First Session

¹ ACTION ONE [heading from the Latin ACTIO PRIMA; not visible in the extant Greek column margin]

² Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter, cardinal, and legate of the most holy Pope John of elder Rome, together with those who were with him, Paul and Eugenios, had arrived; of whom the most illustrious Peter, having now also arrived in person, brought with him the sacred letters of the most holy Pope John.

³ Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: Thanksgiving be to our good God, who has preserved him and restored him to us in peace and health. Let them enter. And when they had entered, Photios, the most holy and ecumenical patriarch, said: Glory to our God, the consubstantial and life-originating Trinity, always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. The holy council acclaimed: Amen. And when the prayer had been offered according to custom, Photios, our most holy master and ecumenical patriarch, embraced and greeted Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter, and those with him, saying: God has brought you here well. May the Lord accept your labor; may He bless and sanctify your souls and your bodies; and may He accept the care and solicitude of our most holy brother and fellow-minister and spiritual father, the most blessed Pope John.

⁴ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter, cardinal, and legate of the most holy Pope John, said: Blessed be God, that we have found your holiness in health. Saint Peter watches over you. Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: May Christ our God—He whose chief disciple was Peter, whose memory and zeal He rendered free of grief—have mercy on us all, and show us worthy of His kingdom.

⁵ Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter and cardinal, said: The most holy and ecumenical Pope John makes reverence to your holiness. Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: He is reverenced in return by us with heartfelt longing; and we ask God to grant us his holy prayers unto the completion of our whole life; and may there be granted him, from the common Master Christ our true God, a recompense for his genuine love and sincere disposition toward us.

⁶ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal of the apostolic throne, said: I wish to have your honored self as brother and fellow-minister and father. Photios, our most holy master and ecumenical patriarch, said: May Christ our God, the fulfiller of all good things, accomplish his will by heavenly counsel; and we too inscribe him as our brother and fellow-minister and spiritual father.

⁷ Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter and cardinal, said: He has sent a letter to your holiness, that through it all may know what care and diligence he holds for the holy Church of God that is among us, and what love and faith he has toward your holiness. Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: Even before the letters, through the very deeds themselves we received, as it were, the fullest assurance; that which now becomes teaching and letters is also a prior addition and confirmation. For this reason it falls to us as a duty to hold his hierarchical perfection in the place of father and provider—he who lays down such great and so considerable diligence and care, that not once but twice already he has sent his faithful hierarchs and priests to your moderation; who has undertaken so great a struggle for the holy Church of God,

⁸ so as to receive, in return for such fitting struggles and cares, [their] goodwill and pure disposition [and not ingratitude]. For in this he has truly imitated Christ the true God, the first and great high priest. For just as He was not content with the heavenly orders that ministered to Him, which preserved their love pure and inviolate, but, emptying Himself and submitting to emptiness even to the form of a slave, drew to Himself our wandering [nature], estranged as it was from men—so also that imitator of His, our spiritual father, was not content that the Church should hold her peace within herself alone; but through his own honored legates—first through the most holy Paul and Eugenios, and then also through your priestly perfection—he resolved to visit those, if any there be, who disobey the truth, and to bring in the fitting admonition; so that, lifted out of the schismatic error that had previously held them fast, they might all be joined to Christ our true God, the common head, and be perfected into His complete body. It is right to give thanks: first to God, who roused that man’s hierarchical perfection to such zeal; and second to that wondrous man himself, the servant who without excuse prepared himself for the decrees from above. Therefore we embrace and honor his honored person. As for the soul of that divine man, we know that it is well and nobly disposed; concerning his honored little body, however, we inquire in what condition it continues.

⁹ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, answered: Well, through your holy prayers. Photios, our most holy master, said: The holy Church of God under him, and all the hierarchs and priests—how do they fare? Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: All are in health, through your holy prayers. But the love and faith which the most holy Pope has toward your holiness—who shall recount it? Nevertheless, from his letters all shall know his goodwill toward you. Photios, the most holy and ecumenical patriarch, said: The strength of words is made manifest in the splendor of deeds; and the most holy Pope, our spiritual father, set down the deeds before the words. To as many as have understanding, his inspired zeal for the Church has already become manifest, and his sincere disposition toward us, the lowly, and his perfect love.

