Pontianus was a sixth-century Christian bishop from an African diocese (not known), and Bishop of Constantinople, who was a figure in the

Three-Chapter Controversy The Three-Chapter Controversy, a phase in the Chalcedonian controversy, was an attempt to reconcile the non-Chalcedonians of Syria and Egypt with Chalcedonian Christianity, following the failure of the '' Henotikon''. The ''Three Chapters'' ( ...

. He wrote a critical letter to

Emperor Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized '' renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition w ...

in 544–5, in reply to a request for his signature to an edict of condemnation. In it he asked Justinian to withdraw the

anathematization The word anathema has two main meanings. One is to describe that something or someone is being hated or avoided. The other refers to a formal excommunication by a church. These meanings come from the New Testament, where an anathema was a person ...

Theodore of Mopsuestia Theodore of Mopsuestia (Greek: Θεοδώρος, c. 350 – 428) was a Christian theologian, and Bishop of Mopsuestia (as Theodore II) from 392 to 428 AD. He is also known as Theodore of Antioch, from the place of his birth and presbyterate. ...

and other Monothelites involved in the matter of the Three Chapters. This letter is extant. He argues that the condemned writings were not known to him, and that dead men shouldn't be damned by the living, which is God's prerogative stating "and what cause have we to enter into a war with the dead, where there is no victory?" In this he ignored precedents for posthumous condemnation. He also argued that the outcome of the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; ) was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey) from 8 Oct ...

of 451, against

Eutychianism Eutychianism, also known as Real Monophysitism, refers to a set of Christian theological doctrines derived from the ideas of Eutyches of Constantinople (c. 380 – c. 456). Eutychianism is a monophysite understanding of how the human and div ...

, should not be undermined.

Other sources

*William Smith and Hery Wace, ''A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines'' (1887), vol.IV-1, article p. 438.

References

{{authority control 6th-century Byzantine bishops 6th-century Byzantine writers 6th-century writers in Latin