The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory IAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
History
The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
The Pope called a council, in which he considered the complaint now brought
before him by John Talaia, as a hundred and forty years before St.
Athanasius had carried his complaint to Pope Julius. It was resolved to
support the ejected bishops, to maintain the Council of Chalcedon, and to
request from the emperor the expulsion of Peter the Stammerer, who was
usurping the see of Alexandria. For this purpose the Pope commissioned two
bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to go as his legates to the emperor. They
were to invite Acacius to attend a council at Rome, and to answer therein
the complaint brought against him by the elected patriarch of Alexandria.
The legates carried a letter[33] from Pope Felix to the emperor, in which,
according to custom, the Pope informed him of his election. He observed
that, for a long time, the see of the blessed Apostle had been expecting
an answer to the letters sent by his predecessor of blessed memory,
"especially inasmuch as it had bound your majesty, with tremendous vows,
not to allow the see of the evangelist St. Mark to be separated from the
teaching or the communion of his master.... Again, therefore, the reverend
confession of the Apostle Peter, with a mother's voice, renews its
instance. It ceases not with confidence to call upon you as its son. It
cries: O Christian prince, why do you allow me to be interrupted in that
course of charity which binds together the universal Church? Why, in my
person, do you break up the consent of the whole world? I beseech you, my
son, suffer not that tunic of the Lord woven from the top throughout, by
which is signified, as the Holy Spirit rules the whole body, that the
Church of Christ should be one and individual--suffer it not to be broken.
They who crucified our Saviour left it untouched. Do not let it be rent in
your times. My faith it is which the Lord Himself declared should alone be
one, never to be conquered by any assault: He who promised that the gates
of hell should never prevail over the Church founded on my confession. This
Church it was which restored you to the imperial dignity, deprived its
impugners of their power, and opened to you the path of victory in
defending it.[34]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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