Reading of Pope John’s Letter to the Emperors

¹ [Letter of Pope John to the emperors Basil, Leo, and Alexander]

² John, servant of the servants of God, to our most serene, beloved spiritual sons, beloved of God, Basil, Leo, and Alexander, victors, bearers of trophies, emperors, and eternal Augusti.

³ The pure and exceedingly brilliant character of your Orthodoxy in the faith and of your wisdom, and the goodness and equity manifest in your ways, most Christian and greatest emperors of the Romans—shining like a light in the midst of the earth—illumines all the bounds to which the inhabited world extends. For you do not, glorying in the faith alone, dispose yourselves to negligence rather than to zeal in other matters; rather, upon your blameless religion you build not wood, nor grass, nor straw, but precious stones, gold, silver—to put it simply, you bring forth all things with zealous beauty, in which the Divine is known to be served. And the Divine is read to be served most of all when all His churches, as many as the sun looks upon, abiding in the Orthodox faith and in concord and peace with one another, offer up to Him voices of thanksgiving each day. Wherefore, longing that this concord be seen and enjoyed also in your own Church, you have had recourse to the holy Church of the Romans through your apocrisiaries and your divine letters, believing that she would be a fellow worker in what you zealously seek, and not negligent—you yourselves not being the first to have come to this design, but yielding to and following the custom of the pious emperors who reigned before you. And from what teacher you received the doing of these things, if it be worth asking, is plain from the chief of the apostles, Peter, whom the Lord set as head of all the churches, saying, “Feed my sheep”; and not this alone, but also from the holy councils and ordinances; and further from the sacred and Orthodox and patristic holy decrees and statutes, as your divine and pious writings also bear witness. And this you do, that the authority of your faith, proclaimed abroad, may shine forth the more, and that your love toward God may be shown to be pure and unfading. For behold, what is more fitting by nature, or more proper to those established in authority and the highest offices, than to be zealous to glory in the beauty and comeliness of the right faith and in love toward God; and that all who serve God in the same faith should be seen embraced and bound together by the bond of love. Bending over your

⁴ letters, and made glad by the honey-flowing utterances in them, and kindled like a torch, and being of one mind and in agreement with our whole most holy Church of the Romans, we rose up to show all the things written by you fulfilled at once and joyfully—the present occasion being most opportune for us, and the course of affairs having favored this.

⁵ You wrote to us, our beloved son, that, opening apostolic and sympathetic bowels of compassion, we should receive all those of your Church, as many as have fallen under canonical penalties whether by transgression of their own handwritten subscriptions or in some other way, and that we should take thought for peace and concord. And not only this, but that before these things we should, having made Photios the most God-fearing hierarch a partaker and heir and concelebrant of communion with us, restore him again to the great dignity of the high priesthood, to the honor of the patriarchate; so that the Church of God might not remain for a long time troubled by the storm-surges of God-hated schisms and wicked scandals. And we, having accepted the supplication of your serenity as being reasonable and just and pleasing to God, and this occasion being opportune—such as we had long sought and labored for over the years—judging it fitting to make peace for the Church of God, sent our apocrisiaries to fulfill your will. And even though your piety, having constrained the man, anticipated and restored him before us, before our vicars arrived in those parts; nevertheless we accept this not from our own authority—although we have the power to do this—but bringing the proofs from the apostolic ordinances and patristic decrees, and being mindful of the laws of the Church handed down from of old; in which, when the strict observance of these things is kept inviolate, it tears asunder and harms the integrity of the body of the Church—having been taught by that very Church to lead all things to what is profitable. For indeed the second canon of Nicaea speaks thus: “Since it often happens, whether by necessity or by men being otherwise constrained, that the ecclesiastical canons are transgressed.” And further, Pope Gelasius says concerning the same matter, that “where force is present and at hand, let the laws of the holy Fathers remain inviolate.” And likewise the most holy Pope Leo enjoins in the same spirit, saying: “Where necessity does not go before, let the laws of the holy Fathers be kept incorrupt; but where necessity and force are found, there let him who has the power exercise economy for the profit of the churches of God; for by necessity, according to the divine Apostle, there comes also a change of the law.” And Pope Felix likewise concurs with these, saying: “Concerning this too one must take thought, that wherever necessity meets, often the constitutions of the Fathers are transgressed.” But indeed the holy synod at Carthage, in its fifteenth chapter, says: “We decree that the clergy of the Donatists return again into the Church, even though they had formerly been deposed by a synod. And one synod is seen to loose another synod, for the sake of the union and concord of the Church.” And Pope Innocent says, in the

