and establish, concerning the privileges of the most holy church of that same Constantinople, new Rome: for to the throne of old Rome also the fathers rightly granted privileges, since that city was the reigning city. And following that same reasoning, the hundred and fifty most God-loving bishops accorded equal privileges to the most holy throne of new Rome, judging with good reason that the city which is honoured with the sovereign and the senate, and which enjoys equal privileges with the elder imperial Rome, should be exalted, like that city, in ecclesiastical affairs also, and should be second after it. Accordingly, the metropolitans alone of the Pontic, Asian, and Thracian dioceses—and likewise also the bishops of the aforesaid dioceses who are among the barbarian peoples—shall be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy church of Constantinople; that is, each metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses, together with the bishops of the province, shall ordain the diocesan bishops, as has been prescribed in the divine canons; but the metropolitans themselves of the aforesaid dioceses shall, as has been said, be appointed by the archbishop of Constantinople, after the concordant election has been carried out according to custom, and he has been informed thereof.

(Ap. 34; I Ecum. 4, 6, 7; II Ecum. 2, 3; III Ecum. 8; IV Ecum. 9, 17; Trullo 36, 39; Antioch 9).

— By this canon the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon confirm the privileges granted to the archbishop of Constantinople by the 9th canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, and assign to him three provinces, which are to constitute his territory. The guiding principle for the Chalcedonian fathers in issuing this canon was the same as it had been for the Nicene fathers when they issued their 6th canon, and for the fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council when they issued their 3rd canon—a principle which Leo the Great afterward solemnly declared: “the privileges of the churches were established by the canons of the holy fathers.”[1]

In particular, the fathers of Chalcedon, in issuing this canon, faithfully followed:

a) The norm established in the Church, that alongside the importance of the origin of a church, regard must always be had, in the ordering of ecclesiastical territories, to the political ordering of the lands, and to the significance which a given city holds in the political order. This norm was consecrated by the practice of the apostolic Church; it was further consecrated by the teaching of all the fathers and doctors of both the eastern and the western Church; and finally it received juridical force through the decrees of councils, local (Antioch, can. 9) as well as ecumenical (I can. 6, II can. 3, IV can. 17)—and to this norm, vindicated as it was by the subsequent practice of the Church of every age, both eastern and western, the fathers of Chalcedon now, in their 28th canon, give expression.

b) They further follow the general norm, that one ecumenical council has rights equal to another in the issuing of canons, and that one ecumenical council may, according to the needs of the Church, modify particular canons which an earlier council had issued—canons, that is, which do not touch on faith and morals, but the discipline of the Church—remaining, of course, in full strictness faithful to the spirit of ecclesiastical law. And this too was vindicated by the practice of the whole period of the ecumenical councils. Let a comparison of canon 5 of the First Ecumenical Council [and] canon 19 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council with canon 8 of Trullo and canon 6 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council serve as sufficient proof of this.[2]

c) Finally, the fathers follow that fundamental principle of ecclesiastical law which custom constitutes, and which is as important in questions of ecclesiastical discipline as is positive law—custom, of course, that has an ecclesiastical basis and is justified, first, by necessity, and then by long standing. Custom is consecrated by its very antiquity in the Church, and it has served as an authoritative guide both for individual pastors of the Church and for local and ecumenical councils alike. Basil the Great points to custom as equal to enacted law (can. 87); the First Ecumenical Council points to it, recognizing on its basis for the bishop of Alexandria and of Antioch the same authority within their own territories which the bishop of Rome possessed within his own territory by virtue of custom (can. 6). The fathers of Chalcedon, mindful of the significance of customary law, and following the example of the Nicene fathers, issue this canon of theirs on the basis of that same law.

After these general observations, which it seemed to us expedient to set forth in advance on account of the importance of this Chalcedonian canon, and chiefly on account of the noise—to use Fleury’s expression—which it produced, let us now examine the canon itself.

II. The occasion for the issuing of this canon was, according to the Roman theologians, the ambition of the bishop of Constantinople, who strove to subject to himself all the eastern patriarchs, and further—seeing that he was bishop of the new Rome, the imperial residence, while old Rome had declined in political standing—to acquire for himself all the privileges of the bishop of Rome, and to become the first bishop of the whole Christian world.[3] That this is not true, history tells us. The eastern Church[4][5] of the fourth and fifth century, to which those theologians may be referred. The true occasion—acknowledged even by impartial men among the westerners themselves, and vindicated by countless examples from the age of the Council of Chalcedon and for fully eighty years before it—was the great disorders that arose in the appointment of bishops in the dioceses of (Lesser) Asia, Pontus, and Thrace, and the ceaseless disturbances that thereby ensued and kept all ecclesiastical affairs in confusion. The Council of Nicaea had proclaimed the validity of custom as law, and on this basis each metropolitan held that he possessed his own particular rights, independent of the others or even over them—hence the disorders, and consequently the confusion in church affairs. As proof of how wretched the state of the Church was in those regions which are now, by this our council, to be made subject to the jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople, let it suffice for us to recall what we know of the activity of the archbishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom (397–406), in his dealings with the churches of those regions.

In Lesser Asia and Scythia a dreadful simony had taken root by the end of the fourth century, and the utmost moral corruption had come to prevail among all—bishops as much as clergy and the faithful. Around the year 400 there were found in Constantinople twenty-nine bishops from those parts, among them St. Theotimus, metropolitan of Tomi, and Ammonius, metropolitan of Adrianople, who had come thither on various business, but chiefly in order to find a remedy for the general evil, and each, for his own part, to win the favour of Chrysostom. One of them brought before Chrysostom a charge of simony against another. The accused was Antoninus, metropolitan of Ephesus (the chief city of Lesser Asia). At a council composed of bishops under the presidency of Chrysostom, it was decided to hold an inquiry. Antoninus, meanwhile, died, and at Ephesus even greater disorders arose over the question of his successor. The bishops of Asia turned for help to the archbishop of Constantinople, who came to Ephesus, and, gathering all the bishops in council, arranged the election of a new metropolitan, deposed sixteen bishops, and installed new men in their places. — But these disorders were not confined to Asia alone, and the archbishop of Constantinople was compelled to restore order also in Lycia, in Caria, in Pamphylia, in Phrygia, and in Pontus—over almost half of the eastern empire. How widely the authority of Chrysostom extended we may see from the histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, who assign to that authority the very same extent which the Council of Chalcedon would afterward recognize for his eighth successor on the see of Constantinople.[6]

Thus all the church affairs of the lands mentioned were placed in a factual dependence, necessarily brought about, on the supreme supervision of the archbishop of Constantinople.[7]

Order could hardly be established, and so that it might not be overthrown again, the emperor issued an ordinance that every election of a bishop in Asia (Minor) and Thrace must unconditionally depend on the confirmation of the archbishop of Constantinople.[8] In consequence of this ordinance, and so that order might always be maintained in those regions, this supervision was exercised also by Chrysostom’s successors, among whom his sixth successor Proclus received an express petition from Caesarea that he himself appoint an exarch for them. Nor did the bishop concerned express any opposition to this. Nevertheless the disorders continued, since individual metropolitans, insisting that no conciliar provision had ever established this supervision of the archbishop of Constantinople over them, considered themselves independent, and thus, following their own bad custom, created disturbances in the church.

At the XI and XII sessions of this council a matter was heard concerning two Ephesian metropolitans, Basianus and Stephen, who at the same time wished to rule and who mutually accused one another before the council of irregular appointment. After the hearing it was found that neither the one nor the other could be regarded as a lawful metropolitan, but that new ones must be appointed.[9] And so that in future similar events might not occur—events which had recurred often from the middle of the preceding century until the time of the Council of Chalcedon—the opinion expressed at the council was taken into consideration, that the former custom should be followed in this matter and that it should be established by a canon, namely, that the archbishop of Constantinople appoints the metropolitans in those regions.

