The Decrees of the Council, and Maximus the Cynic

After these events Nectarius and the other priests met together and decreed that the faith established by the Council of Nicaea should remain supreme, and that all heresies should be condemned; that the churches everywhere should be governed according to the ancient canons; and that each bishop should stay in his own church and not go elsewhere on any slight pretext, nor, without being invited, perform ordinations in which he had no right to interfere, as had often happened in the catholic church during the times of persecution. They also decreed that the affairs of each church should be subject to the examination and control of a council of the province, and that the bishop of Constantinople should rank next after the bishop of Rome, since he held the see of New Rome. For Constantinople not only already bore this name but also enjoyed many privileges, such as a senate of its own and the division of its citizens into ranks and orders. It was also governed by its own magistrates, and it had contracts, laws, and exemptions equal to those of Rome in Italy. [a]

The council also decreed that Maximus had never been and was not now a bishop, that those he had ordained were not clergy, and that everything done by him or in his name was null and void. Maximus was a native of Alexandria and by profession a Cynic philosopher. He was zealously attached to the Nicene doctrine, and he had been secretly ordained bishop of Constantinople by bishops who had come to that city from Egypt. [b]

These were the decrees of the council. The emperor confirmed them and enacted that the faith established at Nicaea should be supreme, and that the churches everywhere should be handed over to those who acknowledged one and the same Godhead in the hypostasis of three Persons of equal honor and equal power: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To mark them out still more exactly, the emperor declared that he meant those who were in communion with Nectarius at Constantinople and with Timothy, bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt; in the churches of the East, with Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus; in Syria, with Pelagius, bishop of Laodicea; in Asia, with Amphilochius, who presided over the churches at Iconium; in the cities by the Pontus, from Bithynia to Armenia, with Helladius, bishop of the church of Caesarea in Cappadocia, with Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, and with Otreius, bishop of Melitene; and in the cities of Thrace and Scythia, with Terentius, bishop of Tomi, and with Martyrius, bishop of Marcianopolis. The emperor knew all these bishops personally and had found that they governed their churches wisely and devoutly. After these events the council was dissolved, and each of the bishops went home. [c]