ORMISDAS, POPE, saint. — Son of Giusto, born in Frosinone; already a deacon of Pope Symmachus, he succeeded him on the papal throne on 20 July 514. Of peaceful disposition but energetic defender of the rights of the Church and upholder of Catholic doctrine, he worked greatly to extinguish the two schisms that afflicted the Church at the time of his election. In Rome there were still clerics who followed the antipope Lawrence (498–515), elected against Symmachus; at Ormisdas’ accession these men recanted their error, made public amends, and were restored to their offices. Far more important to resolve was the Acacian schism, which since 484 had separated the Church of the East from Rome. The patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius (v.), had accepted the Henoticon of Zeno, for which Pope Felix III had excommunicated him. The patriarch’s influence had drawn into the schism many bishops loyal to imperial policy, and Catholics had suffered persecution and maltreatment.
Soon after Ormisdas’ election, Vitalian, commander of the Danube army, posing as defender of orthodoxy and peace, rebelled against Emperor Anastasius and marched on Constantinople. The emperor, alarmed, accepted the terms imposed by Vitalian, the first of which was to restore unity and peace to the Church, and he asked Ormisdas to summon a council to settle the schism. But when in August 515 the pope’s legates arrived in Constantinople with the necessary instructions and a formulary of faith to be subscribed for the restoration of union, Anastasius refused to accept the papal dispositions and sent the legates back.
When the legates returned to Rome, Anastasius had already dispatched further letters to the Pope, setting forth his own conditions for peace and trying to stir up the Senate against Ormisdas. The Pope did not yield; yet he consented to send other legates with letters to the emperor, the patriarch, the clergy, and the monks. No agreement was reached; indeed, an attempt was made to bribe the legates, and when this failed the emperor sent them back with harsh and insulting letters directed against the Pope.
When Anastasius died suddenly on 9 April 518, he was succeeded by the praetorian prefect Justin, a convinced and zealous Catholic. Justin first recalled the bishops exiled by his predecessor, ordered all to accept the Council of Chalcedon in its entirety, and banished all heretics, forbidding them any office. Then in September he wrote to Ormisdas asking for legates to settle the schism. The Pope dispatched a legation in January 519, led by the bishops Germanus and John and by the deacon Diocorus (v.) of Alexandria. The legates, instructed on how to proceed, carried with them a formulary of faith to be subscribed without discussion, which required the condemnation of Nestorius, Eutyches, Acacius, and other heretics most implicated in Monophysitism, and the full acceptance of Pope Leo’s Tomus ad Flavianum. Arriving in Constantinople in March 519, the legates were welcomed with joy and tokens of respect and veneration by Justin, the Senate, the clergy, and the people. Diocorus admirably set forth the grounds for condemning Acacius, and Patriarch John subscribed the formulary of faith, followed by many others. There were, however, some pockets of resistance, as at Thessalonica where the legate Bishop John was maltreated by the populace, but the emperor’s authority brought the recalcitrants back to the right path.
Meanwhile in Rome Ormisdas had to deal with the question of the Acephali monks, who wished to have accepted the formula “Unus de Trinitate passus est carne.” These monks, already rejected by the papal legates in Constantinople, had come to Rome to persuade the Pope directly. Warned in time, Ormisdas received them coldly and temporized, but as they grew more turbulent and sowed discord he expelled them in August 520.
A similar fate befell the Manichees, who were exiled and their books publicly burned. Ormisdas died on 6 August 523; the Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 16 August.