It was not, then, the vainglory of the Constantinopolitan see that occasioned this canon, but a living need to put an end to the disorders that were driving the church to ruin. Among all the bishops of Constantinople, from Nectarius to Anatolius (381–451), it was Chrysostom who above all exercised patriarchal rights, in the widest sense of the word, over Asia Minor, Pontus, and Thrace, and it was he who, we may say, by his own activity brought about the very necessity for the issuing of the 28th canon of this council. Was it out of vainglory that Chrysostom did this?[10]

The necessity that gave rise to the issuing of this canon is best seen in the letter which the council addressed afterward to Pope Leo the Great. And the reasons set out in that letter are vindicated by living facts. The letter says, after first speaking of the decision concerning the faith: “We, for the sake of order in affairs and the strengthening of the ecclesiastical canons, have confirmed by conciliar decree the custom which has long prevailed (τὸ ἐκ πολλῶν κρατῆσαν ἔθος), and which the holy church of God of Constantinople follows, of appointing the metropolitans in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace—and this not in order that anything special be granted to the see of Constantinople, but chiefly so that order might at last be established in the metropolitanates, for very often, after the death of a bishop, great disorders arise, when the clergy of these regions and the laity, left without a governor, throw all ecclesiastical order into confusion. Nor is this hidden from your holiness, especially as regards the Ephesians, who have often troubled you as well…. In this way, what we have established, in order to put an end to disturbances and to strengthen ecclesiastical order, may it please your holiness and beatitude, most holy and most blessed father, to acknowledge as your own as well.”[11]

Mindful of this state of affairs, and of the need to establish order in the Church, the fathers of Chalcedon issue their 28th canon, by which, in the first place, they establish that the see of Constantinople has equal privileges with the see of Rome, and that, in the order of the first-ranking bishops, the bishop of Constantinople must hold second place after the bishop of Rome.

By this the fathers do not issue a new canon, but repeat a canon already issued seventy years before at the Second Ecumenical Council, which they themselves express in the opening words of the canon: “Following in all things the institutions of the holy fathers, and acknowledging the canon of the hundred and fifty most God-loving bishops assembled in council in the time of the emperor of blessed memory, the great Theodosius, in the imperial city of Constantinople, we likewise decree and establish concerning Constantinople, new Rome.” Following, further, that same principle which had guided the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in according to the bishop of Rome the first place among the first-ranking bishops, they acknowledge that same principle as their own, declaring that “rightly (εἰκότως) did the fathers grant privileges to the see of old Rome, since that city was the reigning city (διὰ τὸ βασιλεύειν τὴν πόλιν ἐκείνην)”; and they acknowledge it all the more, in that it had been consecrated also by the authority of the Second Ecumenical Council, which gave it expression in its own 3rd canon, establishing that, for the same reason for which the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council had accorded privileges to the see of old Rome, for that same reason the see of new Rome too must enjoy equal privileges, since new Rome has now been raised to the rank of an imperial city, such as old Rome had been.

Faithful, then, to the principle of the fathers of the first ecumenical councils, the fathers of this council confirm the existing canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, by which the bishop of Constantinople is to have equal privileges with the bishop of Rome, and is to be “second after him”—that is, in assemblies he is to take the second place after the bishop of Rome, while that one is to be first.

From those words, “second after him,” some have wished to infer that the see of Constantinople has an altogether equal honour with the see of Rome, and that the word “after” (μετά) is to be referred only to a difference of establishment in time, and not to the sense that the one has a higher honour than the first. Zonaras takes note of such an interpretation, and shows its unsoundness, first in his commentary on the 3rd canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, and again in his commentary on this canon. “Those who speak so,” he says, “speak wrongly…. For the expression ‘to enjoy equal privileges’ (τῶν ἴσων ἀπολαύειν πρεσβείων) is used with reference to the imperial power and the senate. In this way these holy fathers say that, since that city, like old Rome, received the honour of becoming the city of the emperor and the senate, it must also be distinguished in ecclesiastical privileges as that one is, and must hold an excellent place before the other churches, yet nonetheless be second after that one (δευτέραν δὲ μετ᾽ ἐκείνην ὑπάρχουσαν); for it is impossible that it be deemed worthy of equal rights in every respect.” And to show why, he refers to his own commentary on the 3rd canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, in which, having adduced several general observations and Justinian’s 131st Novel, which speaks of the order among the first-ranking bishops, he adds: “It appears from this that the particle μετά here signifies something lower and something less (ὑποβιβασμὸν καὶ ἐλάττωσιν). Otherwise, indeed, the equality of honour between the two sees could not even be maintained. For it is necessary that, when the names of their presiding bishops are mentioned, one be first and the other second, and likewise at the [synodal] seats, when they sit together, and in the signatures, when that is required. Thus that explanation of the preposition μετά, as though this preposition indicated only time and not something lower (ὑποβιβασμόν), is unnatural, and proceeds not from a right and good intention.”

He continues again, in his commentary on this canon, on the same question: “To understand the preposition μετά as those understand it who refer it to the later establishment of the state capitals in these cities is not permitted even by the 36th canon of the Council in Trullo, which places the see of Constantinople second after the see of old Rome, and adds: ‘After that one let the see of Alexandria come, then the see of Antioch, and after this the see of the city of Jerusalem.’ For just as, with respect to the other sees, the preposition μετά signifies something lower (ὑποβιβασμόν), in that same sense it is employed also with respect to the see of Constantinople. And so it alone must be understood. And the patriarch of blessed memory, the divine Nicephorus, in the 12th chapter which he wrote against the Iconoclasts, says the following: ‘That they are cut off from the catholic Church is clearly attested by the letters which the most blessed high priest of ancient Rome sent—that is, of the first and apostolic see (τουτέστι τοῦ πρώτου καὶ ἀποστολικοῦ θρόνου).’” According to the interpretation, then, of one of the very first commentators of the ecclesiastical canons, our canon has acknowledged the primacy of the bishop of Rome, and after him, second place for the bishop of Constantinople. And here too the fathers of Chalcedon were faithful throughout to the 6th canon of the Council of Nicaea, acknowledging in full strictness the church of Rome as first; and just as the Nicene fathers gave the see of Rome no rights over the other sees, but acknowledged to it authority over its own patriarchate within those bounds to which it extended in the time of the Council of Nicaea—and acknowledged that same authority equally to the see of Alexandria within its own bounds, and to that of Antioch within its own—so too the fathers of Chalcedon had no ground either to grant such right to it or to take it away.[12][13]

We have above noted, and demonstrated by examples from the history of ecclesiastical legislation, that one ecumenical council, in the issuing of its canons, has rights entirely equal to those of another, so long as it remains, of course, faithful to the spirit of the law of the Church. Mindful of this, and having the example of the First Ecumenical Council, which, by issuing its 6th canon on the rights of the first-ranking bishops and on the bounds of their authority, thereby showed that it is the right of an ecumenical council to decide on such matters with regard to the development of the Church, the fathers of Chalcedon, having in this canon of theirs confirmed the decree of the Second Ecumenical Council concerning the bishop of Constantinople, establish the bounds to which his authority, as that of a first-ranking bishop, is to extend. They determine that his territory shall be made up of those three provinces which had not, by the Council of Nicaea, been assigned either to the see of Rome, or of Alexandria, or of Antioch, but which are mentioned in its 6th canon as ἄλλαι ἐπαρχίαι—namely: Pontus, with its chief city Caesarea; proconsular Asia, with its chief city Ephesus; and Thrace, with its chief city Constantinople.

In these regions the fathers establish that the consecration of metropolitans is to be performed by the bishop of Constantinople. In issuing this ordinance the fathers here too remain strictly faithful to the ecclesiastical canons. They assign to the see of Constantinople only the consecration of metropolitans, but not the election, for the latter belongs, according to the canons, to the provincial council; and the bishop of Constantinople is not to interfere in the election, but, once the election has been carried out by concord (σύμφωνον), he only consecrates the metropolitan elect. Apart from the metropolitans, the patriarch of Constantinople has no authority in the said regions to consecrate other bishops as well; rather, “each metropolitan of the said dioceses, together with the bishops of the province, shall appoint the diocesan bishops, as has been prescribed in the divine canons.” Zonaras, in his commentary, draws attention to the word “alone” (μόνους), and says: “This word is used to this end, that no bishop of Constantinople should arrogate to himself the right to ordain other bishops as well; for the right to these ordinations belongs to every metropolitan, to whom the bishops belonged from the beginning.” And further, with regard to the rights of the bishop of Constantinople, he adds: “But lest anyone suppose that these holy fathers hand over to the full power of the bishop of Constantinople everything pertaining to consecration, so that in this he has authority to act as he pleases, they add that the metropolitans are to be consecrated by him only after a concordant election, and after the result of the election has been reported to him—by which they signify approximately this: the bishop of Constantinople may not appoint as metropolitans whomever he wishes, but the election shall be carried out by the [provincial] council in question, and whomever the council elects, once the records of the election are presented to him and he finds them in order, that man he shall consecrate.”

