Flavian of Constantinople

It was in Flavian’s time as bishop that a synod at Constantinople deposed Eutyches (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 1.8–9). Leo I addressed to him the letter on the two natures of Christ known as the Tome, which speaks of Flavian’s own examination of Eutyches (Leo, Letters 28 (the Tome)). At the council of Ephesus in 449 he was himself deposed. His own account, written to Leo, says that he was given no hearing, that he appealed to the Roman see, and that soldiers prevented him from taking refuge at the altar (Flavian, Appeal to Leo). Leo’s letters of October 449 say that Flavian had given the Roman delegates a written appeal and that he remained in communion with Rome (Leo, Letters 44.3) (Leo, Letters 45.2). The emperor’s edict, on the other side, says that Flavian had tried to revive the error of Nestorius (Second Council of Ephesus, Syriac acts p. 366).

He was dead before the Council of Chalcedon met. Evagrius reports that Eusebius of Dorylaeum told the emperor Marcian that Flavian had been brought to a miserable end, thrust and trampled by Dioscorus himself (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 2.2); this is an accusation by Flavian’s fellow defendant. At Chalcedon in 451 the bishops spoke of him as “of blessed memory” and declared his faith orthodox (Council of Chalcedon session 1), and the imperial officials presiding ruled that he had been unjustly deposed (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 2.18). A Syriac chronicle gives him six years as bishop (Zachariah, Chronicle 2.4).