any approaches to Rome. The Acacian schism reached its climax; the separation between the Catholic West and the Monophysite East was complete. But there were Catholics in the East too. During all the thirty-five years of the Acacian schism the "Akoimetoi"[1] monks of Constantinople broke with the heretical Patriarchs, kept the faith of Chalcedon and were in union with the Pope. And from all parts persecuted Catholics (Severus persecuted fiercely), monks, unjustly deposed bishops, sent appeals to the chief Patriarch in the distant Western land. Pope Gelasius I (492-496), one of the great successors of St. Peter, made advances and tried to heal the schism, but he could not compromise with Monophysism. Pope Anastasius II (496-498) and his successor Symmachus (498-514) were equally unsuccessful. Then came Hormisdas (514-523), who was to heal the breach. Just when Monophysism had triumphed throughout the East, when the heretics had established themselves firmly on all the Patriarchal thrones, the whole situation changed, as it does in the Eastern Empire, by the death of the Emperor. Anastasius II died suddenly in 518. He was succeeded by Justin I (518-527), already under the influence of his nephew the future great Emperor Justinian I. Both were Catholic; as we have seen (p. 197), the people of Constantinople, too, were eager for the restoration of the faith of Chalcedon.
So, as soon as Justin reigns, there is a complete reaction; the Monophysites are expelled, Chalcedon is again accepted by the Eastern Church, union with Rome is restored, the Acacian schism is ended. The Emperor and the people of Constantinople force the Byzantine Patriarch, John II (518-520), who succeeded Timothy I, to subscribe to Chalcedon and to excommunicate Severus. Severus, guilty not only of heresy but of having persecuted Catholics, of having shed orthodox blood, was deposed, and by flight escaped the death which probably awaited him. He came to Alexandria, the one place still held by his co-religionists. After one more vain attempt to assert his cause at Constantinople (in 533), after being again excommunicated in 536, he died in
- ↑ Ἀκοίμητοι, "sleepless." This does not mean that they never went to sleep. It was a monastery which had the special rule of keeping up continual prayers in its church, by successive relays of monks.