That the fathers of Chalcedon, in assigning the said three provinces to the bishop of Constantinople, thereby did nothing other than what the Council of Nicaea had done by its 6th canon—namely, confirmed by conciliar decree an existing custom, justified by its antiquity—we have already seen. Guided by the same principle, they establish that the bishop of Constantinople is to appoint bishops also among the barbarian peoples (ἐν τοῖς βαρβαρικοῖς). Here again the example of Chrysostom served as the basis for the fathers of Chalcedon. We know of the relations between the Gothic tribes and the see of Constantinople, and of Chrysostom’s activity with regard to them. Following this, and seeing the ongoing, direct relations of the barbarian peoples with the see of Constantinople, the fathers issue this ordinance concerning them. “By the barbarian bishoprics are here understood,” says Balsamon in his commentary on this canon, “Alania, Russia, and others; for the Alans belonged to the province of Pontus, and the Russians to that of Thrace”—in other words, the bishops of those peoples who had received Christianity from Constantinople, and who did not belong to the Roman state.

II. Notwithstanding all the soundness of this canon, and notwithstanding that it was, both from the canonical and from the historical point of view, strictly justified, it nevertheless provoked a sharp protest, both on the part of the legates of the bishop of Rome at the council, and equally on the part of the bishop of Rome himself of that time, Leo the Great.

The first—that is, the Roman legates at the Council of Chalcedon—raised their protest for two reasons:

a) Because they believed in the new theory of “the papacy,” the first foundation of which had been laid by Siricius in his decretal of February 385, addressed to the Spanish bishops, and which, be it observed in passing,[14] is the first and oldest papal decretal. This new theory of “the papacy” struck ever deeper root with every passing day. Many circumstances, both from the internal and from the external life of the Church, contributed to this: from the internal life—the relatively untroubled state of minds in matters of faith, which were not led astray by heretical teachings to the same degree as in other regions; from the external life—the many influential ties created through various endowments, and these ties, however significant they were for that church in the West, were equally regarded with esteem in the East as well. Theodoret of Cyrus, in a letter to Leo the Great, says that everything conspires to secure for the Roman church precedence over the others; whatever is found piecemeal in other churches, and whatever can distinguish a city in the political and ecclesiastical order, all of that is united in the Roman church; and he mentions, from the political side, that Rome is the greatest, the most splendid, the most populous city, that the existing empire took its origin from there, that from Rome the whole empire received its very name; while, from the ecclesiastical side, what especially distinguishes the Roman church is the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul, and their tombs there, which are an object of the highest veneration for the whole East as well.[15] This political-ecclesiastical character of the Roman church was always emphasized by the easterners, and was for them a reason for particular reverence toward that church and toward its bishop; especially amid the struggle which the Church in the East had to wage against the Arians, the Nestorians, the Novatians, and other heretics—a struggle in which the Roman see, removed from direct participation in the contest, gained ever more significance, as under Innocent I, and especially under Celestine I, as mediator in the contest between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople. Already in the time of Damasus the prestige of the Roman see stood high in the East, owing to the entanglements then prevailing in matters of faith. We know how blessed Jerome, in the most terrible colours, depicts the state of the East on the side of the faith, and the fragmentation which had come to prevail among the eastern Christians because of Arianism. In his letters to Damasus he envies the westerners, who are far from the eastern troubles, and invokes Rome, as a heavenly angel, to save the orthodox in the East that had been led astray by Arian heretics.[16] He depicts his struggle with the heretics, and holds up before them the see of Peter as a mirror of pure belief; and in a letter of the year 377 to Damasus he shows him how confused men in the East were as to which Antiochene bishop was in communion with him, and whom, therefore, they must acknowledge as orthodox, and how, in that confusion, answering the whole multitude of the faithful, he cries out to them: si quis cathedrae Petri jungitur meus est [whoever adheres to the see of Peter is mine]. Given such a state of affairs, it was altogether natural, and it had to happen even involuntarily, that the prestige of the Roman see should rise in the fourth and fifth centuries, not only in the West, but in the East as well. And even if that see sometimes had to be humbled—for instance under Julius, who was led astray by Sabellianism and proclaimed Marcellus of Ancyra orthodox; or under Liberius, who signed the Arian creed and condemned the great Athanasius; or under Zosimus, who acknowledged the heretics Pelagius and Celestius as orthodox—nevertheless its prestige stood high, and that prestige contributed to the consolidation of that theory of “the papacy” which Celestine’s second successor, Leo the Great, had greater occasion, and also the energy, to develop.[17] Another circumstance also contributed to this, which we cannot pass over without notice. While the western church found itself in complete tranquillity, the parties contending within the eastern church—especially those who were weaker in the contest—turned to and sought to win over to their side the western bishops, and especially the bishop of the Roman church, as the most influential, and as the one who set the direction for all others in the West. And since it was of particular importance to win the bishop of that church to one’s side, that very importance determined the parties concerned to choose expressions by which they might more easily attain their goal, and they did indeed use such expressions in order to win that church to themselves, and to show it a submission which, in other circumstances, they would not have shown. Nor should one forget, in addition to this, the character of the language in which they wrote, and the Greek liberality in the bestowing of praise. The Roman bishops, meanwhile, who judged all ecclesiastical matters according to the standpoint, established already by Siricius, of their own primacy in the Church, found in the expressions of the easterners—which they took in the literal sense—an acknowledgment of that same standpoint, without troubling themselves in the least about what sense those who used such expressions actually gave them, and to what end they used them. Given such a state of affairs, the papal theory became ever more firmly established in the West—and it was to that theory that the Roman legates at the Council of Chalcedon were devoted, and it was from the standpoint of that same theory that they lodged their protest against this canon.

b) The second reason is of a personal character, peculiar to the Roman legates themselves at this council. In the East this new “papal” theory was unknown, and the fathers of Chalcedon, hearing of it from the mouths of the legates, did not raise their voice against it—and this they did, first, for the sake of the peace and concord which was especially needed at that time among the first-ranking orthodox bishops, so that a new Ephesian “robber synod” might not be provoked and so that the terrible Monophysite heresy might be overcome; and second, out of the reverence with which they were imbued toward Leo the Great, on account of his dogmatic letter addressed to the council. But they could not, all the same, treat the legates with all the friendliness they would otherwise have shown, given that the legates pressed that theory of theirs on every occasion. This relatively cold treatment of the legates by the eastern bishops was itself the cause, which we have called personal, of their taking a stand against this canon. We might indeed call it outright malice on the part of the legates toward the easterners, and especially toward the bishop of Constantinople; for their conduct after the Fifteenth session of the council, right up to their departure for the West—conduct which we shall presently set forth from the acts of the council—could not otherwise be explained.

How, then, did the Roman legates express their protest?

