The Presbyters Project

Letter 78

Leo the Great thanks the Emperor Marcian for his letter (Letter 76) and praises him for his piety and care about the matters of faith.

[...] Haec me nunc breviter per fratris mei Anatolii clericos pietas vestra scripsisse dignanter accipiat. Pleniora autem de omnibus quae ad curam meam pro statu Ecclesiarum et concordia pertinent Domini sacerdotum, per legatos nostros scripta direximus. Data idibus Aprilis, Adelfio viro clarissimo consule.

(Patrologia Latina 54, 909 = Ballerini 1753: 1034-1035)

Letter 78

Leo the Great thanks the Emperor Marcian for his letter (Letter 76) and praises him for his piety and care about the matters of faith.

[...] Let your piety accept that we have written now so shortly and [sent this letter] courteously through the clerics of Anatolius, my brother. We will consider more fully the issues regarding the state of the Churches and unity of the priests of the Lord in the letter we have sent by our legates. Given on the Ides of April in the consulship of the vir clarissimus Adelfius [=1 April 451].

(trans. and summary M. Szada)

Place of event:

Region

Rome
East

City

Rome
Constantinople

About the source:

Author: Leo the Great
Title: Letters, Epistulae
Origin: Rome (Rome)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

Leo the Great was the bishop of Rome from AD 440 to his death in AD 461. We have the collection of 173 letters of Leo.

Anatolius succeeded in the see of Constantinople Flavianus, deposed by the Second Council of Ephesus in AD 449. Leo the Great considered the decisions of the council void, but after the death of Flavianus in AD 449, he informed the Emperor that he could accept Anatolius as the Bishop of Constantinople if he confesses the faith as defined by the councils of Nicea and Ephesus I, the letter of Cyril of Alexandria and the Tome to Flavianus. Anatolius complied to that, and in AD 451 he presided over the Council of Chalcedon. He died in AD 458. See Wessel 2008: 42-43.

The Emperor Marcian ruled from 450 to 457.

Edition:

P. and G. Ballerini eds., Sancti Leoni Magni Romani pontificis opera, vol. 1, Venice 1753

Patrologia Latina, vol. 54

Translation:

Leo the Great, Letters, trans. Ch. Lett Feltoe, [in:] The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd series, vol. 12, Edinburgh 1895, 1-114

Bibliography:

S. Wessel, Leo the Great and the spiritual rebuilding of a universal Rome, Leiden ; Boston 2008.

Categories:

Travel and change of residence

Described by a title - Clericus

Ecclesiastical administration - Ecclesiastical envoy

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1725, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1725