The Western Bishops at Sardica

Meanwhile Hosius and his party met together and declared the accused innocent: Athanasius, because unjust schemes had been carried on against him by those who met at Tyre; Marcellus, because he did not hold the opinions he was charged with; Asclepas, because he had been restored to his diocese by the vote of Eusebius Pamphilus and of many other judges, and he proved this true from the records of the trial; and finally Lucius, because his accusers had fled. They wrote to the churches of each of the acquitted, ordering them to receive and acknowledge their bishops. They stated that Gregory had not been named bishop of Alexandria by them, nor Basil bishop of Ancyra, nor Quintianus bishop of Gaza; that they had not received these men into communion; and that they did not even count them as Christians. [a]

They deposed from their bishoprics Theodore, bishop of Thrace; Narcissus, bishop of Irenopolis; Acacius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine; Menophantus, bishop of Ephesus; Ursacius, bishop of Singidunum in Moesia; Valens, bishop of Mursa in Pannonia; and George, bishop of Laodicea, although this last had not attended the synod with the Eastern bishops. They put the men just named out of the priesthood and out of communion, because they separated the Son from the substance of the Father, and had received those who had earlier been deposed for holding the Arian heresy, and had even promoted them to the highest offices in the service of God. After cutting them off for these perversions and declaring them strangers to the catholic church, they wrote to the bishops of every nation, ordering them to confirm these decrees and to be of one mind with themselves on matters of doctrine.

They also drew up another statement of faith, fuller than that of Nicaea, though the same thought was carefully kept and very little change was made in the words of that document. Hosius and Protogenes, who held the first rank among the Western bishops gathered at Sardica, wrote to Julius, perhaps fearing they might be suspected of making innovations on the doctrines of the Nicene council. They testified that they held firmly to those doctrines, but that the need for clarity had forced them to expand the same thought, so that the Arians could not take advantage of the brevity of the document to draw people unskilled in argument into some absurdity.

When each party had done what I have related, the gathering broke up, and its members returned to their homes. This synod was held in the consulship of Rufinus and Eusebius, about eleven years after the death of Constantine. There were about three hundred bishops of cities in the West, and more than seventy-six Eastern bishops, among whom was Ischyrion, who had been appointed bishop of Mareotis by the enemies of Athanasius.