At the Fifteenth session of this council, at which the canons were to be issued, the legates would not come, although they had been repeatedly summoned. At their request a Sixteenth session was held. At this, one of the legates declared that they had learned that, in their absence, something had been established which “we regard as contrary to the canons and to ecclesiastical order, and we must therefore ask that the minutes of yesterday’s session now be read before all, so that all the brethren may know whether it was established lawfully or unlawfully.” At the invitation of the imperial commissioners, the archdeacon Aetius, the notary of the council, declared: “It has always been the custom at councils that, once the main business is finished, other necessary matters be taken up…. We asked the lord bishops from Rome to take part in these matters, and they excused themselves, alleging that they had received no such instructions…. What was decided yesterday—here it is; this was not carried out secretly or by stealth, but was conducted properly and canonically.” The minutes of the session were then read out by the imperial secretary, followed by the text of our canon and the signatures of the bishops present, among whom, besides Anatolius of Constantinople, were the signatures of Maximus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem; the see of Alexandria was vacant at the time.[18] Seeing from the minutes that everything had been carried out in strict conformity with the canons, and unable to say anything sensible, the legate Lucentius—who besides was more steeped in malice toward the easterners than the others—made the following rather ignoble remark: “that the fathers signed those canons out of necessity, and because they were compelled to.” To which all the fathers, with one voice, moved with indignation at the outrage thus done to their freedom and to their episcopal honour, replied: “No one was compelled by force.” Could it be, one may ask here, that anyone could even imagine any compulsion, when the fathers had themselves invited the legates to the session? Confounded and put to shame, Lucentius appealed to the canons of the Council of Nicaea, as though they had been infringed by this (28th) canon, in the hope of thereby somehow justifying his unseemly remark—and the imperial commissioners called first upon the legates, and then upon the other bishops, to produce the canons. And here the legates were put to shame a second time, for they were caught in an outright falsehood. One of them read out, from some collection of his own, the 6th canon in a falsified form, thus: “The church of Rome has always had the primacy; let Egypt also…” and so forth.[19] Naturally, contempt had to grow all the greater among the fathers when they saw what instrument their opponents were making use of. The same canon was then read out by the imperial secretary Constantine, from the collection which the council’s notary had provided him, and the legates were exposed in the most flagrant deceit. After that they did not know how to utter another word for the rest of the session.

In view of the honour of all the bishops present at the holy council thus insulted by Lucentius, and so that no shadow of suspicion might remain upon those who had, by their vote, confirmed orthodoxy—orthodoxy that had been endangered by the Monophysites—the imperial commissioners summoned the bishops of Asia and Pontus, who, if there had indeed been any compulsion at all, would have had to be the first to be compelled, since it was precisely their regions that were now being assigned to the see of Constantinople; they summoned, then, these bishops, to declare, one after another, “whether they had signed the aforesaid article of their own will, or had been compelled to do so.” Each declared solemnly, in writing, for himself, “that he had signed without anyone’s compulsion, but voluntarily and out of conviction”; and Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum, declared as follows: “I signed of my own free will, for I myself read this canon (the 3rd canon of the Second Ecumenical Council) to the most holy pope at Rome, in the presence of the clergy of Constantinople, and he received it.”[20]

It would have sufficed even to have shown thus far how false was the slander cast upon the holy fathers by Lucentius; but since there were also some other fathers whose signatures were not found in the minutes of that (Fifteenth) session, but who were now personally present at this one, the imperial commissioners, so that not the least shadow of doubt might remain that this canon was not the general conciliar decision, summoned these fathers too, to declare their judgment on the canon; and these declared themselves in agreement—and Thalassius, exarch of Pontus, in these words: “We join ourselves to the lord archbishop Anatolius, and we confirm this.”[21]

After such a unanimous declaration of the whole council together and of each father individually, the imperial commissioners, seeing no need to pay any further attention to those unreasonable remarks of the legates, confirmed what had been decided at the Fifteenth session, and, having briefly repeated the 28th canon, proposed to the council that it proclaim it again today as a conciliar decree—to which the fathers unanimously assented. Given this course of events, seeing that everything had been carried out in full canonical strictness, and feeling, besides, how guilty they stood before the fathers, the papal legates too assented to the conciliar decree. Lucentius alone, imbued as he was with that hatred toward the easterners, and embittered besides at having had his falsehood so publicly exposed, demanded that his protest be entered in the minutes—and in it he afterward also invoked the holy Leo the Great.[21]

Any further comment on such conduct is superfluous—all the more so, since these same legates, at the First session of the council, when the acts of the “Robber Synod” of Dioscorus were being read, and it was noted with indignation that only the fifth place, and not his own, had been given among its members to the bishop of Constantinople, Flavian, solemnly declared as follows: “Behold, as God also wills, we hold the lord Anatolius as first; and these (that is, the partisans of Dioscorus) set the blessed Flavian in the fifth place”—to which Diogenes, bishop of Cyzicus, replied: “You know the canons well.”[22] This is one thing; further, when this council’s 9th and 17th canons were being established, which grant the bishop of Constantinople the right of appeal—an altogether new right, which he had not enjoyed until then—they did not protest at that time, all the more since, by the account of the newer Roman theologians, these two canons “prepared the way” for the 28th canon.[23] Finally, if it lay so much upon the hearts of these legates to see the established boundaries of the dioceses kept in full strictness, and in particular that the 6th Nicene canon—which it pleased them afterward, at the Sixteenth session, to invoke—not be violated, why was it they who first recommended to the council, at the Tenth session, that authority over the three Palestinian provinces be granted to the bishop of Jerusalem, and the council, chiefly on their recommendation, adopted this and proclaimed it a conciliar decree?[24] These three acts suffice to show the whole inconsistency of the legates in their conduct at the council, and to prove to the point of evidence that only malice could have led them to such conduct at the Sixteenth session—Lucentius above all. But the worst thing in all of this is that this same Lucentius drew even the holy Leo the Great into the protest.

How, then, did Leo the Great express his opposition to the decision reached by the council concerning the archbishop of Constantinople?

We have said that the theory of “the papacy,” which Siricius set in motion by his well-known decretal, Leo the Great had occasion to assert still further, and we have said too what circumstances contributed to that theory taking ever deeper root, and to the Roman bishops themselves coming to believe that they were called to pronounce the final judgment in every matter of the Church. Most devoted of all to that theory was Leo the Great, who, it must be admitted, himself marks an epoch in the history of “the papacy,” and after whom it develops already in a systematic way.

Leo does not defend the primacy of his own see on the ground that this primacy derives from divine right, but defends it as bishop of an apostolic see, and raises his voice against this (28th) canon because he sees in it a violation of the privileges which the canons had granted to the apostolic sees—among which he acknowledges, besides his own, the Alexandrian and the Antiochene. Innocent, Leo’s second predecessor, did not even consider his own see the first, but rather the Antiochene, which, in a letter to one bishop of the year 415, he calls prima sedes, quae urbis Romae sedi non cederet [the first see, which would not yield to the see of the city of Rome]. Leo regards his own see and those other two as equal in authority among themselves, while of Constantinople he says: “The bishop of Constantinople, for all the glory of his church, cannot, however, bring it about that it be apostolic.” He solemnly declares that “the privileges of the churches were established by the canons of the holy fathers”—and, in the first place, the privileges of his own church—thus acknowledging that these privileges derive not from divine, but from ecclesiastical law. He does not oppose this canon on the ground that it violates the “divine right” of the Roman see, nor has he, anywhere in all the letters he wrote on this occasion, asserted such an authority; rather, he opposes it because he considers that it violates the institution of the Council of Nicaea—namely, the 6th canon of that council. Nor does he deny this Chalcedonian canon on the ground that it establishes something in itself unfounded, but on the ground that it does not derive from the Council of Nicaea, which council, according to Leo, alone had competence to establish the privileges both of his own church and of the others. Had Leo had any notion whatsoever of some authority of his own deriving from a divine source, he would not have failed, if anywhere, to assert it here. It is, then, in the name of his holy duty to be the foremost guardian of the canons, in the name of the sanctity of the 6th Nicene canon, that he raises his voice. It was only later that it was found in that 6th canon that it contained an authority over the whole Church granted by God to the Roman see, once the original text of the canon had been falsified and there had been inserted into it those celebrated words: “the church of Rome has always had the primacy”—and that this primacy was established by God himself; but this was not in the original text, and therefore that authority too could not have been asserted on its basis.

