John II the Cappadocian

Saint John II the Cappadocian was Patriarch of Constantinople from 518 to 520, at the turning point between the reign of Emperor Anastasius I and that of Emperor Justin I. The Church remembers him as the hierarch under whom the faith of the Council of Chalcedon was openly proclaimed once more and a schism of some thirty-⁠four years between East and West was healed.

Although his patriarchate lasted less than two years, it became one of the joyful chapters in the history of Constantinople. The scenes in Hagia Sophia known as the "Acclamations of Constantinople" were long remembered in the capital.

Origins and election

As his name shows, John came from Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Before his elevation he was a presbyter and synkellos of the Church of Constantinople, that is, the patriarch's closest assistant and chancellor. He served in this office under Patriarch Timothy I, who, according to the sources, designated him as his successor.

On the death of Timothy, John was chosen patriarch in the spring of 518, and the beginning of his ministry is usually dated to 17 April of that year. The sources describe his election differently: some say he was also the choice of Emperor Anastasius, while others say he was raised more by the will of the people than by that of the emperor.

The times were troubled by Christological controversy. Anastasius favoured the Henotikon and those who rejected the Fourth Ecumenical Council, and many bishops and patriarchs had been pressed to condemn Chalcedon. John took the patriarchal throne while the Church of the capital still lived under this pressure.

The acclamations in Hagia Sophia

On 9 July 518 Emperor Anastasius died and Justin I, a man of Orthodox conviction, came to the throne. On Sunday, 15 July, the new emperor entered Hagia Sophia. The patriarch, accompanied by twelve bishops, made his way through a crowd that filled every corner of the church.

As he approached the ambo, the people broke into shouts. They acclaimed the patriarch and the emperor, lamented that they had been kept out of communion for so many years, and demanded that the Council of Chalcedon be proclaimed at once. They called on the patriarch to cast out Severus, the anti-⁠Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, and would not let him leave the sanctuary until he had done so.

John took counsel with those around him and then went up into the ambo. He tried to calm the people, saying that nothing had been done against the faith and that the Church received all the councils that had confirmed the decrees of Nicaea, above all those of Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon.

The people wanted a clearer decision and kept on shouting for hours. They asked for a feast in honour of the Council of Chalcedon, and the deacon Samuel announced that it would be kept the very next day. Because the crowd also insisted on the condemnation of Severus, the patriarch consulted the twelve bishops, who together pronounced on the spot that Severus had cut himself off from the Church by his blasphemies and stood condemned.

The feast of Chalcedon

The next day, 16 July, the promised commemoration of Chalcedon took place. Again, as the patriarch entered, the people raised new demands: the return of the relics of Patriarch Macedonius II, the recall of those exiled for the faith, the inscription of the four Ecumenical Councils in the diptychs, and the commemoration of Pope Leo I of Rome.

The patriarch replied that enough had been done the day before and urged the people to hold to the faith as an unshakable foundation that would help reunite the Churches. But the enthusiasm that had been held back for years under heterodox rule could not be restrained. In the end the four Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon were inscribed in the diptychs, together with the names of Patriarchs Euphemius and Macedonius II and of Pope Leo I.

The people then sang for more than an hour the canticle of Zacharias, blessing the Lord God of Israel who had visited and redeemed His people. The choir gathered on the raised platform and, turning east, sang the Trisagion while the whole church listened in silence. When the deacon read the new names from the diptychs, the faithful, gathered quietly around the Holy Table, cried out with one voice, "Glory to Thee, O Lord."

The synod of July 518

To give canonical weight to what had happened in the cathedral, Patriarch John gathered a synod on 20 July 518 of the bishops then present in the capital. The sources speak of forty bishops; others say forty-⁠one bishops and fifty abbots took part.

The synod formally affirmed the decrees of Chalcedon and inscribed in the diptychs Pope Leo I and Pope Hormisdas, who then occupied the see of Rome. Severus of Antioch was anathematized after an examination of his writings revealed an explicit condemnation of Chalcedon. According to the Greek sources, the synod also declared the deposition of Patriarchs Euphemius and Macedonius unjust and decided that their remains should be brought back to Constantinople to rest near their predecessors Flavian, John Chrysostom and Paul the Confessor.

It was further decided that all those exiled by Anastasius should return to their sees. John reported these decisions to Patriarch John III of Jerusalem and to Epiphanius of Tyre. His letters were accompanied by orders from Emperor Justin to restore the banished and to inscribe the Council of Chalcedon in the diptychs.

The news was received with great joy in Jerusalem and Tyre. Many other Churches declared for Chalcedon, and during the reign of Justin about two thousand five hundred bishops gave their assent.

Reconciliation with Rome

The next step was to restore communion with the Church of Rome. Two weeks after the acclamations, Emperor Justin wrote to Pope Hormisdas, asking him to support the patriarch's desire for the reunion of the Churches. John himself wrote to the pope, declaring that he received the four Ecumenical Councils and that the names of Leo and Hormisdas had been placed in the diptychs.

Rome, however, required that Patriarch Acacius, the man behind the Henotikon, be condemned by name before any agreement. The pope sent a delegation to Constantinople with instructions to insist on this, while allowing Euphemius and Macedonius to be passed over in silence.

The papal legates arrived in Constantinople on 25 March 519, and the emperor received the pope's letters with great respect. The patriarch at first wished to express his adherence in a letter of his own, but then agreed to write a short preface and to copy out the pope's text in his own hand. Thus the confession known as the "Formula of Hormisdas" was signed on 28 March 519, and two copies, one in Greek and one in Latin, were sent to Rome.

Easter of 519

The hardest part of the settlement was the removal from the diptychs of five patriarchs of Constantinople, Acacius, Fravitta, Euphemius, Macedonius II and Timothy I, and of two emperors, Zeno and Anastasius. All the bishops present in the capital gave their consent in writing, and so did the abbots of the monasteries, after some discussion and hesitation.

The reunion was proclaimed on Easter Day, 31 March 519. The court and the people filled Hagia Sophia, and its vaults rang with praise to God, to the emperor, to the Apostle Peter and to the Pope of Rome. Those who had predicted riots were proved wrong, and, according to contemporary witnesses, more people received Communion that day than anyone could remember.

The emperor sent an account of these events throughout the provinces, and the legates reported to Rome that only negotiations with Antioch remained. Patriarch John wrote to Pope Hormisdas to congratulate him on this great work and to give him the credit for its success.

The agreement did not settle every dispute. In the East many protested against the removal of Euphemius and Macedonius from the diptychs, since they were honoured as defenders of Chalcedon. In the letters of his last months John told the pope of the difficulties in applying the agreement in the local Churches.

The title of ecumenical patriarch

In documents from 518 the Patriarch of Constantinople is called "ecumenical patriarch" for the first time. The title was given to John in a letter of the clergy of Antioch and of laymen and monks of Syria, as well as in the acts of local synods. At that time it was a form of address, some seventy years before it was used synodically, and the controversy over it arose only under Patriarch John IV the Faster.

Several letters of Patriarch John have been preserved, most of them connected with his work of reconciling the Churches.

Repose and veneration

Patriarch John reposed in 520, on 19 January according to most sources, though others place his death in February. He was succeeded by his former synkellos, Epiphanius, who carried on the negotiations with Rome.

The Orthodox Church numbers him among the holy hierarchs. His feast is kept on 25 August, and according to other sources on 30 August. His name remains bound to the public confession of the faith of Chalcedon and to the peace of the Church in the reign of Justin.