Letters
The surviving letters of Pope Felix III. Letter 6 is the sentence of a Roman synod, dated 28 July 484, that deposed Acacius of Constantinople and cut him off from communion, the act that opened the Acacian schism.
Felix followed Simplicius as bishop of Rome. His letters to the emperor Zeno, to Acacius of Constantinople and to the clergy and monks of the East are the Roman side of the quarrel over the Henotikon; the answers from Constantinople do not survive in this collection.
Letter 6 is addressed to Acacius of Constantinople himself. It charges him with claiming rights over other provinces, with receiving into communion Peter of Alexandria, whom he had himself reported to Rome as condemned, and with detaining and corrupting the Roman envoys Vitalis and Misenus. It then declares him removed from the priestly office and from catholic communion and says that he is never to be released from the anathema. The subscription dates it on the fifth day before the Kalends of August in the consulship of Venantius, which is 28 July 484, and says that seventy-seven bishops signed besides the pope. It is the statement of the accuser. What Acacius answered is known only through the historians.
Cited in
- AD 482 to AD 519, firm date