Leo does indeed assert his own authority as an authority belonging to the see of St. Peter, and it is in the name of that authority that he opposes this Chalcedonian canon. But neither there, nor anywhere in his letters, does he declare himself to be a successor of Peter in the sense of a personal union with Peter, but only as successor to the see of Peter—and this already means a great deal, even granting that Peter received an authority peculiar to him beyond the other apostles, and that it was indeed Peter who founded the Roman church. Moreover, even as such, Leo shows no personal authority of his own over the whole Church in the name of St. Peter, but only as bishop of one apostolic church—one which was, besides, the most eminent of that age and the sole apostolic church in the West, whose bishop, according to the aforesaid Nicene canon, takes the first place among all the bishops of the Christian world; he raises his voice in defence of the other apostolic churches, which he regards as entirely equal in authority to his own, and which, in his view, must, regardless of the greater or lesser political significance of their cities, always take precedence over churches which are not of apostolic origin—even should these be churches of imperial residences. And that this, and only this, is how Leo understood this authority of his may be seen, among other things, from the fact that neither he, nor afterward the great Gregory (590–604), was willing to accept the new title universalis ecclesiae papa which his legates devised for him at the Fourth session of this council.[25]

We have had occasion elsewhere to show how Leo the Great understood the well-known words which the Saviour spoke to Peter, when the latter confessed him to be the Son of God. From that same discourse, which we then examined, we might mention other passages on the primacy of Peter similar to these—for instance, where Leo stresses the primacy of Peter’s ordination, which binds him to Christ, or where he speaks of the power of binding and loosing granted to Peter, a power which he finds present in every bishop who exercises it with Peter’s own righteousness—that is, who judges in the manner in which Peter himself would have done—although otherwise, in that same discourse, on account of its panegyrical character, there is much that reveals Leo’s holy fervour toward Peter, but which must be called simply fervour, when compared with his general teaching on the subject. In his letter to Maximus of Antioch, Leo exalts the see of Antioch above all others, because it was founded by Peter, and considers his own in every respect equal to it, indeed acknowledging the Antiochene see as older than his own. We shall, moreover, see further on that he understood his own succession to the see of Peter at Rome in an altogether different sense from that in which the popes of the ninth century understood it.[26]

Imbued with faith in his own supreme authority, as the first bishop of the Christian world and bishop of an apostolic see, Leo considers that he is the first called to be a guardian of the canons, and, faithful as such to the principle declared already in the third century by the Roman bishop Stephen, in his dispute with Cyprian over the rebaptism of heretics, that “nothing new is to be introduced beyond what has been handed down” [27], he declares that “the privileges of the churches, established by the canons of the holy fathers and founded upon the decrees of the holy Council of Nicaea, must not be altered by any novelty, nor violently infringed” [28], and accordingly proclaims that “his apostolic see will never approve what is not in accord with their (the Nicene fathers’) canons and institution” [29] — and from this standpoint he declares that he cannot agree with the establishment of the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedon.

However noble such holy devotion of Leo’s to the conciliar institutions must be acknowledged to be, on the other hand one must regret that so great a saint as Leo the Great could, at the very first, be carried away, if only for a moment, by such a spirit of opposition, that certain western writers have had to suspect in him a jealousy toward the see of Constantinople. [30] After all, this whole opposition of Leo’s was provoked only by the circumstances of the moment, and lasted a very short time, whereas afterward, as we shall hear, he expresses himself on this whole matter quite differently.

Leo was not fully acquainted with the hierarchical state of the Church in the East, and the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon were likewise unknown to him. Of the former we must conclude from his letters written on the occasion of our canon; [31] as to the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon, he was wrongly informed by Lucentius, who, imbued with malice toward the easterners, sought to instil that same spirit into Leo’s noble heart as well; and even if he could not succeed in this to the extent he wished, he nevertheless succeeded in representing the fathers of Chalcedon as nothing less than “transgressors of the law,” and in inducing the Roman saint to voice his displeasure over the decision concerning the bishop of Constantinople to the emperor, to the empress, to Anatolius of Constantinople and the fathers of the council, and to others as well. And that he was, in point of fact, ill-informed about this, the very content of his own letters shows.

As soon as Lucentius returned to Rome and reported to Leo in his own fashion, Leo, without waiting to obtain accurate information about the matter, wrote at once four letters, on one and the same day (22 May, A.D. 452), to Marcian, to the empress Pulcheria, to Anatolius, and to bishop Julian, his representative at Constantinople. In the first three he simply attacks Anatolius and stresses his ambition (al. 110), which alone, he says, could have given occasion to that canon; and he states: that only the apostolic sees must have primacy, that Anatolius must be content with being bishop of the imperial residence, that the Council of Nicaea established the order among the first-ranking bishops and that this order may not be overturned, nor may another council alter it; that he does not recognize any canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, to which that council appeals; that the fathers were in any case compelled to assent to that decree; that Anatolius is at fault for having allowed himself to oppose the arguments of his (Leo’s) legates, and so forth. The fourth letter is of an altogether different content, and it resolves the whole riddle of such sharp writing on Leo’s part. It is addressed to the papal envoy Julian, and contains a reproach that Julian did not stand by Lucentius, but even recommended to him that he assent to the council’s decree. [32]

In Constantinople all these letters of Leo’s made a most unpleasant impression, owing to their extraordinary character and their novelty. For who could have better known the needs of the eastern Church than the very members of the Council of Chalcedon themselves, who were all, apart from the pope’s legates, eastern bishops? Besides, could the westerners have better known the mind of the fathers of the (eastern) Council of Nicaea, which guided them in issuing their canons, than the easterners themselves? And further, had not the westerners shown that they did not even know the Nicene canons, since they confused them with the canons of the Council of Sardica, or, if they did know them, knew them only in a falsified form, as one legate showed when he read out the 6th Nicene canon from some collection of his own? Besides this, with what right did the bishop of a local church presume to set himself up against the decision of an ecumenical council, when the privileges of his own church too had been established by nothing other than a council? On account of this extraordinary conduct, Constantinople had to answer Leo in the manner his letters demanded. But this it did not do, for the reasons we mentioned earlier; instead it answered in the mildest manner, assuring the saint that he must have been poorly informed about the council’s proceedings, and that matters stood quite otherwise than as they had been represented to him. When the answer arrived from Constantinople, it must be supposed that Leo began to think differently about the whole matter, and that he paid renewed attention to the report of his own special confidant, Julian. Julian, residing in Constantinople and having the opportunity to acquaint himself with his own eyes with the true state of affairs in the East, could certainly submit a better report to Leo than could Lucentius, who had only then become acquainted with eastern affairs and who was not, as we know, free from partiality. Besides this, Julian enjoyed great trust with Leo, which may be concluded, among other things, from one of Leo’s letters, in which he recommends him in a particular manner to the emperor and empress; accordingly Julian’s report, even if for the moment it might have been disregarded by Leo, could nevertheless not, with due consideration, be simply set aside—the less so now, when the answer from Constantinople had arrived quite different from what he had expected.

It was, indeed, chiefly on account of all this that Leo, the following year, wrote a new letter to Julian, asking him to send him all the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in an accurate Latin translation, since the acts he had received were not entirely clear and gave occasion to misunderstandings. The saint evidently wished to examine everything for himself, and to verify what he had been told by Lucentius, and then to pronounce his final judgment. This was at the beginning of March, 453, when Leo resolved on such a course of action; but shortly afterward he again acts differently—and here again the malign influence of Lucentius must certainly be admitted. Without waiting for an answer to his letter from Julian, who was to send him the authentic conciliar acts, Leo again dispatches several letters to the East—first to the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, then to Maximus of Antioch—reiterating his earlier judgment on our canon and condemning the “ambition” of Anatolius.