¹⁰ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: Brothers and fellow-ministers, the most holy Pope proclaims much to us and watches over us. The holy council said: And we also embrace him with reverence. Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter and legate of elder Rome, said: Brothers and fellow-ministers, in the manner in which a loving father seeks out his own children, and the good shepherd his own sheep, so also the most holy Pope John, loving you, does not cease,

¹¹ through his letters and with earnest entreaty, to watch over you, wishing that the whole holy Church of God be united and become one flock and one shepherd. Ioannes, the most God-beloved metropolitan of Herakleia, said: By his holy prayers there goes before us one flock, and we have one true shepherd, holy and guileless: Photios, our most holy master and ecumenical patriarch.

¹² Zacharias, the most God-beloved metropolitan of Chalcedon, said: The matter of peace is so august that even God Himself is called and reckoned “peace”—just as men are accustomed, by the other names likewise, to call Him and conceive Him as God. Yet this matter, august though it be to such a degree, has now for a very long time, ever since, suffered injury within the Church among us; nor was it free of faction before, by the simplicity of the one who held power. Then, indeed, when the evil burst forth most violently and the flame was raised to such a height—what was the cause? For you all demand to learn it. We will tell it: paradoxical though it be, it is nonetheless true. The knowledge of a divine man—as much as pertains to the sacred and divine Scriptures, and as much as pertains to the encyclical studies; a purity surpassing even human nature; consummate understanding; sagacity joined with strength; gentleness, and in all things what is equitable and moderate; to be seen superior to all pleasures; an almsgiving outrunning all who were ever renowned for it; the humility that points to Christ, which it befits every Christian to have, but most of all the hierarchs—which you see us too possessing, as is fitting, lest we belie our calling by our deeds; a kindly bearing toward sinners, out of boundless love for mankind; freedom from possessions; the turning of many from among the heretics and many from among the unbelievers—and why do I say these things? rather, whole nations he made ready to turn to our blameless faith of Christians; and, to put it simply, every virtue that is by nature to be seen among men. But who is the one who practiced so great and so considerable a virtue? And how, again, did virtue, being a good thing, become a contributing cause of evil—of the enmity within the Church? This too you all long to learn. The virtue this our most holy patriarch practiced, whom you see; and it, being a good thing, became a contributing cause of evil by turning envy upon itself, which proved to be the cause of all the things that have come upon us. You have, as an example of what is said, the first and great high priest, Christ, against whom envy roused the Jewish madness, so that it did not cease even unto the cross and death. Some such thing happened, and was brought down upon this throne. I suffered things of which it is good to be silent, and surely the silence concerning them profits you as well. The virtue of our most pious emperor redeems the defeat—in all things showing that he has his mind governed by God, but most clearly having made this plain in the present case. For he makes manifest to all that the fabrications falsely said to come from the East are exposed, and that nothing sound comes from there. And he considers well also the mind of the most holy Pope John, that he in no way abides in the things contrived for the ruin and dissolution of the Church. He looks to this, and to the canon itself, and holds the ancient order of doctrine that is decreed

¹³ and sung by all. Apart from these things, whatever should arise is shown to be rotten and stale; and the Church, being restored to her own, receives back her proper bridegroom; and all the things done against him are reckoned long nonsense and idle prattle. When this had come about, many at once assented to what had been done, and many also after a little while; but a few—very few indeed, and easily numbered—envying the peace of the Church and mastered by the passion of self-love, were utterly taken captive. And if anyone asks them the cause, and for what reason they cut themselves off from the common body of the Church, their ready defense is: that the Church of the Romans also wills it so. Which is just as the murderer, accused of his deeds, said: “As a deputy of the Romans I do the evil.” And this Church, at peace with herself—and, if she could, [wishing the same] for others—has now become the occasion of disturbance and of enmity and of scandals, and, simply, of all the evils that have overtaken our Church: the cause, if not in truth, yet by their words she is so called and named. For this reason our most reverent emperor summoned you, and you came, that you might free yourselves from the charges and reproaches which, in some small measure, you bear among all, on account of the things which (as those men say) have been committed against us; so that, if the truth must be spoken to you, the present council is on your behalf—on your behalf, brothers and fathers, and on behalf of the most holy Church of the Romans; on behalf of your honor; that you may not be dragged about by the remnants of the schismatics as the authors of the factions and the disturbances. Since, indeed, by the grace of God, and by service rendered to our Christ-loving emperor, and moreover by the prayers of our master the most holy patriarch, and by the concord and like-mindedness of the equally ranked hierarchical thrones of the East, and before all these by the continual supplications and prayers to God of the most holy Pope John, all things are well and need nothing toward correction—and that this is not my word, but the common voice of this whole numerous council, I implore you to hear.

