e see of Constantinople. He was devoted to
the Council of Chalcedon, and ever honoured in the East as orthodox. He
replaced the Pope's name in the diptychs, and renounced communion with
Peter the Stammerer, who had again openly anathematised the Council of
Chalcedon; only he refused to remove from the diptychs the names of his two
predecessors. Pope Felix had written, on the 1st May, 490, to the
archimandrite Thalassio,[52] not to enter into communion with the bishop
who should succeed Fravita, even if he satisfied these demands respecting
Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, unless with the express permission of the
Roman See. This condition he maintained, acknowledging Euphemius as
orthodox, but not as bishop, because he would not remove from the diptychs
the names of two predecessors who had died outside of communion with the
Roman See.

Euphemius had himself subscribed the Henotikon of Zeno, without which the
emperor would never have assented to his election; but he confirmed in a
synod the Council of Chalcedon. When, in April, 491, Zeno died, and through
the favour of his widow, the empress Ariadne, Anastasius obtained the
throne in a very disturbed empire, the patriarch long refused to set the
crown on his head, because he suspected him to favour the Eutychean heresy.
The empress and the senate besought him in vain. He only consented when
Anastasius gave him a written promise to accept the decrees of Chalcedon as
the rule of faith, and to permit no innovation in Church matters. On this
condition he was crowned: but emperor and patriarch continued at variance.
The emperor tried to escape from his promise in order to maintain Zeno's
Henotikon, which he thought the best policy among the many factions of the
East. Euphemius was in the most unhappy position with the monks, who would
not acknowledge him because he was out of communion with the Pope on
account of Acacius.

Pope Felix, having all but completed nine years of a pontificate, in which
he showed the greatest fortitude in the midst of the severest temporal
abandonment, died in February, 492. Italy then had been torn to pieces for
three years by the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick. Gondebald, king
of the Burgundians, had cruelly ravaged Liguria. Then it was that bishops
began to build fortresses for the defence of their peoples. The Church of
Africa was in the utmost straits under the cruelty of Hunneric. Pope
Gelasius succeeded on the 1st March, 492. His po