Report to the Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia

We had expected to be able to report to your pious majesties in other terms. But now we are compelled to make the following facts known to you, forced to it as we are by the lawless exercise of despotic power on the part of Cyril of Alexandria and Memnon of Ephesus. The proper course, in keeping with the laws of the church and the command of your pious majesties, would have been to wait for the godly bishops who were still on the road. Together with them they should have examined the questions in dispute about the true faith, looked into the point put forward for discussion, and, after careful inquiry, confirmed the doctrines of the apostles. They had written to me that they would wait for our arrival. They heard that we were only three days’ journey away. Then they gathered an unlawful council by themselves, and they have dared to carry out proceedings that are wicked, irregular, and bristling with absurdities. They have done this even though the most honorable Count Candidianus, whom your pious and Christian majesties sent to keep good order, had expressly charged them, both in writing and by word of mouth, to wait for the arrival of the godly bishops who had been summoned, to attempt no innovation in the true faith, and to take their stand on the directions of our godly sovereigns. Yet although they had heard the imperial letter and the advice of the most honorable Count Candidianus, they have still set due order at nothing. As the prophet says, “They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; and whoever would eat of their eggs finds rottenness when he breaks them, and there is a viper inside.” That is why we cry out with confidence, “Their webs will not become garments, and they will not cover themselves with their works.” [a]

They have shut the churches and the shrines of the martyrs. They have forbidden the celebration of the holy feast of Pentecost. Besides this, they have sent the henchmen of their disorderly despotism into the private houses of bishops, uttering shocking threats and forcing them to put their signatures to unlawful acts. So, having weighed all their outrageous conduct, we have deposed Cyril and Memnon, named above, and stripped them of their office as bishops. Their partners in lawlessness, whether they were moved by flattery or by fear, we have excommunicated. They are to remain so until they come to know their own wounds and repent from the heart; until they anathematize the heretical Chapters of Cyril, which are tainted with the heresy of Apollinarius, Arius, and Eunomius; until they return to the faith of the Fathers who met in council at Nicaea; and until, in obedience to the pious commands of our Christian sovereigns, they meet in synod peacefully and without any uproar, are willing to examine with care the questions put before them, and honestly guard the purity of the faith of the Gospel. [g]