¹⁴ The holy council cried out: We, who from the beginning alone have been of one accord with our most holy master and ecumenical patriarch, have never separated from him; but we have even stood ready to pour out our own blood gladly on his behalf, against any who might wish to seek such a thing. And as many of us as once took up any faction against him, many of us, having condemned our former opinion and disposition, now with whole soul and unbending mind inscribe him as our hierarch and master and shepherd; and those who waver on these matters we now hold to be enemies of the Church and cast out.

¹⁵ Zacharias, the most God-beloved metropolitan of Chalcedon, said: Worthily, then, are they cast out who till now have remained left over from the schismatic error. For—to say nothing of the other accusations of which those men were the authors—what strange thing is this that they do, which even to consider distresses me? What, then, is it? They presume to drag the very Church of the Romans, honored from many years past with freedom and renowned for the dignity of its power,

¹⁶ into slavery, and to bring it down to the lowliness of bought slaves. How, in what manner? “We accept the acts of Pope Nicholas, and the acts of Adrian likewise please us; but the acts of the most holy and most blessed Pope John we do not accept.” And for what reason? Because those Popes followed our will, but this one does not do what we wish; rather, he disputes that we too should follow the things which he wills. And what else is this, than that they themselves not only do not follow the hierarchical wills of the Romans, but even compel those great and admirable hierarchs to follow their own private wills? For if they accept those of your wills which they themselves had previously willed, but those which they do not wish—even if you should will it ten thousand times, even if you should have the canons in agreement, even if you should have the inspiration that shines from above—then against all these they vaunt that their own will prevails: what excess of madness is left to them? Hasten, therefore, beloved, and contend, and free the holy Church of God of the Romans from this monstrous and barbarous-tongued slavery; and, scattering away the dishonor and reproach heaped upon you until now, exchange them for glory and good repute through the concord of the common peace of the churches.

¹⁷ Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter and cardinal, said: We ought to give thanks to our almighty God for all things; and He Himself will do what is profitable for all. Ioannes, the most God-beloved metropolitan of Herakleia in Thrace, said: Much have we given thanks, and still we give thanks to Him, that the scandals and tares that formerly sprang up in the Church of God have been taken out of the midst, and a deep peace has been bestowed upon her—through the concord of your holiness and of the hierarchical thrones of the East, and through the prayers of our most holy master and hierarch.

¹⁸ Prokopios, the most God-beloved archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, said: Let the whole world rejoice today, and let the Church also leap for joy; for the Lord has spoken good things into the heart of two of our holy emperors, and has stirred up their God-ratified power to summon honored legates from the four patriarchal thrones. And now we see both your honored selves arrived and fulfilling the figure of the most holy Pope John, our spiritual father, and those likewise come from the East agreeing with our concord, and with one mind driving away the schismatic error together with us; and now, in truth, it is fitting to speak the prophetic word: “The Lord has reigned; He has clothed Himself with majesty.” For the Church has, through him, clothed herself with power and girded herself.

¹⁹ Elias, the most God-fearing presbyter and locum tenens of Jerusalem, said: And now it is right to give thanks to God, that we see all united. And I, the lowly one, rejoice the more, that this schismatic error we never received in our holy Church of God of Jerusalem; but always and continually, from the time when our most holy master Photios took possession of this hierarchical throne and sent the libellus of his faith to Theodosios, the most holy patriarch of Jerusalem,

²⁰ we have remained in agreement with him and unsevered until now; and those who cried out anything, holding [false] notions concerning his high-priesthood, we never received.

²¹ Daniel, the most God-beloved metropolitan of Ankyra, said: Our most holy master and ecumenical patriarch imitates Christ the true God in this: those who came about the eleventh hour he makes equal in rank with the first, and now grants them to enjoy honor of the first dignity; and he makes all things one, opening to all his common and fatherly heart.

²² Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: May our Lord Jesus Christ preserve you all. And indeed our lord the apostolic and ecumenical Pope John has sent us to the most holy patriarch, Lord Photios, that we might root out the scandals springing up in his Church; and just as there is one God over all, and one baptism, and one faith, so also may there come to be one flock and one shepherd. And that our lord the apostolic Pope holds this Lord Photios, the most holy patriarch, as his own soul, and is with him one spirit and one body, and holds him as brother and fellow-minister—this the very priestly vestment sent by him bears witness. For he sent it to him for this very reason: that every man might be assured that he holds him as brother and fellow-minister. And having said this, he rose and delivered to our master the hierarchical [vestments] sent by the most holy Pope John: the ⟦pallium⟧, the omophorion, the ⟦epigonation⟧, the phelonion, the sandals.