⁶ fourteenth chapter: “Let those ordained by Bonosus the heretic be received, lest scandals spring up again in the Church.” And not only in these cases—though such persons were even of those sprung from heresies—does this apostolic see, taking thought for ecclesiastical peace, stretch out a hand of help to those deposed; but it has also defended Orthodox hierarchs and patriarchs who took refuge in it, as now the most blameless Photios, who have called upon its help. You all know the great Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and Cyril and Polychronius of Jerusalem, and John, whom your love names Chrysostom, and Flavian of Constantinople. For these men, having been deposed and proscribed by a synod and having had recourse to the holy Church of the Romans, this apostolic throne reinstated and restored to their former honor. If, then, those who received ordination from the Donatists or from Bonosus, and were driven from the precincts of the Orthodox Church by a synod of many men, are received by another synod and are ranked in the register of priests, so that the Church of God may remain undivided and pure and free of schisms—for behold, so abominable and hateful is it seen to be in the eyes of God, as a swarm of schisms subsisting within the Church of God; and nothing is more delightful or more dear to His goodness than that the Church should preserve her integrity by love toward God and by like-mindedness toward the neighbor—how much more men who are pleasing to God in the Orthodox faith, renowned for the dignity of their life and for an exact conduct, and who have scarcely so much as to require that works of penalty be exacted—how much more ought such men not to be overlooked as though liable, weighed down by the yoke of penalty, but ought rather to be led back to their former honor.

⁷ For just as this apostolic throne, having received the keys of the kingdom of heaven from the first and great high priest Jesus Christ, through the chief of the apostles Peter—to whom He said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”—has authority to bind and to loose universally, and, according to the prophet Jeremiah, to root up and to plant; therefore we also, employing the authority of the chief of the apostles Peter, together with our whole most holy Church, charge you, and through you our most holy brethren and concelebrants, the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and the rest of the hierarchs and priests, and all the fullness of the Church of Constantinople, to be of one mind and one accord with us, or rather with God, in all the things which you have sought; and first of all to accept Photios, the most wonderful and most blameless hierarch of God and patriarch, your brother and concelebrant, and a sharer and partaker and heir of communion with the holy Church of the Romans—both on account of all his other virtue, and because the scandals have been removed, and the peace of God and love toward one

⁸ another has been planted among you. Receive him with an unbribed mind and with undoubting love and faith, driving out from your hearts all the venom of malice and guile and poison and ambiguity, just as the Church of the Romans also accepted him. For we learn at once from all who come to us from those parts that the man abounds in all the excellences that are according to God: in this, that he surpasses all in wisdom and understanding concerning things divine and human; and in this, that he is renowned for his diligence in practical virtue and his unashamed care for the divine commandments. And what we judged it just to say, that such and so great a man should not remain idle and inactive, but, set on high again in your Church and shining forth anew, should perform works in accord with God, dear to God, and worthy of priests and hierarchs.

⁹ Wherefore, taking up again the same word, we say to you all: Receive the man without pretext. Let no one plead the unjust synods held against him; let no one—as seems to many to be of greater antiquity—lay blame on the condemnations of the blessed hierarchs before us, I mean Nicholas and Adrian; for the things done by their hand against the most holy Photios were not proven. Let no one make your handwritten subscriptions against him an occasion of schisms against him and against one another; for all has ceased and been banished; all that was against him has been annulled and made void. All has, through us the least, been placed in the hands of the chief apostle, and through him upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Receive him, then, with open hands as your brother and concelebrant; receive a blameless hierarch of God; receive the patriarch of your Church. Confirm toward him love, faith, and obedience with reverence, and through him toward the holy Church of the Romans. For whoever does not accept him plainly does not accept the things decreed concerning him by us and by the holy Church of the Romans; and such a one takes up war not against us, but against the most holy apostle Peter, or rather against Christ the Son of God, who so honored and glorified His apostle that he has authority to bind and to loose.

