HORMISDAS, Pope Saint. - Son of Justus, born at Frosinone; already a deacon of Pope Symmachus, he succeeded him in the pontificate on 20 July 514. A man of peaceful character, but an energetic guardian of the rights of the Church and a defender of Catholic doctrine, he labored greatly to extinguish the two schisms that at the time of his election were afflicting the Church. In Rome there were still clerics who followed the antipope Lawrence (498-515), elected against Symmachus; at O.'s accession these men retracted their error and, after making public amends, 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 Henotikon of Zeno, for which Pope Felix III had excommunicated him. The patriarch's influence had dragged several bishops, loyal to imperial policy, into the schism, and Catholics had had to endure persecutions and ill-treatment.
Shortly after O.'s election, the duke Vitalian, commander of the Danubian army, posing as a defender of orthodoxy and peace, rebelled against the emperor Anastasius and moved toward Constantinople; the Emperor, frightened, accepted the conditions laid down by Vitalian, among which the first was that of restoring union and peace to the Church, and he asked O. to convoke a council to compose the schism. But when in Aug. 515 O.'s legates reached Constantinople with the necessary instructions and a formula of faith to be subscribed for a return to union, Anastasius refused to accept the pontifical provisions and sent the legates back.
When these reached Rome, Anastasius had already sent other letters to the Pope setting out his conditions for peace and seeking to stir up the Senate against O.; but the latter did not yield; he did, however, agree to send other legates with letters to the Emperor, to the patriarch, to the clergy and to the monks. Nothing came of it; indeed, an attempt was made to corrupt the legates, and since the blandishments proved vain, they were sent back with harsh and insulting letters regarding the Pope.
When Anastasius died suddenly on 9 Apr. 518, the praetorian prefect Justin, a convinced and fervent Catholic, was elected to succeed him. As his first act he hastened to recall the bishops exiled by his predecessor, ordered all to accept the Council of Chalcedon in its entirety, and banished all heretics, forbidding them every office. Then in Sept. he wrote to O. asking for legates to compose the schism. In Jan. 519 the Pope sent a legation headed by the bishops Germanus and John and by the Alexandrian deacon Dioscorus (v.). The legates, instructed on how to conduct themselves, carried with them a formula of faith, to be subscribed without discussion, which imposed the condemnation of Nestorius, Eutyches, Acacius and other heretics more deeply compromised with Monophysitism, and the total acceptance of the Tomus ad Flavianum of Pope Leo. Having reached Constantinople in March 519, the legates were received with joy and signs of respect and veneration by Justin, the Senate, the clergy and the people. Dioscorus set forth excellently the reasons for the condemnation of Acacius, and the patriarch John subscribed the formula of faith, and with him many others. There were, however, resistances here and there, as at Thessalonica, where the bishop-legate John was ill-treated by the people, but the Emperor's authority succeeded in bringing the recalcitrant back to the right path.
Meanwhile at Rome O. had to concern himself with the question of the Acoemetae monks, who wanted the formula Unus de Trinitate passus est carne to be accepted. Those monks, already rebuffed by the papal legates at Constantinople, had come to Rome to convince the Pope directly; O., warned in time, received them coldly and temporized, but since they became ever more turbulent and sowed discord, he drove them out in Aug. 520.
A similar fate befell the Manichaeans as well, who were driven into exile and whose books were publicly burned. O. died on 6 Aug. 523; the Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 16 Aug.
Bibliography6 works
Agostino Amore