Report of the Eastern Bishops to the Emperor

In obedience to the command in your pious letter, we have traveled to Ephesus, the chief city of its province. There we found the affairs of the church in confusion and torn by civil war. The cause of this is that Cyril of Alexandria and Memnon of Ephesus have joined forces and gathered a great mob of country people, and they have forbidden both the celebration of the great feast of Pentecost and the evening and morning services. [a] They have shut the holy churches and the shrines of the martyrs. They have held their own assembly apart, with the victims of their deceit. They have done countless wicked things, trampling underfoot both the canons of the holy Fathers and your own decrees. And they did this in the face of the order given, both in writing and by word of mouth, by the most excellent Count Candidianus, envoy of your Christ-loving majesty: that the council must wait for the arrival of the very holy bishops coming from every part of the empire, and only then, and not before, formally assemble in obedience to your piety’s commands. Moreover, two days before the meeting of their synod, Cyril of Alexandria had written to me, the bishop of Antioch, that the whole council was waiting for my arrival. We have therefore deposed both of the men named, Cyril and Memnon, and have shut them out from all the services of the church. The rest, who have shared in their wickedness, we have excommunicated, until they reject and anathematize the Chapters issued by Cyril, which are full of the heresies of Eunomius and Arius; and until, in obedience to your piety’s command, they assemble together with us, examine the questions at issue with us in good order and with all exactness, and confirm the godly teaching of the holy Fathers. [c]

As for the delay in my own arrival, let your piety know this. Considering the length of the road by land, and that was the way we came, I have come very quickly. I traveled forty stages, some eight hundred miles, without stopping to rest on the way, as your Christian majesty may learn from the people of the towns along the route. Besides this, I was held up for many days in Antioch by the famine there, by the daily riots of the people, and by the unusual severity of the rainy season, which made the torrents swell and threatened danger to the city. [e]