Letter 39: He rebukes Flavian for not answering his repeated letters. Leo, the bishop, to Flavian, the bishop. Flavian was the Patriarch of Constantinople Our anxiety is increased by your silence, for it is long now since we received a letter from you, beloved: while we who bear a chief share in your cares , through our anxiety for the defense of the Faith...

Pope Leo the GreatFlavian, of Constantinople|c. 445 AD|Pope Leo the Great
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He rebukes Flavian for not answering his repeated letters.

Leo, the bishop, to Flavian, the bishop. Flavian was the Patriarch of Constantinople

Our anxiety is increased by your silence, for it is long now since we received a letter from you, beloved: while we who bear a chief share in your cares , through our anxiety for the defense of the Faith, have several times , as occasion served, sent letters to you: that we might aid you with the comfort of our exhortations not to yield to the assaults of your adversaries in defense of the Faith, but to feel that we were the sharers in your labour. Some time since we believe our messengers have reached you, brother, through whom you find yourself fully instructed by our writings and injunctions, and we have ourselves sent back Basil to you as you desired. Now, lest you should think we had omitted any opportunity of communicating with you, we have sent this note by our son Eupsychius, a man whom we hold in great honour and affection, asking you to reply to our letter with all speed, and inform us at once about your own actions and those of our representatives, and about the completion of the whole matter: so that we may allay the anxiety which we now feel in defense of the Faith, by happier tidings. Dated 11th August in the consulship of the illustrious Asturius and Protogenes (449).

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Source. Translated by Charles Lett Feltoe. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604039.htm>.

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Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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