Facundus

Bishop of Hermiane in Byzacena c.546-571. When Emperor Justinian published an edict in 543-44 condemning the Three Chapters,* Pope Vigilius at first refused to approve, but later in Constantinople published his Judicatum (548) in which he too condemned the Three Chapters, but explicitly upheld the Council of Chalcedon.* The Western bishops, particularly those of North Africa, were opposed to the Judicatum. A North African council excommunicated Vigilius until he should withdraw it, and Facundus, who was also in Constantinople, refused communion with the pope and published his own Pro defensione trium capitulorum, in which he defended the orthodoxy of the three men concerned and argued that to deny this was to deny the orthodoxy of the Chalcedon Christology. He laid the main blame for the present controversy on the emperor. When the Three Chapters were condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 553, Vigilius excommunicated Facundus. Facundus wrote two other works: Contra Mocianum Scholasticum and Epistola fidei catholicae in defensione trium capitulorum.