Further on we shall see how Leo, in his letter to Anatolius of March 458, already judges the whole matter quite differently—for now let us cast a cursory glance at the reasons which Leo set forth in all these letters of his.

a) Leo asserts that the bishops of the apostolic sees—that is, of the churches which the apostles founded—alone have the right to primacy, while others, however great the prestige of the city in which their see is located, must take their place after those. Here Leo judges wrongly. It was not the apostolic origin of a church that was the reason which gave one church precedence over another, but always the political significance of a place. The clearest proof of this is furnished by the apostles themselves, who did not seek out places of little political consequence to found episcopal sees, but always places of consequence in that respect—political centres—among which, of course, Rome as the chief place in the West, Alexandria as the chief place in Egypt, Antioch as the chief place in Syria, and others. Peter, for example, the Acts of the Apostles tell us, preached in Lydda, in Joppa, in Caesarea, in many places of Pontus, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Asia, Galatia, and elsewhere; and yet those churches which Peter founded, and which had their own bishops, and some even metropolitans, did not receive special privileges—though they were, in point of time, older than others he founded—but only the chief political centres did. The same holds for Andrew, and Paul, and the other apostles. By this conduct of theirs the apostles gave direction as to how their successors must further act. Had Constantinople, in apostolic times, been such a political centre as it became after Constantine, the apostles would assuredly not have passed it by, but in all likelihood Peter and Paul would have been the first to found an episcopal see there, as a centre from which the Gospel might more easily be spread, and would then have concerned themselves with other places. Constantinople would then, of course, have enjoyed that primacy which was accorded—since Constantinople did not yet exist—to Rome, as the imperial residence. Following the example of the apostles, the apostles’ successors, once Constantinople became the imperial residence, did what the apostles themselves would otherwise have done. — Without repeating here what we have said elsewhere on this question, we draw attention further to the fact that the decree of the Council of Antioch, which establishes that ecclesiastical division must follow the political, was adopted also by the western Church, and accordingly served there too as a guiding principle throughout the centuries. It is superfluous to adduce examples, for there are more than enough of them. It is enough to look at the various archbishops, primates, and patriarchs—not in the East, but precisely in the West—and at the places in which they have their seats, and to compare these with other places where, as is well known, the apostles preached and established churches, and the low hierarchical rank which these latter and their ecclesiastical superiors occupy, to see that the western Church too has always, in its practice, followed that very principle which Leo, for one moment, found it possible to deny in theory. [33] Besides this, this council’s own 17th canon expressly establishes that the political significance of a place must be determinative in ecclesiastical affairs as well. And this canon not only provoked no protest from Leo’s legates, but Nicholas I himself, as we have seen in the commentary on this council’s 9th canon, appeals to it, in proving something to which the easterners did not think it worthwhile even to reply.

b) According to what Leo says about the privileges of the apostolic sees, the archbishop of Constantinople would have to revert to the rank he held back when Constantinople was still merely little Byzantium—that is, to revert some hundred and fifty years back, and become dependent on the metropolitan of Heraclea. In his letter to the empress Pulcheria, Leo at least expresses himself thus, stating that all the rights of the metropolitan of Heraclea must continue to be preserved. How much justification such a demand of Leo the Great has in itself we shall not now examine; it is enough for us to observe that such a demand could have arisen from nothing other than the envious and malicious heart of Lucentius. For to feign ignorance of the whole practice of the church of Constantinople from the middle of the previous century down to the middle of this (the fifth) century; to refuse to recognize a custom justified [34] by long standing, and on the basis of which the privileges of the Roman see itself had been acknowledged; finally, to pretend not to know of the activity of Chrysostom as archbishop of Constantinople, and of the motives which brought about that activity of his, and that of his immediate predecessors and successors on the see of Constantinople, and thus to associate oneself with the verdict of the notorious “synod under the oak tree” against him—all this can be allowed only in the case of a Lucentius, but by no means as having proceeded from a personal motive of the great Leo.

c) Leo has every right when he asserts himself as the first guardian of the canons, and he has still more right when he states that the 6th Nicene canon established the order of precedence among the first-ranking bishops; but he has no right when he denies that one council has the same authority as another equal to it in ecclesiastical matters, provided it remains faithful to the spirit of the Church. Moreover, if he acknowledges that the Council of Nicaea established precedence, this means that that council had the authority to do so—and therefore it belongs to councils, as such, to establish such precedence. The Council of Nicaea established a custom, according to which the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch were to enjoy special privileges like the bishop of Rome; and the Council of Chalcedon did the very same thing: it established a custom according to which equal privileges to theirs were now to belong also to the bishop of Constantinople—while, since he is also the bishop of the new imperial residence, he is to have this pre-eminence of honour before the others, yet after the bishop of the old imperial residence.

d) Leo further advances several arguments in which the spirit of Lucentius shows through entirely, being but a repetition of that very thing which this Lucentius had stated at the council. — Leo declares, first, that he is not acquainted with the (3rd) canon of the Second Ecumenical Council concerning the see of Constantinople, and, further, disparages that council itself. For the first point one may cite the declaration of his own legates at the First session of the council, and the declaration of Eusebius of Dorylaeum at the Sixteenth. At the second, one must marvel, for it is inconceivable how Leo could express himself thus, when afterward another Roman bishop, Gregory the Great (590–604), expresses himself as follows concerning the first four ecumenical councils: “I declare that I so receive and honour the four councils as the four books of the holy Gospel—namely, the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the Ephesine, and the Chalcedonian.” [35]

e) As for the repetition of Lucentius’s declaration at the council, that Anatolius’s ambition provoked this canon, and that the fathers were compelled to sign the decree—a declaration which Leo repeats in his letters to the empress Pulcheria and to Anatolius—it seems to us, after what we have now said, superfluous to dwell on it further. It was a momentary manifestation of the saint’s anger, provoked by an evil spirit, and nothing more. His other letter, addressed to Julian in March of the following year, in which he asks him for accurate translations of all the acts of the council, testifies to this.

All these “reasons” advanced at the very first by Leo were afterward, by that same Leo, if not formally in strict terms, then in substance, retracted—especially once it became clear, from a letter of Anatolius’s, that it was not his ambition that had provoked that conciliar decree, but the necessity of circumstances—so that afterward we find Leo in the closest written relations with the bishop of Constantinople. [36]

Yet even in that very opposition to the decree of the Council of Chalcedon concerning the bishop of the imperial residence—an opposition provoked by a momentary fervour and expressed in a few letters—there shines through the loftiness of the saint’s character, and his consciousness of the sanctity of his episcopal duty, of the need to respect the rights of other bishops; there shines through a spirit of humility, which indeed must penetrate a bishop. He regards himself as an apostolic successor, and as such regards it his first duty to distinguish himself as a guardian of the conciliar institutions, and rebukes others who are not, like himself, guardians of those institutions. “What is contrary to the holy canons is too great an evil to be tolerated,” says the holy Leo. But as an apostolic successor he does not, at the same time, regard himself as anything more than the other apostolic successors, nor as some particular superior of the whole Church. In none of his letters do we find a single word that would indicate some autocratic authority of his own, by which he might, on the basis of some “divine right,” demand that something be done. He condemns every novelty, and declares that his apostolic see will never approve of such a thing (apostolicae sedis nunquam poterit obtinere consensum); he resolutely defends the rights of the metropolitans, and says that he will never lend his voice so that these rights of theirs be infringed by anyone whatsoever; in all his letters he places his greatest strength in the defence of the Nicene canons, and their sanctity, he says, must be binding upon the whole Church and for all time. For his letter on the orthodox faith he was extolled with the most glorious names and honoured with such praises as only the Greek language can express, and such as might adorn even the most enthusiastic panegyric; yet he is not thereby exalted, nor was he willing to accept for himself the title “archbishop of all the churches in the world,” which his legates wished to establish for him at the Fourth session of our council. [37] In all his letters and discourses he speaks of the privileges of his see as an apostolic see, but only in the sense of the primacy and fullness of the ecumenical Church. To Ephesus he writes thus to the bishops assembled in council: “Leo, bishop, to the holy council assembled at Ephesus, to his beloved brethren, joy in the Lord. The pious faith of our most merciful emperor, knowing that his own glory will be greatly exalted if no seed of scandal should spring up in the catholic Church, has shown such reverence for the divine institutions that, for the accomplishment of this holy undertaking, he has summoned also the authority of the apostolic see, wishing thereby, in a manner, to proclaim, as it were on the part of the blessed apostle Peter himself, his praised confession. For when the Lord asked, ‘who do men say that the Son of Man is,’ the disciples reported to him various opinions; but when he asked them how they themselves believed, the first among the apostles comprehended, in a brief word, the whole fullness of the faith, and said, ‘thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’… wherefore the Lord answered him, ‘blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Accordingly, he is far removed from the foundation of this edifice of the Church who does not acknowledge the confession of the blessed Peter and contradicts the Gospel of Christ…. And since such errors ought not to be left without remedy, and our most Christian and most pious emperor has desired that a council of bishops be assembled, so that every falsehood might be rooted out by a thorough examination, I have therefore sent my brethren: Julian the bishop, and Renatus the presbyter, and my son the deacon Hilary, and with them the notary Dulcitius, who shall take the place of my presence at the holy assembly of your brotherhood, and who, by common judgment with you, shall establish what shall be well-pleasing to the Lord.”… To the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon the holy Leo again writes as follows: “Bishop Leo to the holy council at Nicaea (Chalcedon), to his most beloved brethren, joy in the Lord. I would wish, most beloved, for the sake of the mutual love of our assembly, that all the saints of the Lord might be of one mind in the piety of the one catholic faith, and might not allow themselves to be led astray from the path of truth by the favours or by the fear of worldly powers. But since it very often happens that deeds occur for which one must repent, and the mercy of God exceeds the guilt of the transgression, and on that account the penalty is deferred, so that amendment might be attained: the wholly pious intention of our most merciful emperor must be fully honoured, who desires that our holy brotherhood be assembled, so that the snares of the devil might be destroyed and ecclesiastical peace restored, while at the same time preserving the right and honour of the see of the blessed apostle Peter; so that he has also summoned us to this by special letters, that we too might be present at the holy council, but neither the circumstances of the time nor established custom has permitted us to respond to this. In the rest, however, in these our brethren—that is, in the bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius and the presbyters Boniface and Basil, whom the apostolic see sends—let your brotherhood consider that I too am present at the council, and that you yourselves are not deprived of my presence, for through my representatives I find myself among you, nor am I absent from you in the preaching of the catholic faith; for you, as you cannot fail to know, [know] what we believe according to the ancient tradition, so that you could not even doubt what our wish truly is.” — Notwithstanding all his concern for the significance of his own see, Leo, as may be seen, does not forget the significance of the ecumenical Church, represented at the Council of Chalcedon, before which he wishes to vindicate his own faith, and upon which he imposes no authority of his own whatsoever, but asks only that the truth be established and proclaimed by it.

