The 5th Œcumenical Council

The 5th Œcumenical Council was perhaps the strangest of all the councils, in that all the events that mattered occurred either before the council met, or while it was meeting but outside it, or after it closed. In effect, it did no more than give a conciliar imprimatur to decisions made years before. It is fair to say that Pope Vigilius is the 5th Œcumenical Council. It met only because of his obduracy and, although he did not attend it or influence its decisions, it was only because it met that the orthodox understanding of the Chalcedonian decree was at last given œcumenical status.

We do not have the Sacra summoning the council and so do not know when it was originally intended to open, but we know that bishops were gathering in Constantinople at least by the end of 552. Menas had died in August of that year and Eutychius had succeeded him as Patriarch of Constantinople. Apollinarius, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Domninus, Patriarch of Antioch, were present as well as the bishops Stephen of Raphia, George of Tiberias and Damian of Sozusa, representing Patriarch Eustochius of Jerusalem, who could not attend. In due course 152 bishops, almost all easterners, gathered for the council while Vigilius had with him in Constantinople, but outside the council, seventeen western bishops and several deacons, including Deacon Pelagius.

At the beginning of January 553, Eutychius wrote a conciliatory letter to Vigilius on behalf of the assembled bishops, asking him to preside over the assembly since ‘it is necessary to have a discussion about the Three Chapters over which certain people have initiated an investigation.’ He assured Vigilius that the bishops were determined to maintain unity with the Roman see, and gave a formal confession of the orthodox faith, acknowledging the four councils of Nicæa, Constantinople, First Ephesus and Chalcedon, and the papal letters, including the Tome of Leo. (Ibid., I. pp. 199-200) In reply, Vigilius first quoted the whole of Eutychius’s letter, then gave the ambiguous answer, ‘we shall hold a canonical meeting … with equity being observed [i.e., with equal representation of eastern and western bishops].’ (Ibid., I. p. 203) His reply is dated Monday, 6 January 553. Possibly this was the day originally fixed for the opening of the council.

​There followed inconclusive negotiations in which Justinian offered various alternatives, all of which Vigilius evaded.

​Six years of being alternately wooed and bullied by Justinian could have left Vigilius in no doubt as to his position when the time for a final decision came, but he continued to seize every opportunity for delay. At a council in Constantinople, under Justinian’s eye, with most of the bishops from the East and most of the debate in Greek, with Vigilius having to preside through an interpreter, he could not hope to exercise any real control. He must have known that he would have to give in ultimately, but he would not accept the ignominy of presiding over his own surrender.

​The negotiations dragged on for four months. Finally Justinian lost patience and the council opened without Vigilius’s presence.

​What did the bishops do while Vigilius was being coaxed to attend? There is no official record, but it is probable that they revisited Justinian’s decree of 543 against the Origenism of Evagrius Ponticus. Canons condemning Origenism are associated with the council and this is the most likely occasion for their approval.

​The sessions of the council when it finally opened formally could not have been more uneventful, quite unlike Ephesus or Chalcedon, apart from the dramatic events of the seventh session, which we will come to. The questions the bishops were nominally debating had been answered years before—and they knew it.

The Council Opens at Last

​The long-postponed opening of the council took place on Monday, 5 May 553. One hundred and fifty-two bishops, all but sixteen from the East, met in the great hall connecting Hagia Sophia to the imperial palace. Vigilius and his seventeen western bishops remained nearby in the Placidia Palace. In Vigilius’s absence, Eutychius of Constantinople, Apollinarius of Alexandria, Domninus of Antioch and the representatives of Eustochius of Jerusalem presided jointly. Unlike Chalcedon, no officials attended other than messengers.

​The bishops were first read a message from Justinian, with his instructions to the council. He began with an account of the four œcumenical councils: Nicæa in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus I in 431 and Chalcedon in 451, emphasising their role in the suppression of heresy and the decisive role played in them by the emperor. But after the Council of Chalcedon, the supporters of Nestorius continued to sow discord in the Church. Unable to use Nestorius’s name, they turned to his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his associates, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, hoping to resurrect their impieties: that Christ was joined to the Word of God in honour only, and the Virgin Mary was not literally the Theotokos. To defeat their machinations, Justinian asked the council to anathematize the Three Chapters.

