Flavian

Flavian was Patriarch of Constantinople in the mid-fifth century, during a period of intense christological controversy in the Eastern Roman Empire. Little is securely recorded of his early life or place of origin; contemporary sources first present him as a priest of the Church of Constantinople who held the office of skeuophylax, treasurer and keeper of the sacred vessels of the Great Church. He had a reputation among his contemporaries for personal austerity and holiness. Upon the death of Patriarch Proclus in 446 he was chosen to succeed him as archbishop of the imperial capital. His relations with the court of Emperor Theodosius II were strained from the start. The powerful imperial chamberlain Chrysaphius is reported to have taken offense when the new patriarch, instead of offering the customary gift of gold, sent only blessed bread as a eulogia, intending a spiritual rather than a political offering.

The defining conflict of Flavian’s patriarchate arose from the teaching of Eutyches, an aged and influential archimandrite of Constantinople who had been a fierce opponent of Nestorius. Eutyches so stressed the unity of Christ that he appeared to deny that Christ remained consubstantial with humanity after the Incarnation, a position later termed monophysitism. In November 448, at a local synod in Constantinople, Bishop Eusebius of Dorylaeum formally accused Eutyches of heresy. Flavian, who had at first been reluctant to proceed against so prominent a figure, presided over the examination. Eutyches refused to confess two natures in Christ after the union and was condemned and deposed. He appealed to Rome, to Alexandria, and to the imperial court. Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, together with court factions hostile to Flavian, took up his cause. Pope Leo I of Rome, after receiving Flavian’s synodal report, composed his Tome to Flavian, setting out the Western doctrine of two natures united in one person, and supported Flavian’s judgment against Eutyches.

In August 449 a council convened at Ephesus under the presidency of Dioscorus. This assembly, later denounced by Pope Leo as a latrocinium or robber council, refused a proper hearing to many of Flavian’s supporters, barred the papal legates from full participation, rehabilitated Eutyches, and condemned Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum. According to contemporary and near-contemporary accounts, Flavian was subjected to physical violence by soldiers and by monks associated with the archimandrite Barsauma. He was deposed from his see and sentenced to exile. He died of his injuries in 449, according to widespread tradition at Hypaepa in Lydia while being taken into banishment. His death was regarded by his supporters as a martyrdom for the doctrine of Christ’s two natures.

After the death of Theodosius II in 450, imperial policy shifted under Pulcheria and the new emperor Marcian. Flavian’s name was restored, and his remains were brought back to Constantinople and laid in the Church of the Holy Apostles. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 formally reversed the acts of the Robber Council, deposed Dioscorus, and endorsed the christological teaching associated with Leo’s Tome and with Flavian’s synod of 448. Chalcedon honored Flavian as a confessor of the faith. Veneration of him as a saint spread in both East and West. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 18 February; Byzantine calendars commonly keep his feast on 16 February. He is remembered as a patriarch who suffered for upholding the distinction of Christ’s divine and human natures against monophysite teaching, though the surviving sources for his life remain limited and are largely bound up with the polemical literature of the fifth-century councils.