¹⁰ This too we beseech your pious majesty to remember: from how long a time the scandals and schisms that have crept into your Church have harmed her integrity. And of these evils, behold, this also has been a cause: your receiving, as emperors, blasphemies and calumnies against your hierarchs and patriarchs and the rest of the priests of God, and your holding lightly the love and faith and honor and reverence due to them. Wherefore we implore your might in God, from now on, to close the ears of your God-decreed majesty to the assaults and calumnies of those wicked and malicious men against the hierarchs of God; and to send away from yourselves, as unholy and abominable and accursed, both them and the wicked darts of their words; and to honor your

¹¹ patriarchs, and to reverence them, and to regard them as your own fathers, and to venerate them as mediators between God and men. For they keep watch over your souls, ever seeking from God the things for your salvation; and for your failings as well, as is likely, in which you incur debt to God, they offer Him sacrifices for your reconciliation, rendering the Divine propitious toward you. And not only this, but they also intercede with our man-loving God for the stability and continuance of your might, and for victory and triumph over enemies, and for the salvation of all Christians. Moreover, they serve as your counselors and teachers, in that they exhort you to do those things which also procure for you the kingdom in the heavens. By these things they are known to love you above all others; for they do not appear to love you with the love of flatterers, but with that which Jesus Christ taught them through His holy apostles.

¹² It is not right, then, that your patriarchs be overlooked, both because of the other things we have said before, and because they love you as the Lord commanded. And know that, in doing this and in being reverently disposed toward them, you do not honor and venerate them, but that which is sacrificed by their hands and offered to God the Father for the sin of all humanity; for whoever honors them honors God, and whoever turns away from them turns away from God. But let your prudent majesty flee the false discourses or whisperings against them, through which tares and schisms and scandals are introduced into the churches of God, and which divide the seamless tunic of Christ, woven from above, as the venom of asps; and let it rather strive together with the most holy Photios, our brother and concelebrant, in everything that contributes to the perfecting of the Church; and let it rebuke those who dishonor him, that they may be brought to their senses. For often where the fear of God and reverence toward divine things has not brought men to their senses, the indignation of emperors and rulers and magistrates, coming upon them, has made them more moderate. In doing this, know well that in the fitting manner you acquire for yourself the kingdom of heaven, and the perpetual continuance of your might, and the peaceful condition of your reign. But if you do not do this, know that schisms will never cease in the Church of Constantinople.

¹³ This too we exhort your God-minded majesty to decree: that after the repose of the most holy Photios, our concelebrant and brother, no one be elected and ordained to the hierarchical rank from among those of worldly dignities; but rather from among the presbyters or cardinals, or from among those enrolled in the catholic Church, or from among her deacons, or from among other priests serving under the throne of Constantinople, according to the divine and sacred canons; so that the things among you may not be done contrary to the ecclesiastical and patristic canons. And we wish such a one to advance by being tested in each grade of the Church: first reader, then subdeacon, then deacon, again presbyter, and after these bishop; that is, one attested in truth and in the study of letters, who in the lower orders has shown his virtue and the rest of his nobility of character,

¹⁴ [Continuation from p.214:] ⟦to remain for a time in the lower grades,⟧ that his virtue and the rest of his excellence ⟦may be proven⟧. In this manner, as you patriarchs also ⟦must be governed from the beginning⟧, that no ⟦one⟧ may seize a grade unfittingly, so that in the house of the Lord nothing ⟦may be found⟧ disjointed or disorderly. For he who ascends above all the grades ought to be blameless in all things, lest from this there spring up a dissolution of all the teachings of the Church.

