PETER OF APAMEA

Sixth-century Monophysite bishop of Apamea in Syria (II). A disciple of the Monophysite theologian, Patriarch Severus of Antioch (512–518), Peter was installed in Apamea as metropolitan, but deposed in 518 by a synod under the bishop of Mariamne in Syria upon the accession of the Catholic emperor justin i. In 535 Peter accompanied Severus to Constantinople at the invitation of Empress theodora (1), but in the synod held there by Patriarch mennas the following year (May 2 to June 4, 536), he was condemned with his master. In a letter from justinian i to the patriarch (June 10, 536), his name, together with those of Anthimus, the deposed patriarch of Constantinople, Severus of Antioch, and the monk Zooras, was anathematized. This condemnation passed into Justinian's Codex juris as novella 42. It enjoined the banishment of the four guilty men from Constantinople and all the major cities of the empire. Severus fled to the desert of Egypt, but nothing further is known of Peter.

See Also: monophysitism.

Bibliography: j. d. mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collection (repr. Graz 1960) 8:578, 1068–82, 1093–1138. p. peeters, Mélanges Henri Grégoire, v. 2 (Annuaire de l'Institute de philologie et d'histoire orientales et slaves, 10; Brussels 1950) 5–51. a. grillmeier and h. bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 v. (Würzburg 1951–54) v. 2. a. fliche and v. martin, eds., Histoire de l'église depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours (Paris 1935) 4:427, 452.

[p. roche]