1The bishops at Constantinople greet Damasus and the Western bishops at Rome and recall the sufferings they endured under the Arians.
2The Eastern bishops explain that they cannot all come to the Roman synod and send three bishops, Cyriacus, Eusebius, and Priscian, in their place.
3The bishops profess the Nicene faith: one divinity, power, and essence of Father, Son, and Spirit in three perfect hypostases, against Sabellians, Arians, Eunomians, and Pneumatomachi, and Christ's full humanity.
4The bishops report the canonical ordinations of Nectarius at Constantinople, Flavian at Antioch, and Cyril at Jerusalem and ask the West to accept them for the sake of unity.
About this work
Author
Anonymous
Attribution
authentic · Synodal letter of the bishops assembled at Constantinople in 382, answering the invitation to the council at Rome; preserved by Theodoret. No single author.
Standing
Received by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. A synod of bishops in communion with the church of its day.
Date
382 (probable) · Dated to the summer of 382, after the council of 381 and in answer to the invitation to Rome.
Written at
Constantinople, Thrace
Addressed to
Damasus, Ambrose, Britto, Valerian, Ascholius, Anemius, Basil and the other bishops assembled at Rome
Language
Greek
Genre
canon/council
Reference system
sections of about 300 words, numbered 1–4 by Claude (Theodoret's chapter 5.9 is not subdivided)
SBL abbreviation
Conc. Const. 382Not yet checked
Text from
J. L. Schulze, ed., in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca, vol. 82 (Paris, 1864), Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9, cols. 1212–1220, as digitized by the Perseus Digital Library and the First Thousand Years of Greek project (tlg4089.tlg003) (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)
Critical editions
Léon Parmentier and Günther Christian Hansen, eds., Theodoret Kirchengeschichte, GCS, Neue Folge 5 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1998) (cited, not reproduced)