He next described Vigilius’s inconsistent conduct since arriving in Constantinople, sometimes condemning the Three Chapters and sometimes prevaricating. He reiterated his devotion to the orthodox faith of the four councils and the holy fathers and doctors of the church, naming Athanasius the Great, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Theophilus of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, Proclus of Constantinople and Leo of Rome. He exhorted the bishops to examine in the light of these witnesses the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against the Council of Ephesus and against St Cyril and his Twelve Anathemas, and the impious letter said to have been written to Mari the Persian by Ibas of Edessa, defending Nestorius and condemning St Cyril. They should also examine the vain assertion that heretics should not be anathematized after death.

He ended with another veiled warning to Vigilius: ‘For when someone who is asked about the orthodox faith procrastinates at length, it is nothing other than a refusal to make an orthodox profession.’ (Ibid., I. p. 198)

The rest of the first session and the two following sessions, on Thursday, 8 May, and Friday, 9 May, were taken up by efforts to induce Vigilius to attend the council. The delegation of bishops that went to Vigilius did not hide their frustration: ‘… this case has already been in process for seven years, from the time your beatitude arrived in this imperial city; and considering that you have been informed in detail about everything and have often both orally and in writing condemned the Three Chapters, it is not right, when the most pious emperor has sent an inquiry to both ourselves and your beatitude, for the response to be delayed by a further postponement.’ (Ibid., I. p. 212) But the efforts were unavailing.

​The next three sessions were devoted to the examination that Justinian had ordered. The whole of the fourth session, on Monday, 12 May, was taken up with Theodore of Mopsuestia’s doctrines, based on a selection of texts from his writings. They showed that Theodore viewed Christ as the assumed man, joined to the Word of God in honour only; that he interpreted the Old Testament passages that the Church had always viewed as prophecies of the Incarnation as mere pious glosses of the apostles, not actual prophecies; and that he denied the inspiration of the books of Job and the Song of Songs. They ascribed to Theodore the creed condemned at the Council of Ephesus, although it had not been explicitly imputed to Theodore at the time.

​The fifth session, on Saturday, 17 May, continued the examination of Theodore, now focussing on the judgement rendered on him by the fathers of the Church, St Cyril and St Proclus. The session then went on to the question of whether the Church prohibited the condemnation of heretics who had died in the peace of the Church, concluding that there was no prohibition. It ended with a brief examination of the writings by Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril and his Twelve Anathemas and in support of Nestorius.

​The sixth session, on Monday, 19 May, was taken up entirely with the case of the letter to Mari the Persian said to have been written by Ibas of Edessa. What made this case more delicate than the others was that pronouncements had been made at the Council of Chalcedon which could be taken as a complete exoneration. The bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius and the priest Boniface, representing Pope Leo at the council, had said of Ibas: ‘… from the reading of his letter we have found him to be orthodox,’ and this was echoed by Maximus of Antioch, although no other bishop referred to the letter in his judgement. (Price and Gaddis, Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, II. pp. 305-306)

The question was how to condemn the letter without impugning the word of Rome. The method adopted was to give a lengthy exposition of the orthodox faith, including a reading of St Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius with the Twelve Anathemas, and the Tome of Leo. The conclusion: since this was the faith proclaimed by the Council of Chalcedon, obviously the Council could not have approved the letter, despite appearances.

​At the three sessions, Theodore of Mopsuestia had received the most attention, more than a third of the time being devoted to him. Almost as much of the council’s time was spent on Ibas. The question of anathematizing those who had died in the peace of the Church took up a fifth of their time. Theodoret was evidently not controversial and was treated cursorily. But the council’s decision was exactly what Justinian wanted, a clear condemnation on all four questions.

​There now occurred the one dramatic event of the council. Pope Vigilius and his supporters had not been idle in the Placidia Palace. On 5 May, Vigilius had asked Justinian for twenty days to render his decision on the Three Chapters, and he had been busy drafting it with the assistance of the bishops with him and especially with the assistance of his trusted assistant, Deacon Pelagius.

