Council of Constantinople II, 553

inquiry; and the same impious letter stigmatizes the twelve chapters of Cyril [see n. 113 ff.] in the number of the saints as wicked and opposed to the true faith, and justifies Theodore and Nestorius and their impious doctrines and writings; if anyone then defends the said letter, and does not anathematize it, and those who defend it, and say that it is true, or part of it is, and those who have written and are writing in its defense, or in defense of the wicked (ideas) included in it, and dare to justify it or the impiety included in it in the name of the holy Fathers, or of the holy synod (held) in Chalcedon, and have persisted in these (actions) until death, let such a one be anathema.

228. When then these things have been so confessed, which we have received from Holy Scripture, and from the teaching of the Holy Fathers, and from what was defined with regard to one and the same faith by the aforesaid four holy synods, and from that condemnation formulated by us against the heretics and their impiety, and besides, that against those who have defended or are defending the aforementioned three chapters, and who have persisted or do persist in their own error; if anyone should attempt to transmit [doctrines] opposed to those piously molded by us, or to teach or to write [them] if indeed he be a bishop, or belongs to the clergy, such a one, because he acts in a manner foreign to the sacred and ecclesiastical constitutions, shall be stripped of the office of bishop or cleric, but if he be a monk or a layman, he shall be anathematized.