Leo I
Pope whose letter to Flavian of Constantinople, the Tome, was accepted at Chalcedon as a standard of teaching on Christ. He held that the bishop of Rome speaks with the authority of Peter and refused the council’s canon on the rank of Constantinople.
Leo’s Tome, written in June 449 to Flavian of Constantinople, sets out that Christ is one person in whom the divine and the human nature each keep their own properties (Leo, Letters 28 (the Tome)). He did not attend the Council of Chalcedon but sent legates, in whom, he wrote, the bishops should consider him to be presiding (Leo, Letters 93.1). When the Tome was read there the bishops cried out that Peter had spoken through Leo (Council of Chalcedon session 2, after the Tome). He then declared the canon that raised the see of Constantinople void “by the blessed Apostle Peter’s authority” (Leo, Letters 105.3).
The Liber Pontificalis, compiled in the next century, says that he was a Tuscan, that he held the see for twenty-one years, and that he went out to meet Attila, king of the Huns, and so delivered Italy from danger (Liber Pontificalis 47 (Leo I)).
In the timeline
- August AD 449, firm dateThe Second Council of Ephesus
A council under Dioscorus of Alexandria restores the monk Eutyches and deposes Flavian of Constantinople and other bishops as followers of Nestorius. The emperor confirms it; Leo of Rome rejects it as a meeting of robbers. Chalcedon overturns it two years later.
- October AD 451, firm dateThe Council of Chalcedon
A council called by the emperor Marcian confesses Christ as one person in two natures, divine and human, and ranks Constantinople next after Rome. The Greek and Latin churches receive it; the Coptic, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian and Ethiopian churches do not.
Primary sources
Letters
- Leo, Letters 28 (the Tome)newadvent.org
- Leo, Letters 93.1newadvent.org
- Leo, Letters 105.3newadvent.org