The Roman Church And Its Bishops 445
stridently refused to sign the libellus Hormisdae, and Justin in turn refused to
force Dorotheus to stand trial at Rome, as Hormisdas demanded. All of this
makes the notion of a ‘rising papacy’ during the Ostrogothic era rather difficult
to accept.
Justinian’s reign is the subject of numerous studies on church-state rela-
tions, largely because of the emperor’s consistently interventionist stance
on religious matters, though his interests were focused primarily on the
Constantinopolitan and eastern churches.92 Rome is not named in most of his
laws regulating Christian practices and doctrine.93 Indeed Justinian’s courting
of Rome’s bishops was often opportunistic: he used John II to endorse a new
attempt at rapprochement between Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian
churches (the so-called Theopaschite formula), and he leveraged Agapitus’ visit
to Constantinople in 535–6 to depose Anthimus, the bishop of Constantinople.
Justinian also turned to Rome for its support during the final major politico-
doctrinal crisis of the Ostrogothic period, the Three Chapters controversy.
Like the Acacian schism, the Three Chapters controversy has roots in the
Council of Chalcedon.94 Justinian, in the hopes of preventing further misin-
terpretation and debate, moved to condemn certain writings of Theodoret of
Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa in addition to the person of Theodore of Mopsuestia
in an edict published in 543 or 544. However, two of the bishops had been
officially cleared at Chalcedon, thereby putting all Chalcedonian churches
and especially Rome in a difficult situation. In 545, imperial soldiers abducted
Vigilius from a Roman church, and he spent a year in Sicily before moving to
Constantinople. Western sources from the period read this act as a blatant
attempt by Justinian to force Vigilius to condemn the Three Chapters, but the
Goths were about to besiege Rome and Vigilius may have been removed for his
own safety.95 Initially, Vigilius refused to bow to imperial pressure, and many
eminent western bishops and theologians, including Datius of Milan and the
African deacon Ferrandus, supported him. However, once in Constantinople,
the situation became increasingly confused and tense, and over a period of
several years Vigilius changed positions many times on whether to comply
with Justinian and condemn the Three Chapters or to remain in communion
with the western bishops. At least twice Vigilius tried to escape, first by flee-
ing to a church in Constantinople (where he was attacked by imperial sol-
diers) and then by taking refuge in a basilica at Chalcedon. Ultimately in 554
92 Meyendorff, Imperial Unity, pp. 207–50.
93 Demacopoulos, Invention of Peter, p. 120.
94 Price, “Three Chapters and the Council of Chalcedon”.
95 Sotinel, “Emperors and Popes”, p. 281.