I think that even before this letter Your Piety will have had intelligence of the outrages committed here. When events so terrible have happened, what place in the world can remain in ignorance of the dire calamity? Report of it has been carried to the ends of the earth, and has brought with it everywhere wide sorrow and lamentation. But the time is not one for lamentation only, but for remedy and for counsel—how best to stay the terrible tempest that has fallen upon the Church. I have therefore considered it my duty to urge certain holy and reverend bishops—Demetrius, Pansophius, Pappus and Demetrius—to leave the churches committed to them, brave the great stretch of seas, embark on this distant journey and make all speed to Your Charity; they can then put all before you clearly and help to contrive an early remedy. With them I have sent my honoured friends the deacons Paul and Cyriacus; I myself will briefly relate events as well as the space of a letter allows.

The Emperor had had laid before him some charges against Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria. He summoned him to, appear alone, but the Patriarch brought along with him a great number of Egyptian bishops, meaning, it would seem, to show at the outset that he had come to give pitched battle. Upon reaching Constantinople—this majestic and sacred capital—he flouted custom and long tradition by not entering the cathedral church and not visiting myself; he would neither speak nor pray nor communicate with me.