¹⁵ And let it not be reckoned by you as a custom or a canon that we, exercising forethought and care for the peaceful condition of the church among you, received Photios our most God-fearing brother, just as Hadrian of old received Tarasios, who was a man divine to him; for rare benefits cannot ⟦be granted to the many alone⟧. Having ourselves also ⟦from⟧ our Lord Jesus Christ received the bowels of compassion, we have shown compassion to you in this matter; and at ⟦your request⟧ we have fulfilled this as well, just as we did concerning the holy priests who are of another ordination. But whoever from now on shall dare to do this, the penalty and condemnation of the canon, and from us as well, shall be without pardon for him.

¹⁶ We ask this also of your piety, that neither our brother and fellow minister Photios the most holy, nor any of his successors, shall from now on ordain in Bulgaria, neither by his own hand nor by sending omophoria, nor shall he lay claim to the said province of the Bulgarians as his own. For ⟦we must not⟧ build upon another’s foundation. For he of blessed memory who preceded us, Nicholas, by the entreaties of Michael the ruler of the Bulgarians, nourished that nation by apostolic teachings, and through ⟦those⟧ bishops baptized them; and he brought them to perfection, having handed down to them all ecclesiastical ordinances and canons and whatever pertains to the religion of Christians. Even though some have boldly snatched away from us the province that does not belong to them, and the ordinations and consecrations of churches, and in a word all that they did from this; therefore, in addition to what has been said, we charge you with this also: that when we detect those now exercising the episcopacy among them to have been convicted of an offense and subject them to canonical penalties, you do not receive them as a refuge; but rather that we may find you breathing together with us in this and following after us, and not dissenting.

¹⁷ Furthermore, we beseech your Christ-loving majesty to gather together the bishops and presbyters, and those of whatever order, whether ecclesiastical or ⟦civil⟧, who seem to have separated from you; and whenever they are within your borders, both to bring them to you, and to exhort them ⟦to make their way⟧ to the Church of God and to Photios the most holy patriarch, our brother and fellow minister; and you shall restore to them their own hierarchical and priestly honors and grades, opening to them the bowels of mercy. So that, as there is one God and one baptism and one faith, and we ourselves ⟦are one⟧ in Christ, ⟦so⟧ they too, ⟦through⟧ your divine teaching and exhortation, may no longer be apart from us, ⟦but⟧ may be joined together into the fullness of the Church of Christ, being [fitted together].

¹⁸ ⟦being fitted together⟧ and joined ⟦into⟧ the all-holy body of Christ; that, continuing in the same mind and in the same will, we may glorify the God who is over all. And let no one henceforth say, “I am of Cephas,” “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” but let us all say this, that we are all Christ’s; of him who was crucified and died for us; who through his passion made peace and reconciled the things on earth and the things in the heavens; and who joined and bound us to himself, to God and the Father, and in mutual love and communion. But if, when you gather them and summon them, urging and exhorting them to be reconciled to you in the unity of the Church, once and twice, and indeed many times, they should be unwilling to obey you, nor to submit to our letters, nor to reap their own salvation, but should persist in their former willfulness and arrogance, these we command to be excluded from the undefiled partaking of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, until they are united to the holy Church of God and to Photios the most holy patriarch, our brother and fellow minister.

¹⁹ And so the remaining matters of that just condemnation we did not write in the letter to you, lest its length be drawn out too far; but having written them in a commonitorium, we sent it to our most God-fearing presbyter and cardinal and apocrisiarius, to the most God-fearing bishops in the company of Eugenios and Paulos; that, sitting together with them along with the resident synod concerning the most holy patriarch Photios, our brother and fellow minister, and keeping before their own eyes the sleepless eye that watches over all things, and preserving inviolate and unfailing their accountability before the Divine and their conscience, they may transact all the affairs of the church of Constantinople—both those now in need of correction and those likely, as is to be expected, to arise—for the good and advantage of the Church of God. May God the Almighty guard your august might, and subject the necks of all nations beneath your feet.