Appeal to Leo (Appellatio Flaviani)
The letter in which Flavian of Constantinople, just deposed by the council of Ephesus in 449, appeals to the bishop of Rome and describes the session from his own side. It is a statement by the losing party, written within days of the event.
Read the text at earlychurchtexts.com ↗Latin text (Early Church Texts) ↗Long extracts from Lacey’s translation as printed in Edward Denny, Papalism (London, 1912), pp. 364–365 ↗
Flavian of Constantinople wrote this letter at Ephesus after the session that deposed him, and Leo’s letter of 13 October 449 to the emperor mentions that Flavian had given the Roman delegates an appeal in writing (Letters, Letter 44). It says that Dioscorus of Alexandria opened the council without notice, allowed Flavian and those who had sat with him no hearing, had Eutyches declared orthodox, and then moved the condemnation of Flavian and of Eusebius of Dorylaeum; that Leo’s letters were not read; and that when Flavian appealed to the Roman see soldiers surrounded him. He asks Leo to write to the emperor and to obtain a council of East and West.
The letter is the complaint of one party and has to be read beside the council’s own minutes and the judgment of those who upheld it. Its value is that it is immediate: Flavian died not long afterwards, and this is the only account of the session in his own words cited in this wiki.
Cited in
- August AD 449, firm date