The resulting document, known as the First Constitutum, was lengthy, taking up almost 70 pages in Price’s translation of the Acta of the Council. It was based on the same collection of citations, supplied by the emperor, that was examined by the Council at its sessions on the Three Chapters.

Vigilius goes through the sixty citations from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, condemning each one in turn as heretical. But then he turns to the question whether it is proper to anathematize the dead: ‘… our fathers, albeit in varying modes of expression yet discoursing with a single current of understanding, preserved unharmed the persons of priests who had died in the peace of the church … We do not presume to condemn him by our sentence, and nor do we allow him to be condemned by anyone else. On the matter, however, of the doctrinal chapters recorded above, whose condemnation by us is clear from the interpretation appended … God forbid that we bear to admit them to not only our thoughts but even our hearing.’ (Ibid., II. pp. 190-191)

He goes on to the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril and the letter to Mari the Persian said to be written by Ibas, treating them in the same way: since they died in the peace of the church, their actions at the time cannot be held against them. This leads him to his conclusion: ‘we … enact and decree that no one with ecclesiastical dignity and rank is permitted to hold or write or produce or compose or teach anything about the oft-mentioned Three Chapters contrary to what we have declared and enacted in this present decree …’ (Ibid., II. p. 211)

The twenty days that Vigilius had asked for expired on Sunday, 25 May, and he attempted to submit the document to the emperor—he studiously ignored the existence of the council—but the emperor, no doubt informed of its contents beforehand, refused to receive it: ‘If you have condemned them [the Three Chapters] in accord with previous transactions, we possess many such writings that you have composed and have no need of another, but if you have composed at the present time something contrary to what was already composed before, you condemn yourself in your writings by forsaking orthodox doctrines and defending impiety. How can we accept such a document from you?’ (Ibid., II. p. 77)

When the 7th session of the council opened the next day, Monday, 26 May, and before any matter could be discussed, Constantine, quæstor of the imperial palace, arrived with a message from Justinian. He recounted Vigilius’s efforts of the previous day to deliver the Constitutum, and presented documents to the council demonstrating Vigilius’s prevarications, including the oath of 15 August 550. Since he had perjured himself, the council could impose a rapid close to the case without him.

Then Constantine announced: ‘While I have been attending your holy council for the reading of the documents that have been made known to you, the most pious emperor has sent a decree to your holy council about the name of Vigilius, to the effect that in view of the impiety he has defended his name should no longer be included in the sacred diptychs of the church …’ (Ibid., II. p. 99)

​It is significant that he is not ‘the most religious Vigilius.’ In the empire at the time every person of rank had an honorific appropriate to their station, and it was the gravest discourtesy to name such a person without their honorific. It implied that they had been stripped of their rank. The fathers of the council would conclude that Vigilius was suspended from office and could be disregarded. At the same time, Justinian could not afford to sever communion with Rome: ‘We ourselves, however, preserve unity with the apostolic see, and it is certain that you also will guard it. For the change to the worse in Vigilius or in anyone else cannot harm the peace of the churches.’ (Ibid., II. p. 101)

​The council agreed and prorogued the session.

The council met for the last time a week later, on Monday, 2 June, ‘to issue a complete and conciliar verdict on the matters under examination.’ (Ibid., II. p. 109) Once again, 152 bishops were present, with the patriarchs presiding. No officials were present. The verdict was read out by the deacon and notary Calonymus. It opened with a statement of the purpose of the council: to correct the Nestorian misinterpretation of the Council of Chalcedon. It went on to deprecate Vigilius’s refusal to attend, now omitting his honorific, and reminding him of where authority rests in the Church: ‘The holy fathers also who convened at various times in the holy four councils followed ancient precedent and decreed in common on the heresies and problems that had arisen, since it is certain that it is through joint examination, when there is expounded what needs to be discussed on both sides, that the light of truth dispels the darkness of lies.’ (Ibid., II. p. 111)

