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Document Details :

Title: A Tale of Two Synods
Subtitle: The Archimandrite Barsumas at Ephesus in 449 and at Chalcedon in 451
Author(s): PALMER, Andrew
Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies
Volume: 66    Issue: 1-2   Date: 2014   
Pages: 37-61
DOI: 10.2143/JECS.66.1.3064556

Abstract :
The denunciation, at the Synod of Chalcedon, of ‘the monk Barsumas’, is best understood as a diversionary manoeuvre, executed in an attempt to prevent a petition from being heard. The presence of ‘the priest and archimandrite Barsumas’ at the Synod of Ephesus, two years earlier, had nothing to do with the military intimidation of which the opponents of Dioscorus immediately complained. The bishops who denounced him at Chalcedon may in reality have feared his political and moral influence, though they claimed he and his monks had offered them physical violence at Ephesus, an accusation which had not been made in 449. The moral influence of Barsumas is attested by the wording of the summons to attend that synod at Ephesus; by the Syriac hagiographies about Daniel of Aghlosh and Barṣawmo of Samosata (= Barsumas); and, indirectly, by the Acts of the Synod of Chalcedon.