Formula of Hormisdas (the libellus signed by John of Constantinople)

The document is a short written profession, a libellus, drawn up at Rome and carried east by the legates of Hormisdas. This copy is the one that John of Constantinople signed and sent back, with a preface of his own in which he says that he holds the churches of the old and the new Rome to be one. It is preserved in the collection of imperial and papal letters known as the Collectio Avellana. Its date line gives 28 March in the twelfth indiction, in the consulship of the emperor Justin and Eutharic.

It opens by saying that the first condition of salvation is to keep the rule of right faith and not to depart from the tradition of the fathers; it cites Christ’s words to Peter about the rock on which the church is built (Matthew 16:18) and says that the catholic religion is always kept inviolate in the apostolic see. The signer anathematises Nestorius, Eutyches and Dioscorus, then Timothy Aelurus and Peter of Alexandria, Acacius of Constantinople as their accomplice, and Peter of Antioch; accepts all the letters of Leo; and promises that the names of those separated from the communion of the apostolic see shall not be read at the liturgy. The text is Rome’s own statement of the terms of reunion.