²³ The holy council said: If your holiness commands, let us see them. And so Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, together with the most God-beloved bishops with him and the rest of the Romans, spread them out before the present council. Photios, the most holy and ecumenical patriarch, said: May Christ our God—He who wraps the heaven with clouds, and who, that He might reform and purify our nature, clothed Himself with it—may He Himself clothe the God-pleasing fellow-minister and our spiritual father: in the present life, with inviolable protection and sure salvation; and in the age to come, may He show him worthy of the nuptial robe of that blessed bridal chamber.

²⁴ Eugenios, the most God-beloved bishop and legate of elder Rome, said: Brothers and fellow-ministers, what we told you long ago, you now behold: that the soul of the most holy Pope John is united with the soul of Photios the most holy patriarch, and the two are one. And just as you desire to be with God, so also the apostolic Pope John desires to be with the most holy patriarch. What is it? Is it as we said? Yes. The holy council answered: Through the very deeds themselves we have been plainly assured.

²⁵ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: You all know, hierarchs and priests, that for the sake of the peace and concord of the Church our lord the apostolic Pope and president of the Church of the Romans sent us, bearing letters also; and one letter he left for the most holy patriarch, Lord Photios, another for your holiness, and yet another for those who

²⁶ unsettle the Church. The letter sent in the meantime to your assembly we have not now brought, because you are not all gathered together; but on whatever day you should be assembled, God willing, all of you, we too will come, delivering to you the letter of the most holy Pope.

²⁷ Prokopios, the most God-beloved archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, said: Let the day also be appointed, if you command. Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: If the holiness of the most holy patriarch should so command, on the second day, that we may all come together in one place. The holy council said: Be it agreeable. Photios, the most holy patriarch, said: The most honored legates, our brothers and fellow-ministers, have undergone no ordinary labor and have need of rest. For even now, while they suppose they are relieving the toil of their journey, they are spending no small further labor upon discussions not yet in accord. It is therefore better now for the council to be dissolved, and afterward to be gathered together for what follows.

²⁸ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: Let the holy council hear once more. We today hold the figure of the most holy and ecumenical Pope, and we say to you: if there is in your midst any man contentious and a maker of scandal, misleading the Church, let him be set apart from you, and let him declare the cause of the division. The holy council said: Out of this numerous multitude which you see, there is not one who has guile or contentiousness in his heart. We all accept Photios the most holy patriarch; and those who do not accept him—even as the three patriarchal thrones of the East have accepted him, and before these, even as the most holy Pope John accepted him—we cast out as enemies of the Church and strangers to the faith.

²⁹ Peter, the most illustrious presbyter and cardinal, said: Even if they are not present here, if there are still any who are factious against the Church, admonish them, that they may flee for refuge to the heart of the most holy patriarch, and that he may receive them as a loving father. The holy council said: They are few, altogether beyond numbering for the present, whom we know; and we admonish them, as you have enjoined. But you also, if their persons should present themselves to you, admonish them.

³⁰ Peter, the most God-fearing presbyter and cardinal, said: Hear, all of you, what Felix, the most holy Pope who was of the Church of the Romans, says: If anyone is seen setting himself in opposition to the holy Church of God, let such a one, when proven and made manifest, first be admonished by his president and by his bishops; and if he is not persuaded, then let the holy council give sentence against him. So therefore we too, having authority to do this from the apostolic throne, have first to admonish them and to exhort them; and if they will not consent to hearken to us, then we have to cut them off as putrid members, lest through them the sound body also perish.

³¹ Elias, the most God-fearing presbyter and locum tenens of Jerusalem, said: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

³² as we hear it said; and when God shall glorify someone, no one is able to harm him with dishonors […]; but whom God holds in dishonor, the glory of men profits nothing. God has honored Photios the most holy patriarch, and has opened, according to His will, the heart of the most holy Pope John and of the remaining three great hierarchs of the East. And they loved him, and proclaimed his God-decreed high-priesthood; and we know with certainty that thus it is pleasing to God. Therefore shall his name be magnified in heaven and on earth, from generation to generation. But those who oppose him, if any there be—setting themselves against God and against His peace—unless they repent and be united to the Church, in this present age shall be brought to nothing, and in the age to come shall be ranked among those estranged from God.

³³ The holy council cried out: Thus we all receive, thus we all believe. May the Lord seal our prayers according to His will. Many be the years of the emperors! Of Basil, Leo, and Alexander, the great emperors and autocrats, many be the years! Of Stephen the Porphyrogennetos, and of Eudokia the most pious Augusta, many be the years! Of the God-appointed synkellos, many be the years! Of John and Photios, the most holy patriarchs, many be the years!