The Empress Offended, and Theophilus at Chalcedon

After Epiphanius had left, John, preaching in the church as usual, happened to speak out against the vices to which women are especially prone. The people imagined that his criticism was aimed, in veiled terms, at the emperor’s wife. The bishop’s enemies did not fail to report his sermon to the empress in this sense. Feeling that she had been insulted, she complained to the emperor and pressed for Theophilus to come quickly and for a council to be called. Severian, bishop of Gabala, who had not yet given up his old resentment against John, helped to push these measures forward. I do not have enough information to decide whether there was any truth in the report then going around, that John gave the sermon with deliberate reference to the empress because he suspected her of having stirred up Epiphanius against him. [a]

Theophilus soon arrived at Chalcedon in Bithynia, and many bishops followed him there. Some came at his own invitation, and others in obedience to the emperor’s orders. The bishops whom John had deposed in Asia hurried to Chalcedon with the greatest eagerness, as did all who bore him any ill will. The ships Theophilus was expecting from Egypt had already arrived at Chalcedon. When they had met together again in the same place, and were considering how they might wisely press forward their attempt against John, Cyrinus, the head of the church of Chalcedon, spoke very abusively of him. He was an Egyptian and a relative of Theophilus, and he had some other differences with John besides. Justice, however, seemed to overtake him quickly. For Maruthas, a native of Mesopotamia, who had come with the bishops, happened to tread on his foot. Cyrinus suffered so badly from this accident that he could not go with the other bishops to Constantinople, although his help was needed to carry out the plans that had been made against John. The wound looked so dangerous that the surgeons had to operate on the leg several times. At last gangrene set in and spread over his whole body, and even reached the other foot. He died soon afterward in great agony.