But no more certain proof of the independence of the Eastern Church can be given than the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Constantinople to the Pope and the Western Bishops. This was a Synod of purely Eastern Bishops, held in 381, which afterwards, by the consent of the Western Church, became Ecumenical. This Council "arranged, without any reference to the West, the affairs of the Oriental Church, and was even quite openly on the side of the party of Meletius, rejected by the Westerns; just so the interference attempted by the Italian Bishops in the matter of Maximus, the counter-Bishop of Constantinople, remained quite disregarded."[79] They write thus: "To our most honoured Lords and pious brethren and fellow-ministers, Damasus," of Rome, "Ambrosius," of Milan, "Britton, Valerianus, Ascholius, Anemius, Basilius, and the other holy Bishops assembled in the great city of Rome, the holy Synod of orthodox Bishops assembled in the great city of Constantinople greeting in the Lord."[80] Then after informing them what they had decreed concerning the highest matters of the faith, they go on--"But as to the management of particular matters in the Churches, both an ancient fundamental principle, ([Greek: thesmos],) as ye know, hath prevailed, and the rule of the holy Fathers at Nicea, that in each province those of the province," _i.e._ the Bishops, "and if they be willing, their neighbours also, should make the elections according as they judge meet. In accordance with which know ye both that the rest of the Churches are administered by us, and that Priests of the most distinguished Churches have been appointed. Whence in the, so to say, newly-founded Church of Constantinople, which by the mercy of God we have snatched as it were out of the jaws of the lion, from subjection to the blasphemy of the heretics, we have elected Bishop the most reverend and pious Nectarius, in an Ecumenical[81] Council, with common agreement, in the sight both of the most religious emperor Theodosius, and with the consent of all the Clergy and the whole city. And those," the Bishops, "both of the province and of the diocese[82] of the East, being canonically assembled, the whole accordant Church as with one voice honouring the man, have elected the most reverend and religious Bishop Flavian to the most ancient and truly apostolical Church of Antioch in Syria, where first the venerable name of Christian became known: which legitimate election the whole Synod hath received." (And this notwithstanding the Bishop Paulinus, who was received by Rome and the West, had survived St. Meletius, and was then alive. So that they would not, even when such an opportunity occurred, accept the Bishop in communion with Rome--a fact on the one side, which I suppose may weigh against those words of St. Jerome on the other, "I know not Vitalis; Meletius I reject; I am ignorant of Paulinus." Quoted, p. 26. It seems that though the test of communion with Rome satisfied St. Jerome,