The restoration of peace was thus made much more difficult, and the promise given to the Pope broken. The Pope protected himself against this violation of the agreement, by which nothing was to be done in the matter before the intended council, and considered himself released from his engagements. He saw herein the arbitrary interference of a despotic ruler anticipating the council's decision, which put in question the Church's whole right of authority, and much increased the danger of a schism. In an assembly of Greek and Latin bishops held in the Placidia palace, where he resided, he desired them to request the emperor to withdraw the proposed edict, and to wait for a general consideration of the subject, and especially for the sentence of the Latin bishops. If this was not granted, to refuse their subscription to the edict. Moreover, the See of Peter would excommunicate them. Dacius, also, archbishop of Milan, spoke in this sense. But the protest was disregarded, and Theodore Askidas, who had formed part of the assembly, went with the bishops of his party to the Church in which the edict was posted up, held solemn service there, struck out of the diptychs the patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria, who declined to condemn the Three Chapters, and proclaimed at once Apollinaris for his successor, with the consent of the weak Mennas, and in contempt of the Pope's authority. Not only now were the Three Chapters in question, but the whole right and independence of the Church's authority. Vigilius, having long warned the vain court-bishop Theodore Askidas, always a non-resident in his diocese, and having now been witness of a violence so unprecedented, put him under excommunication.