FLAVIAN, Saint. — Patriarch of Antioch, b. c. 320, d. in 404. He soon embraced the ascetic life. During the Arian crisis he remained steadfast in the Nicene faith.
Together with his friend Diodorus (future bishop of Tarsus) he separated from the Arian bishop Leontius (344–58), but did not adhere to the small Euscarian faction led by Paulinus. Instead, he gathered around himself the majority of the faithful, whom he supported and guided during the repeated exiles of the orthodox bishop Meletius. F. could have ended the schism by adhering to Paulinus, but he himself was elected patriarch, so the division continued. In 387 he interceded for the Antiochenes who had toppled the imperial statues. He held a council against the Messalians (390). In 398, through the intercession of St. John Chrysostom and Theophilus of Alexandria, he was also recognized by Rome. Only fragments of his writings remain.
FLAVIAN, Saint, patriarch of CONSTANTINOPLE. — A man of upright and moderate character, he found himself bearing the episcopal office in turbulent times (446–49), precisely at the rise of Monophysitism. A synod (Συνόδος συνόδου) held under his presidency in November 448 declared Eutyches a heretic and deposed him; Flavian sent an account of this to Pope St. Leo I.
Leo approved the synod’s action and replied with the famous Epistola ad Flavianum (13 June 449). Emperor Theodosius II, swayed by the eunuch Chrysaphius, disapproved of Eutyches’s deposition and summoned a new general council at Ephesus, giving its presidency to Flavian’s personal adversary, Dioscorus of Alexandria. At the first session of the so-called “Robber Synod” (8 August 449), Eutyches was declared orthodox, while Flavian was deposed and so severely maltreated that he died three days later, after managing to send St. Leo the text of his appeal. He was rehabilitated by the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon and enrolled among the saints as a martyr.