After so sharp a protest on the part of the legates against the intent of the canon, after those letters of Leo’s written against it from May 452 to June 454, was the 28th canon thereby annulled? It certainly would have had to be so, and our canon would immediately, and forever, have had to lose its validity, had there then prevailed the notion of “the papacy” current today, or even the notion formed under Nicholas I. But that was still only the fifth century, and in that century that theory of “the papacy,” which would afterward develop to such monstrous proportions, was still only in its infancy. Of some absolute, universal, infallible, divine authority in the Church belonging to the Roman bishop—an authority standing even above the ecumenical councils—of such an authority, at that time, not even that Roman bishop himself had any notion, still less anyone else. Had the fathers of Chalcedon been able even to imagine that that bishop possessed a divine authority over the whole Church, had they been able to know that he had truly received from Christ such authority as was afterward asserted by a Nicholas I, or a Gregory VII, or an Innocent III, or a Boniface VIII—they would not simply have asked Leo “to honour their decree with his assent,” but would have submitted it to his ratification, upon which, naturally, the validity or invalidity of that decree would have had to depend; further, it is impossible to suppose that, had they been able to think that the Roman bishop truly possessed such divine authority, they would not have yielded at once, the moment Leo addressed his first letter to the emperor in May 452 against our canon; and it is equally impossible to suppose that they would have resolved to bestow upon another that which only the Roman bishop, by divine right, could alone have enjoyed. And Leo himself, had he been able to think that he truly possessed such authority as is asserted today by the thirteenth pope of his name, would have annulled this canon in the name of his divine authority, which, as “the vicar of Christ himself,” he would necessarily have had, and would have handed over to anathema the obstinate—as the popes of more recent centuries do, to the point of the ridiculous, for every trifle. Neither, we repeat, did the fathers of Chalcedon, nor did Leo the Great himself, have any notion of such a divine authority of the Roman bishop; and therefore this canon, once it had been sanctioned by the voice of an ecumenical council—the highest and the sole infallible authority in the Church—obtained legal force immediately upon its issuance, and this legal force of its own was acknowledged to it, by official means, both by the East and by the West alike.

The first to do so was, in 454, the emperor Marcian, who, in his own name and that of his colleague in the western half of the empire, Valentinian III, issued an edict confirming the privileges which the canons had granted to the holy churches. This edict was revoked in 476 by Basiliscus, because Acacius, then patriarch of Constantinople, refused, as we know, to submit to his order that two newly elected bishops be reinstated on their sees. But the following year the new emperor Zeno proclaimed the full validity of the 28th canon of Chalcedon; and afterward Justinian I, by his 131st Novel, established that “in accordance with the decrees of the ecclesiastical canons, the most holy pope of old Rome must be first among all the hierarchs, while the most blessed archbishop of Constantinople, new Rome, shall hold the second place after the holy apostolic see of old Rome; but he shall stand before all the other sees.”[38]

Shortly afterward the West too acknowledged the validity of the privileges granted to the archbishop of Constantinople by our canon. Leo the Great himself, in his letter of 14 March 458, even if he does not expressly retract what he had earlier written against our canon, nevertheless grudgingly acknowledges the privileges granted to the see of Constantinople. In one letter to Anatolius, Leo complains that certain persons subject to the see of Constantinople are aiding heretics, and recommends to Anatolius that he excommunicate them. Anatolius expressed to Leo his displeasure that Leo was concerning himself with matters not falling within his own jurisdiction; to which Leo, in the aforementioned letter of 14 March, replies to Anatolius, among other things, as follows: “You need not be angered that I have pointed out to you that it would be well to examine what is being reported concerning the hierarchs subject to your authority; by this I in no way intended to offend your dignity, but my concern was for your reputation, which is as dear to me as my own.” As is evident, Leo acknowledges the accomplished fact; and although he does not declare this formally, he is certainly restrained by his earlier letters, which it would naturally now have been difficult for him expressly to retract. — Leo’s immediate successors did not act as Leo had, but again rose up against the privileges granted to the see of Constantinople. But this was a momentary phenomenon, provoked by the circumstances of the time, especially by the fact that Anatolius’s second successor, Acacius, the principal author of the notorious Henotikon of the emperor Zeno, deserved no consideration whatsoever from the orthodox. And we hear Gelasius of Rome (492–496), in his letter to the bishops of Dardania, resolutely rising up against the privileges granted to the bishop of Constantinople, when those privileges serve to the detriment of the orthodox faith.[39] This was, moreover, the last voice of protest against the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedon, and from that time, especially after Justinian’s aforementioned Novel, it became valid for the whole Church.[40]

At the beginning of the sixth century, St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne in Gaul (†525), writes to John of Constantinople and acknowledges to him the privileges belonging to him as bishop of the imperial residence.[41] At the so-called Eighth Ecumenical Council (869), the primacy of the bishop of Constantinople after Rome was acknowledged by its 21st canon. When Constantinople was under the Latins, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, a general council was held at Rome, in the Lateran church, which the Romans call the “twelfth ecumenical”; and this council, after the Tuscan presbyter Gervasius had been appointed patriarch of Constantinople by Pope Innocent III, established the following (5th) canon: “Renewing the ancient privileges of the patriarchal sees, with the approval of the holy universal council, we establish that, after the Roman church, which by the grace of God holds the primacy of ordinary authority over all the others, as the mother and teacher of all the faithful in Christ, the church of Constantinople shall hold the first place, that of Alexandria the second, that of Antioch the third, and that of Jerusalem the fourth, the proper dignity of each being preserved…”[42] Those opening words of the canon prove most plainly of all what significance the protest of the Roman legates at Chalcedon against the privileges granted to the bishop of Constantinople actually carried, and that the non-recognition of those privileges by the Roman bishop was nothing but a momentary thing. Finally, when, under Eugenius IV, the well-known Union of Florence was concluded, we read the following in the famous Decretum unionis: “The patriarch of Constantinople shall be second after the most holy Roman pope, the Alexandrian third, then the Antiochene fourth, and the Jerusalemite fifth, the preservation of all their privileges and rights being maintained.” —

