Maximus II was a 5th-century

patriarch of Antioch Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the bishop of Antioch (modern-day Antakya, Turkey). As the traditional "overseer" (ἐπίσκοπος, ''episkopos'', from which the word ''bishop'' is derived) of the first gentile Christian c ...

. After the deposition of

Domnus II Domnus II, was Patriarch of Antioch between 442 and 449 and a friend of the influential Bishop of Cyrrhus, Saint Theodoret. Biography Domnus was ordained deacon by the Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem in 429 AD and remained at the Monastery of St ...

by the

Second Council of Ephesus The Second Council of Ephesus was a Christological church synod in 449 AD convened by Emperor Theodosius II under the presidency of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria. It was intended to be an ecumenical council, and it is accepted as such by the mi ...

, 449, Dioscorus persuaded the emperor Theodosius II to fill the vacancy with one of the clergy of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. Maximus was selected and ordained, in violation of canon law, by Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople, without the official sanction of the clergy or people of Antioch. Maximus, though his elevation was under questionable conditions, gained a positive reputation in the conduct of his diocese and province. He dispatched ''epistolae tractoriae'' through the churches subject to him as metropolitan, requiring the signatures of the bishops to Pope Leo's famous '' Tome'' and to another document condemning both Nestorius and Eutyches. Having thus discreetly assured his position, he was summoned to the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' 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, Bith ...

in October 451, and took his seat without question, and when the acts of the

were quashed, including the deposition of the other prelates, a special exception was made of the substitution of Maximus for Domnus on the express ground that Leo had opened communion with him and recognized his episcopate (

Philippe Labbe Philippe Labbe ( la, Philippus Labbeus; 10 July 1607 – 16 or 17 March 1667) was a French Jesuit writer on historical, geographical and philological questions. Born in Bourges, he entered the Society of Jesus on 28 September 1623, ...

, ''Concilia'', iv. 682). His most important controversy at Chalcedon was with

Juvenal of Jerusalem Saint Juvenal () was a bishop of Jerusalem from about 422. In 451, on the See of Jerusalem being recognised as a Patriarchate by the Council of Chalcedon, he became the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, an office he occupied until his death in 458. ...

regarding the limits of their respective

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certai ...

ates. It was long and bitter; at last a compromise was accepted by the council, that Antioch should minister to the provinces of the two Phoenicias and Arabia and that the three provinces of Palestine should fall under the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Maximus next appears in a letter, dated June 11, 453, from Leo the Great, to whom he had appealed in defence of the prerogatives of his see. Leo promised to help him against either Jerusalem or Constantinople, exhorting him to assert his privileges as bishop of the third see in Christendom (i.e. only inferior to Alexandria and Rome). Maximus's zeal for the orthodox faith receives warm commendation from Leo, who exhorts him as ''consors apostolicae sedis'' to maintain the doctrine founded by St. Peter ''speciali magisterio'' in the cities of Antioch and Rome, against the erroneous teaching both of Nestorius and Eutyches, and to watch over the churches of the East generally and keep Leo informed about events. Leo closes his letter with a desire that Maximus will restrain unordained persons, whether

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s or laity, from public preaching and teaching.Leo, Epistle 119
/ref> Two years later, 455, the episcopate of Maximus came to a disastrous close by his deposition. The nature of his offence is nowhere specified. We do not know how much longer he lived or what became of him.

References

Sources

* * This article uses text from

' by Henry Wace. {{DEFAULTSORT:Maximus 02 Of Antioch 5th-century births 5th-century deaths Patriarchs of Antioch 5th-century Byzantine bishops 5th-century archbishops