to establish peace by
giving up the defence of Acacius. "I do not extort this from you--as being,
however unworthy, the Vicar of Peter--by the authority of apostolic power;
but, as an anxious father earnestly desiring the prosperity of a son, I
implore you. In me, his Vicar, how unworthy soever, the Apostle Peter
speaks; and in him Christ, who suffers not the division of His own Church,
beseeches you. Take from between us him who disturbs us: so may Christ, for
the preservation of His Church's laws, multiply to you temporal things and
bestow eternal."

In his answer to Fravita, Pope Felix expresses the pleasure which his
election gives, and the hope that it will bring about the peace of the
Church. He takes his synodal letter as addressed to the Apostolic See,
"through which, by the gift of Christ, the dignity of all bishops is made
of one mass,"[50] as a token of good-will, inasmuch as his own letter
confesses the Apostle Peter to be the head of the Apostles, the Rock of the
Faith, and the dispenser of the heavenly mystery by the keys entrusted to
him. He is the more encouraged because the orthodox monks formed part of
the embassy. But when the Pope required a pledge from them that Fravita
should renounce reciting the names of Peter the Stammerer and Acacius in
the church, they replied that they had no instructions on that head. For
this reason the Pope delayed to grant communion to Fravita, and he exhorts
him, in the rest of the letter, not to let the misdeeds of Acacius stand in
the way of the Church's peace. "Inform us then, as soon as possible, on
this, that God may conclude what He has begun, and that, fully reconciled,
we may agree together in the structure[51] of the body of Christ."

Fravita died before he received the answer of the Pope, having occupied
the see of Constantinople only three months, and out of communion with the
Pope.

It would seem that the first successor of Acacius as well as the emperor
receded both from his act and the position which it involved. They
acknowledged in their letters, as we learn from the Pope's recitation of
their words, the dignity of the Apostolic See. What they were not willing
to do was to give up the person of Acacius. What the subsequent patriarchs,
Euphemius and Macedonius, alleged, was that he was so rooted in the minds
of the people that they could not venture to condemn him by removing his
name from commemoration in the diptychs.

In 490, Euphemius followed in th