Atticus
Atticus
Patriarch of Constantinople (406-425), born at Sebaste in Armenia; died 425. He was educated in the vicinity of his native town by Macedonian monks, whose mode of life and errors he embraced. When still young he went to Constantinople, abjured his heretical tenets, and was raised to the priesthood. He and another ambitious priest, Arsacius, were the chief accusers of St. Chrysostom in the notorious Council of the Oak, which deposed (405) the holy patriarch. On the death (406) of the intruder Arsacius, he succeeded him in the See of Constantinople, and at first strove hard, with the help of the civil power, to detach the faithful from the communion of their lawful pastor. But finding that, even after the death of St. Chrysostom, they continued to avoid his own spiritual ministrations, he re-inserted the name of his holy predecessor in the diptychs of the churches. This change of attitude and his charity to the poor gradually made him less unpopular, and he at length managed to have himself recognized as patriarch by Innocent I. Intent upon enlarging the prerogatives of his see, he obtained from Theodosius the Younger two rescripts which placed Bithynia and Illyria under his jurisdiction. Rome resisted these encroachrments, and the rescripts, thanks to the intervention of Honorius, were recalled. Atticus in some measure atoned for his ambition and the irregularity of his promotion by his zeal in the cause of orthodoxy. He drove the Messalians from Pamphylia and his opposition to the Pelagians caused him to be praised by Celestine I as “a true successor of St. Chrysostom”.
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A.J.B. VUIBERT Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Atticus
ST., patriarch of Constantinople in 406, during the life of the rightful patriarch, Chrysostom; he succeeded Arsacius, who was intruded into the throne when Chrysostom was driven away. He was born at Sebaste, in Armenia, and led an ascetic life under Eustathius, the bishop of that see. He was a man of ability. Palladius accuses him of being the author of the conspiracy against Chrysostom; and the share he took in the persecution of that saint, and his refusal after his death to replace his name on the diptychs, caused the Western bishops and the people of Constantinople to refuse him their communion until the name of St. Chrysostom was restored. Socrates, who was no great admirer of Chrysostom, gives a more favorable account of Atticus (lib. 6, cap. 20; 7, cap. 2). He died Oct. 10, 426, having filled the see twenty years. Socrates has preserved a letter of this patriarch to Calliopius, bishop of Nicaea, in which he informs him that he has sent him three hundred golden crowns for the poor of that city. He directs him to administer to the wants of those poor persons who were ashamed to come forward for relief, and on no account to give anything to those who made a business of begging. He also recommends that the distribution should be made without any distinction as to religious grounds (Hist. Eccles. 7, 25). Sozomen (Hist. Eccles. 8, 27) says of him that he possessed more natural gifts than literary attainments, while he evinced aptitude for the management of affairs, and was as skillful in carrying on intrigues as in evading the machinations of others. His sermons did not rise above mediocrity, and were not accounted by his auditors of sufficient value to be preserved in writing, and asserts that as Atticus was distinguished alike for learning, piety, and discretion, the churches under his episcopate attained a very flourishing condition. He also wrote to Eupsychius concerning the incarnation (Theodoret), and to St. Cyril of Alexandria concerning the restitution of the name of St. Chrysostom in the diptychs, and another to Peter and AEdesius, deacons of the church of Alexandria, concerning the restoration of peace in that church. A fragment of a homily on the Nativity will be found in Labbe, 3, 116. Cave, Hist. Lit. 1, 384; Landon, Eccles. Dict. 1, 610.