We have thus set forth the history of this Chalcedonian canon, as fully, it seems to us, as possible. In closing we must add one further observation of a general kind. This canon, as the decree of a true ecumenical council, obtained, the very instant it was established, that legal force which, as such, it necessarily had to obtain. If protests were raised against it, first by the legates of Pope Leo, and then by that same pope himself, that protestation lasted only until certain circumstances were clarified and certain misunderstandings removed—and it was afterward acknowledged as valid both by the legates and by the pope. And yet the older, as well as the newer, Roman theologians strain every means to prove that it established something unlawful. This would be an almost unbelievable, or at least incomprehensible, thing, did we not know that this canon concerns that very see on which sat a Photius and a Michael Cerularius, and that, therefore, according to party discipline—to use an expression from the political vocabulary—every Roman theologian must speak against it. Occasion for this is furnished them by those few letters of Leo’s, written at the very first, after the council, under the influence of the envious spirit of his legate Lucentius, who had been so scorned in Constantinople. On the basis, then, of these letters, and following their party, they seek to prove something that is impossible to prove given the historical documents that exist. Hence that straining of proofs, hence those contradictory interpretations of our canon among themselves. They defend Leo while he protests against this canon, and try to show how canonically well-founded Leo’s standpoint was in this. Had Leo persisted in his protestation, had the popes and councils that followed protested just as Leo did at first, their task would have been easy. Just as they did not recognize the canons of other eastern councils, so they would not have recognized this one either, and there the matter would have ended. But Leo himself abandoned his first course of action, and the popes and councils that followed acknowledged what was established by this canon—so that it must be interpreted in the manner that favours their party. And to achieve this, it was necessary to pass over in silence certain data directly relevant to the question, and which serve as the key to clarifying everything—such as Leo the Great’s letter to Anatolius of March 458, or the letter of St. Avitus to John of Constantinople; other data had to be interpreted in a distorted sense, such as the edict of Marcian and Valentinian of the year 455, or Leo’s letter to Julian of March 453; finally, it was necessary to construct such combinations as decisively war against sound criticism. In defending Leo while, in these letters of his from the year 454, he raises his voice against this canon, they must afterward, unwittingly, condemn Leo himself, once he enters into different relations with Anatolius; they must further condemn Pope Hadrian II, under whom that council of the year 869 was held; Pope Innocent III, under whom that Lateran council assembled; Pope Eugenius IV, who was the first to sign the Decretum concilii Florentini; finally, they must call into question the validity of their own Corpus Juris Canonici, in which the provision of our canon has a prominent place. To this they must consequently be brought by their very effort to represent the provision of our canon as unlawful. Of course they do not state this outright; but to such a conclusion—especially given the strained efforts of some among them to bring the later acts of the papacy into agreement with the earlier—every reader of all their many commentaries must come, whether he be Orthodox or Roman Catholic, provided he is even slightly acquainted with the ecclesiastical history of the fourth and fifth centuries.

We shall return to the provision of this council once more in the commentary on the canons of the Council in Trullo, which, by its 36th canon, renewed this same provision, and gave statutory force, naming them individually, to the order among the five first-ranking patriarchs.

Canon 29

It is sacrilege to reduce a bishop to the rank of presbyter. But if, for some just cause, bishops must be removed from episcopal office, in such a case they may not even occupy the place of a presbyter. But if they have been removed from their dignity without any fault whatever, let them be restored to episcopal dignity.

Anatolius, the most devout Archbishop of Constantinople, said: Those who are said to have been reduced from episcopal dignity to the rank of presbyter, if they were condemned for some just cause, cannot lawfully be deemed worthy even of the honor of the presbyterate; but if they were reduced to a lower rank without any just cause, and were found guilty of no fault, it is just that they should again receive the dignity and sacred office of a bishop.

— We have translated this canon from the Greek text, as it stands in the Ath. Synt. In the Russian synodal editions the second half of this canon is absent. In the Kormchaia it reads: “Аще сводитъ епископа в’ презвитерство, святотатецъ есть. аще бо повиненъ неосвященъ, сведеныи же безвины, да будетъ епископъ”.[43]

The beginning of the second half of the canon shows that the first half must have been someone’s proposal or declaration; and from the acts of the council we learn that this proposal was indeed made, after the hearing of the relevant reports of the Roman legates, to which proposal Anatolius of Constantinople also assented, and it was thereupon adopted by the whole council.[44]

This canon was not issued at the XV session of this council as a separate canon like the rest, but is a resolution passed by the council at its IV session, on occasion of the complaint of Photius of Tyre against Eustathius of Berytus, who had unlawfully reduced to the rank of presbyter three bishops appointed by Photius.[45] And this resolution, containing as it does a canonical provision adopted by the Council of Chalcedon, was afterward appended to the rest of the canons of the same council.

This canon is clear in itself: if one is unworthy, on account of some transgression, to perform the sacred mysteries, he is unworthy of this on whatever hierarchical degree he may stand, whether episcopal or presbyteral; he is therefore deprived of holy orders altogether, and the Chalcedonian fathers call it sacrilege (ἱεροσυλία) to regard one as unworthy to perform the sacred office on the episcopal degree, while at the same time worthy of it on the degree of presbyter—that is, to reduce one, by way of punishment, from the first degree to the second. If one has committed some transgression that deprives him of the right to perform the service of God as a bishop, that same transgression deprives him of the right to perform that service as a presbyter also, for it is one and the same eucharistic mystery—which both the bishop and the presbyter perform—and such a one must be deprived of holy orders altogether; but if he is not guilty of any transgression, he must retain his dignity. For a lesser transgression he may be subjected to one or another kind of penance, but he can by no means be reduced, hierarchically, by way of punishment, from his own degree to a lower one.

Canon 30

Since the most pious bishops of Egypt have delayed until this day to sign the letter of the most holy Archbishop Leo, not because they are opposed to the catholic faith, but because they allege that in the Egyptian province it is the custom to undertake nothing without the consent and order of their archbishop, and they ask to be permitted to wait until a new bishop of the great city of Alexandria shall be appointed—we have found it just and humane that, remaining in their rank in the imperial city, a period be granted them until an archbishop of the great city of Alexandria shall be appointed. And to this end, remaining in their rank, let them produce sureties who will vouch for them, if this is possible for them, or let them swear that they will keep faith.

— This canon was not issued as a separate canon along with the rest at the XV session of the Council of Chalcedon, but is a resolution passed by the council at its IV session upon the petition of the Egyptian bishops, who took part in the council and who refused to sign, along with the other bishops, in token of assent to the letter of Leo of Rome to Flavian of Constantinople against the Monophysites. It was appended to the canons of this council, just as the preceding one (29), because it contains within itself a canonical provision adopted by the council—namely, the provision concerning sureties and the oath.

The occasion for the issuing of this conciliar resolution, or, let us say, canon, was as follows. At the III session of the Council of Chalcedon, Dioscorus, Archbishop of Alexandria, president of the Robber Council at Ephesus (449), who had proclaimed Eutyches orthodox and deposed, among others, the blessed Flavian, was solemnly condemned. When at the IV session of the Council of Chalcedon the demand was made that all the fathers who condemn Eutyches and his teaching must sign the aforementioned letter of Leo, and after all had already signed, thirteen bishops of the Alexandrian patriarchate declared that they could not sign, since it was their custom to undertake nothing without the consent of their archbishop, and since they had at that time no archbishop, Dioscorus having been deposed and a new one not yet appointed, they begged the council not to compel them to act against their custom. Yielding to their petition, the fathers agreed not to depose them, but that they would wait until a new archbishop should be appointed; meanwhile they were to remain in Constantinople for that whole time, and, lest they should begin again to spread the teaching of Dioscorus and Eutyches, they were required either to produce sureties for themselves or to promise by oath that they would keep their word. This resolution of the Chalcedonian fathers constitutes our present canon (30).

As regards the oath (ἐξωμοσία) mentioned in the canon, Balsamon observes that this must have been an extraordinary oath, going beyond the ordinary kind, and consisting in this, that the person concerned swore “by the emperor’s head or by his own salvation.”[46] As regards the sureties, these must certainly have been clerical persons. But according to the 20th Apostolic canon, no one belonging to the clergy may be a surety for another; there thus appears to be a contradiction between this Chalcedonian canon and that Apostolic canon. This contradiction, however, ceases when attention is paid to the fact—as Balsamon observes—that clerics are forbidden to give surety only when they do so for their own personal advantage and with a view to gain, for then they are deposed; but they are by no means forbidden, nor will they incur deposition, when they give surety for some poor person or from some other pious motive, as is indeed the case here, where one gives surety for the orthodox belief of another, in order to save him from deposition.[47]