EUTYCHIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Five years into his second patriarchate, Saint Eutychius departed to the Lord on April 19 (6), 582. Soon, healings, signs, and miracles began to occur from his tomb in the Church of the Holy Apostles. In communion with the great Patriarchs of the City—Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Nectarius, Proclus, Flavian, Callinicus, and Photius—Eutychius interceded for the Church in these last times.

On April 19, the Church commemorates Saint Eutychius of Constantinople (512–582). Eutychius’ biography was recorded by his disciple Eustathius, so information about his life is quite detailed. The saint was a patriarch from among the monastics during a very difficult time for the unity of the Church. He valued the unity of the Church above all else and tried in every way to avoid schisms. For his willingness to suffer for the truth even in times of peace, he was greatly loved by his flock.

The saint was born around 512 in Phrygia, in the interior of Western Asia Minor. He studied in Constantinople. He then stayed in one of the monasteries of the city of Amasia, located in the Black Sea region of northern Asia Minor. Once, Eutychius accompanied the bishop of that region to Constantinople, after which he remained in the capital, where he lived for several years at the Church of the Mother of God near Strategion. At the age of about 30, Eutychius was ordained a priest and then returned to his monastery in Amasia, where he became abbot and was involved in construction work.

The peculiarity of that era was that, despite the apparent prosperity of the Empire, the Orthodox world was experiencing a tragic schism. From 519, the Patriarchate of Antioch split into two parallel hierarchies, supporters and opponents of the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), and in 536 the same thing happened in the ancient Church of Alexandria. Only the Churches of Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople retained their unity and mutual communion. Emperor Justinian, who ruled from 527 to 565, made every effort to reconcile the Monophysites, that is, the opponents of the Council, with the Church, and thereby restore the fullness of the Pentarchy system, which was dear to his heart.

To unite the opponents of the Council of Chalcedon with the Orthodox Church, Justinian prepared a plan to condemn three theologians of the recent past: Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa. This plan was opposed by the Christian West, which believed that it was impossible to condemn deceased Orthodox bishops posthumously. In turn, the Church of Constantinople considered such condemnation to be legitimate. To this end, Constantinople cited the example of the righteous Jewish king Josiah, who burned the bones and belongings of his idolatrous ancestors (4 Kings 23).

Justinian was preparing a future council to make a decision and for this purpose summoned bishops to the capital. Eutychius represented the Bishop of Amasia in Constantinople at one of these preparatory councils when, on August 21, 552, Patriarch Mina died. The emperor, guided by a vision he had seen, appointed Eutychius as the successor to the deceased patriarch. On January 6, 553, Eutychius sent a letter to Pope Vigilius in Rome asking for Eucharistic communion, in which he professed his loyalty to the Four Ecumenical Councils and Pope Leo’s Tomos. On the issue of condemning the “Three Heads,” he wrote about the need to convene an Ecumenical Council. The Council, which took place from May 5 to June 2, 553, chaired by Eutychius, condemned the deceased theologians. Contrary to Justinian’s intention, the Monophysites perceived this conciliar decision not as a sign of reconciliation, but as a sign of weakness and admission of their own wrongdoing on the part of the Orthodox.

The emperor had been seriously engaged in theology throughout his life and was undoubtedly one of the greatest theologians of the century. But at the end of his life, he supported the heresy of the Aphttartodocetai, according to which the Body of the Lord Jesus, even before the Resurrection, was completely unaffected by suffering. Every time Jesus experienced any suffering or hardship in His earthly life, they taught, a special divine dispensation was required to “suspend” the complete inviolability of His humanity. An element of “apparent” was introduced. Hence the name of the heresy, literally, “the seemingly indestructible.” Patriarch Eutychius condemned this error. In response, on January 25, 565, during a service on the day of remembrance of the Apostle Timothy, he was arrested by soldiers.

Imprisoned, he was subjected to absurd accusations at a council convened by the Emperor himself and deposed, as John Chrysostom had been 150 years earlier. He was then exiled to his former monastery in Amasia, where he remained under supervision for more than 12 years. In 577, when Justinian was no longer alive and Eutychius seemed to have been long forgotten, Patriarch John III Scholasticus died. And so, on that last day of summer, August 31, the people, unexpectedly for those in power, demanded the return of the exiled patriarch. Thus, Eutychius, like Chrysostom, was restored to the See of Constantinople for the second time.

In 579–585, the future pope, the Roman deacon Gregory, called Gregory the Great in the West or the Dialogist in the East (+604), was an envoy in Constantinople. His stay in the capital was providential. The fact is that in one of his epistles, Eutychius claimed that resurrected bodies would be recreated by God, as a result of which they would become intangible. Gregory considered this opinion to be erroneous and was undoubtedly right. After all, the Church professes faith in the bodily resurrection of the flesh, the resurrection of the dead, and believes that these will be real bodies. Eutychius corrected his opinion. Unlike so many patriarchs of the capital, he was always distinguished by genuine humility. This inconspicuous and seemingly insignificant episode contains a very important lesson. After all, Eutychius repeated the same mistake that he had once discovered in the emperor. His correction is an example for the highest hierarchs to acknowledge their mistakes, and since Justinian, like Eutychius, was later canonized by the Church, it is a rare example of how the Church can bring repentance for itself and for secular power, which it did not or could not correct in a timely manner.