Domnus II of Antioch

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Domnus II, Patriarch of Antioch of the heavily religious Eastern Roman Empire, and a friend of the influential Saint Theodoret Bishop of Cyrrhus. He was nephew of John I, Patriarch of Antioch, brought up under Euthymius the famous hermit of Palestine. He was ordained deacon by Juvenal of Jerusalem on his visit to the Laura of Euthymus in 429 AD. On the death of his uncle, in 441 AD, he was elected his successor, and almost at once ranked as the chief bishop of the Eastern world.

In 445 AD he summoned a synod of Syrian bishops which confirmed the deposition of Athanasius of Perrha. In 447 AD he consecrated Irenaeus to the see of Tyre (Theodoret, Epistle 110); but emperor Theodosius II, commanded that the appointment should be annulled on the grounds that Irenaeus was both a digamus and a supporter of Nestorianism. He defended Ibas, bishop of Edessa, against charges of promulgating Nestorian doctrines, and summoned a council at Antioch (448) which decided in favor of Ibas and deposed his accusers. Domnus's sentence, though revoked by Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, was confirmed by three episcopal commissioners to whom he and the emperor Theodosius had committed the matter.

As a result, he was deposed at the schismatic Second Council of Ephesus on August 8, 449. Cowed by the authoritarian spirit of Dioscorus, and unnerved by the violence of Barsumas and his monks, Domnus revoked his former condemnation of Eutyches, and voted for the condemnation of Flavian, but in vain. He was the only bishop then deposed and banished who was not reinstated after the Council of Chalcedon—though this may have been by request so he could retire to his beloved monastery.

At that council Maximus II, his successor in the see of Antioch, obtained permission to assign Domnus a pension from the revenues of the church, and on his recall from exile Domnus returned to the monastic home of his youth, ending his days in the Laura of St. Euthymius, where in 452 AD, according to Theophanes, he afforded a refuge to Juvenal of Jerusalem when he was driven from his see (Theophanes, p. 92).

This article uses text from A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies by Henry Wace.

Preceded by John I

Patriarch of Antioch 442—449

Succeeded by Maximus II