Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Menaea and Menology of the Emperor Basil Russian Kalendar. Authorities: — Mention in the Acts of the council of Chalcedon, and in the letters of S. Leo the Great, Zonaras, Ac, There is a later Greek life of the bishop published by the Bollandists, but it is not to be relied upon.} The right of Anatolius of Constantinople to a place in the sacred Kalendar has been disputed by Baronius and others in the West Pagius, and Sohier the Bollandist, have laboured to exculpate the patriarch of the charges laid against him. But there seems to be little doubt that he was a man of slight religious earnestness. 1 He was a native of Alexandria, and was of the party of the furious, tyrannical Dioscorus of Alexandria, and therefore involved in his Eutychianism.
Flavian, the orthodox bishop of Constantinople, had been so ill-treated in the robber-council of Ephesus, that he died of his injuries (see Feb. 18th, p. 331). Dioscorus at once consecrated Anatolius in his room, and Anatolius ranged himself on the side of Eutyches, and boldly assumed the office of consecrating one Maximus to the see of Antioch [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)] from which Dioscorus had expelled the orthodox Domnus.
The Emperor Theodosius [name of Roman emperors; Theodosius I (379–395) made Christianity the state religion] wrote to S. Leo the Great, bishop of Rome, to recognize Anatolius. He answered that “the person who had begun to preside over the Church of Constantinople ” must first of all make a public avowal of orthodoxy. He sent legates to ascertain the mind of Anatolius on this subject But at this very time the feeble and obstinate Theodosius died, and the sovereignty passed to his masculine and orthodox sister Pulcheria.
1 & Leoaia Mag. Bp. isj. The confidence of the Eutychians [followers of Eutyches, who said Christ had only a divine nature; condemned at Chalcedon in 451] failed them. Heresy was now a losing cause. Anatolius by a prompt and pliant conversion to orthodoxy saved his position. Eutyches was required to leave Constantinople. In a solemn council, which was attended by the Roman legates, Anatolius subscribed whatever was submitted to him, and anathematised all he was required to condemn. Rome and Constantinople were no v again at peace; and the enthronement of Maximus at Antioch was tolerated by Pope Leo, 1 the rather, as Domnus had retired, no one knew whither. A more full and authoritative council was convoked to repeal the acts of the “ Robber Synod ” of Ephesus. It met at Chalcedon on Oct. 8th, a.d. 451. Anatolius was there with Maximus of Antioch, and Juvenal of Jerusalem. An account of this council has been already given (see April, p. 1 50-1 59). Anatolius was as enthusiastically orthodox under an orthodox empress as he had been energetically heretical under an heretical emperor, He took advantage of the flagging interest of the legates of the Roman pontiff towards the close of the great council to introduce a canon which accorded to the bishop of Constantinople a co-ordinat * and co-equal ecclesiastical authority with the bishop of Rome, though asserting the primacy of the Roman see, not however in right of its descent from S. Peter, but solely as the bishopric of the Imperial city. The legates were startled, and protested. A hundred and fifty eastern bishops ratified the canon, but the Western Church rejected it Pope Leo, from this period, denounced the arrogance and presumption of Anatolius; and the Latin Church has refrained from enroling his name in the Kalendar of the Saints, an honour which he can scarcely be said to deserve, for he appears to have been a time-serving, unprincipled prelate.
1 Ep. X04. But be speaks of tnis consecration as a presumptuous act, unprecedented and uncanonical. Ijjt. 9. Germain. & GERMAIN, B. OF MAN.
(5TH CENT.) [In Man anciently on this day. Authority Joscelin’s iifeof S. Patrick [apostle of Ireland (5th century)].] S. Germain or Jarman, first bishop of Man, is said to have been sent to that island by S. Patrick. He lived in the island, near Castletown, a life like a solitary, and founded a church near Peel, at Kirk-Jarman, where he is buried.