The verdict goes on to summarise the examination of the Three Chapters in Sessions 4 to 6, again giving most attention to Theodore of Mopsuestia, the letter to Mari the Persian, and the question of anathematizing those who died in the peace of the church. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, uncontroversial, is dismissed in a paragraph. ‘We therefore anathematize the aforesaid Three Chapters, that is, the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia together with his execrable writings, the things that Theodoret wrote impiously, and the impious letter ascribed to Ibas, and also their defenders and those who have written or write in their defence or presume to call these writings orthodox or have defended or try to defend their impiety in any way in the name of the holy fathers or of the holy Council of Chalcedon.’ (Ibid., II. p. 119)

The verdict concludes with fourteen canons, in essence those of Justinian’s On the Orthodox Faith of 551 with some editing.

Canons 1 to 10 summarise the traditional christology of the Church, making it clear that the Council of Chalcedon did not countenance the Antiochene separation of the human and the divine in Christ. The Trinity is three hypostases in one essence, and the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God, has a double birth, timelessly and incorporeally of the Father, and in the last days from the Virgin Mary, a hypostatic union that preserves the elements and excludes division, so that the Virgin Mary is literally Theotokos, the Mother of God. Canon 8 specifies that the phrase ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’ must be interpreted as the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in Christ, and not as one nature or essence of the Godhead and flesh of Christ, as Severus of Antioch claimed. Canon 10 gives conciliar approval to the theopaschite formula: our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified in the flesh, is true God and Lord of glory and one of the holy Trinity. (Ibid., II. pp. 120-123)

​Canons 11 to 14 anathematize heretics, first a general anathematisation, including the name of Origen for the first time in an œcumenical council, and then specific anathematisations of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and the letter said to have been written by Ibas of Edessa.

It concludes with a final decree, which must have had Vigilius in mind: ‘if anyone attempts to transmit, teach or write what is contrary to our pious decrees, if he be a bishop or enrolled in the clergy, he will be stripped of his episcopal or clerical rank for doing what is alien for priests and to ecclesiastical order, while if he is a monk or layman he will be anathematized.’ (Ibid., II. p. 126)

​Each bishop then signed in order of precedence, each including in his subscription an explicit condemnation of the Three Chapters.

​After the Council Closes

​The council ended on 2 June 553, but the basic problem it was intended to solve, Rome’s disagreement with the other patriarchates on the question of the Three Chapters and the interpretation of the Council of Chalcedon, was as far from solution as it had been when the council opened.

But Vigilius had run out of occasions for delay. He held out for six more months before accepting that nothing would turn up. On 8 December 553 he wrote an abject letter to Patriarch Eutychius, claiming to be a victim of ‘the scandals that the enemy of the human race stirred up’ and regretting that he had ‘spurned brotherly love and were seduced into discord.’ (Ibid., II. p. 215) The letter is his surrender to Justinian. He repeats the verdict of the council on the Three Chapters, while avoiding referring to the council itself, and states, ‘But whatever was done by myself or by others in defence of the afore-mentioned Three Chapters we annul by the authority of our present letter.’ (Ibid., II. p. 218)

This, however, was too informal and too brief to undo what his First Constitutum had done, and at the emperor’s insistence he drafted a Second Constitutum, promulgated on 23 February 554. It was not quite as long as the First Constitutum but long enough to do the job, basically repeating the same arguments, but bringing them to the opposite conclusion, that Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa were guilty as charged. It concluded, ‘But whatever is produced or found anywhere whether under my name or that of another in defence of of the afore-mentioned Three Chapters we annul by the authority of our present most comprehensive decree.’ (Ibid., II. p. 268)

​Vigilius was at last free to leave Constantinople. He took the sea route back to Italy, but never reached Rome. He died on the way in Sicily on 7 June 555. Even though Deacon Pelagius had been a determined opponent of Justinian’s policy on the Three Chapters, Justinian supported his election to the apostolic see. As bishop of Rome, Pelagius did not contest the existing situation, recognising that the council was œcumenical and accepting its decrees.

​Pope Vigilius emerged from the 5th Œcumenical Council with a poor reputation in the West, but this was unfair. He was a good churchman, a competent theologian and firmly orthodox, but he was an ordinary man in extraordinary times. There could not have been a good outcome for him.