Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs

Photius wrote to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem after Latin clergy sent by Nicholas I had begun work among the newly baptized Bulgarians. He lists what they taught there: fasting on Saturdays, contempt for married priests, a second anointing by bishops of those already chrismated by priests, and above all the addition to the creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father. Against the last he argues at length that it brings two sources into the Trinity. He announces that the offenders are condemned by synodal decree and asks the patriarchs to send representatives.

The letter is one party’s document in a quarrel and was meant to persuade. He adds that complaints against the bishop of Rome have reached him from Italy, and mentions in passing that the Rus’ too have now accepted a bishop and pastor. The council he was preparing pronounced against the pope; its records were burnt at the council of 869–870 (Acts of the Council of Constantinople (869–870), canon 6). The English version in the second link is shortened and its translator is not named; nothing is taken from it here that is not in Migne’s text.