Sanctionner le pape sans rompre avec le Siège apostolique ? Retour sur la condamnation de Vigile prononcée par le concile oecuménique de Constantinople II (553)
Résumé
During Late Antiquity, a pope does not usually go personally to a council convoked by the emperor. But, being present in Constantinople from 547, Vigilius can’t argue about the need to stay in his city. He has to find other reasons. For he already knows that synodal decisions will end with an Three Chapters condamnationunbearable to West. He does not want either to represent the renouncement to pontifical program conceived by Leo. So he chooses not to take part to the synod and to publish an alternative decision (first constitutum). As a consequence, under imperial instructions, the council decides to put the maximum pressure on him and to suspend him while, so is it said, maintaining communion with Rome. Remarkable judgement, which reveals the strength of the confrontation, also interestingly attested by two successive forms of conciliar acts preserved in latin.