Edict (Semeioma) of the Synod of Constantinople
The record of the synod held by Patriarch Michael Cerularius after the legates left. It reproduces their bull in Greek, gives the patriarch’s account of events and anathematizes the document and those who wrote it.
The edict is dated July of the seventh indiction and names the metropolitans and archbishops who sat with the patriarch. It opens with a denunciation of men who came “out of the darkness” of the West and attacked the orthodox faith, in language taken over from Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs, and answers the legates’ charges about beards, married priests and the creed. It then tells how the document was laid on the altar, removed by the subdeacons and translated, quotes it in full, and quotes a letter of the emperor ordering it burnt.
Its claims are those of one side. It says the legates were not sent by the pope at all but came on their own with the connivance of the Byzantine governor in Italy, Argyros, and with forged seals. The sentence itself is narrow: the document and those who composed it or advised it are anathematized, and the original is kept in the patriarchal archive. The editor’s page headings and notes are hostile to the patriarch; the text is not his.
Cited in
- 16 July 1054, firm date