**ACEPHALI. — I. HERESY.**
The name given to those Monophysites who refused to accept the formula of faith promulgated by the Emperor Zeno in the year 482 with the Henoticon. They were thus called because for some time they were not in communion with any of the five patriarchs who divided the supreme jurisdiction over all the bishops of Christendom: they were therefore without a head (ἀκέφαλοι), that is, without a patriarch, although they were not without bishops. They occasioned the first major schism among the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon. Yet this schism was short-lived; indeed, it may be said to have ended even before the Henoticon was officially revoked by the Emperor Justin I in 518, for by that time the Acephali were no longer without a head, having won over the three patriarchs of Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch, while only the patriarchate of Jerusalem continued to adhere to the Enotican formula.
After the death of Emperor Zeno, Anastasius, his successor (491–518), cleverly deceived by the monk Severus, the principal exponent of the Acephali, became decidedly favorable to them. In 511 an Acephalus priest, Timothy, took the see of Constantinople in place of the Enotican Macedonius II, who had been deposed. The following year, Severus was elected patriarch of Antioch, while Alexandria was already in the possession of an Acephalus. By now the name had lost its justification, yet Catholics continued to use it to designate the dissenting Monophysites who were autonomous in Egypt and Syria. In the 8th and 9th centuries, St. John Damascene and St. Theodore the Studite still composed treatises against the Acephali.
The history of the Acephalus movement between the years 482 and 518 presents many complications, especially in Egypt and Palestine. The great majority of the monks in these lands, along with their archimandrites, were Acephali. Besides Severus of Antioch, the principal leaders of the movement were Philoxenus of Mabbug, Peter the Iberian, bishop of Maiuma, and the Nubian Nephalius, who later joined the Enotican party (see also MONOPHYSITES).
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**II. CANON LAW.**
In the language of canonists, the term *Acephali* is sometimes applied to secular clerics who are not incardinated in any diocese or similar circumscription; such clerics are more commonly called *clerici vagi* or *vagantes* (see INCARDINATION).