To the Archimandrites of Constantinople

To his dearly loved sons Faustus, Martinus and the rest of the archimandrites, Leo the bishop. [a]

Since I was sending legates from my own side to help in the defense of the truth, on behalf of the faith that Eutyches has tried to disturb, I thought it right to write to you as well, beloved. I know for certain that you are so zealous for religion that you can by no means listen calmly to such blasphemous and profane talk, for the apostle’s command lives on in your hearts, where he says, “If anyone has preached to you any gospel other than the one he received, let him be anathema.” We too rule that the opinion of this Eutyches must be rejected. As we have learned from reading the proceedings, it has been rightly condemned, so that, if its foolish champion clings to his perversity, he may share the lot of those whose error he has followed. For one who says that Christ did not have a human nature, that is, our nature, is rightly put out of Christ’s church. But if he is corrected through the pity of God’s Spirit and acknowledges his wicked error, so as to condemn without reserve what catholics reject, we wish him not to be refused mercy, so that the Lord’s church may suffer no loss. For the repentant can always be received back; it is only error that must be shut out. [b]

As for the mystery of great godliness, by which, through the incarnation of the Word of God, we are made righteous and redeemed, our view, drawn from the tradition of the fathers, is now, in my judgment, sufficiently explained in the letter I have sent to our brother Flavian the bishop. So, through the declaration of your own head, you may know what, according to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, we desire to be fixed in the hearts of all the faithful. Dated the 13th of June, in the consulship of the illustrious Asturius and Protogenes, in the year 449.