Saint Anatolius of Constantinople

b. Alexandria c. 400; d. Constantinople July 3, 458. St. Anatolius was a disciple of St. Cyril, who ordained him deacon and sent him to Constantinople as his apocrisiary. Anatolius was chosen by Dioscorus of Alexandria and the eunuch Chrysaphius to succeed Flavian as bishop of Constantinople after the Robber Synod of Ephesus in August of 449. His good faith was challenged by Pope Leo I, who sent legates to Constantinople, demanding that he condemn Eutyches and Nestorius explicitly and subscribe to Leo's Tome to Flavian (Leo, Ep. 80, 85).

On the accession of Marcian and Pulcheria as emperors in late August of 450, Anatolius accepted Leo's conditions, agreed to the rehabilitation of the bishops deposed at Ephesus in 449, and exhumed the body of Flavian for burial in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. He encouraged Emperor Marcian to call the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and played a critical part in its decisions, taking his position immediately after the papal legate. In agreeing to the condemnation of Dioscorus for his unjust activity at the Robber Synod, not for doctrine, he was instrumental both in convincing the Illyrian and Egyptian bishops of the orthodoxy of Leo's Tome and in formulating the statement of faith that became the council's decision. Anatolius, accused by Pope Leo of ambition in promoting canon 28 of the council, which declared the See of Constantinople second after Rome, protested his innocence but eventually wrote a letter of submission and entered into full communion with Rome. He was rebuked by Leo for exceeding his authority in consecrating Maximus successor to Domnus of Antioch, but in general he cooperated with the Pope in pursuing an anti-Monophysite policy, particularly after the accession of Emperor Leo I in 457. His part in the coronation of Marcian as emperor is not clear, but the ceremony for Emperor Leo set the precedent for all subsequent Byzantine coronations.