ld the Church captive.
Nay, his person was so agreeable to you, and his ministers so acceptable,
that you have been found to persecute a large number of orthodox bishops
and clergy, who now come to Constantinople, and to encourage his legates.
You put upon Misenus and Vitalis to find excuse for one who was
anathematising the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, and violating the
tomb of Timotheus of holy memory, as sure information has been given us.
You have not ceased to praise and exalt him so as to boast that the very
condemnation you had yourself recorded was untrue. You went even further in
the defence of a perverse man. They who were late bishops, but are now
deprived of their rank and of communion, Vitalis and Misenus, men whom we
had specially sent for his expulsion, you suffered to be deprived of their
papers and imprisoned; you dragged them out thence to a procession which
you were having with heretics, as they confessed; in contempt of their
legatine quality, which even the law of nations would protect, you drew
them on to the communion of heretics, and yourself; you corrupted them with
bribes; and, with injury to the blessed Apostle Peter, from whose see they
went forth, you caused them not only to return with labour lost, but with
the overthrow of all their instructions. In deceiving them, your wickedness
was shown. As to the memorial of my brother and fellow-bishop John
(Talaia), who brought the heaviest charges against you, by not venturing to
give an answer in the Apostolic See, according to the canons, you have
established his allegations. Likewise, you considered unworthy of your
sight our most faithful defender Felix, whom a necessity caused to come
afterwards. You also showed by your letters that known heretics were
communicating with you. For what else are they who, after the death of
Timotheus of holy memory, go back to his church under Peter the Stammerer,
or, having been Catholics, have given themselves up to this Peter, but such
as Peter himself was judged to be by the whole Church, and by yourself?
Therefore, by this present sentence have with those whom you willingly
embrace your portion, which we send to you by the defender of your own
church, being deprived of sacerdotal honour and Catholic communion, and
severed from the number of the faithful. Know that the name and office of
the sacerdotal ministry is taken from you. You are condemned by the
judgment of the Holy Ghost[37] and apostolic auth