Terrorized earlier by Chrysaphius, Pulcheria concealed her sympathies for both Flavian and Pope Leo. Now everything has changed. The remains of Flavian were solemnly brought to Constantinople and buried in the church of the 12 apostles. All those exiled by Dioscorus have been returned. Eutychus was removed from Constantinople outside the city, under surveillance. The faint-hearted bishops themselves began to repent that at the Council of Dioscorus they had "submitted to violence" (!!). Anatolius was forced to kindly receive the Roman legates and sign the tomos of Pope Leo (!). Maximus of Antioch is also (!). They did not want to part with power. In Rome, Pope Leo received statements from the "penitents". Dioscorus, beginning with the non-recognition of Marcian as emperor in Alexandria, continued to think about the return of his triumph.

A fanatic to the point of madness, Dioscorus aggravated his position by the fact that at the time of Pulcheria's accession to the throne, according to the testimony of contemporaries, "he pretended to be the same ruler of the 'ikumeni' as the basileus of Constantinople, he himself wanted to reign over the diocese of Egypt, declaring that this diocese belonged to him rather than to the emperor."

This was politically unwise, just as his "robbery" unction of 449 was unwise. But it used him as a scapegoat for the religious policy of Theodosius II. Dioscorus alone was guilty of everything, "of course" (!!).

Anatolius, having betrayed Dioscorus, continued to bring all the participants in the Ephesian "robbery" to the signature of the tomos of Pope Leo. And it began to seem to Pope Leo that everything was arranged without any council. Moreover, the West was absorbed by the invasion of the Huns. Attila interested the "Westerners" more than some Eutychus. 451 was the year of the Battle of Catalauna against the Huns (Châlon sur Marne).

And in the East "their Eastern" heart was beating. In Constantinople it was believed that without a council it was impossible to "revise" the entire episcopate. It is impossible to crush Dioscorus and his party (not a small one). In addition, it is necessary to finally establish the formula of Christological dogma, once it has already been found. Otherwise, disputes cannot be avoided again. It was decided to convene a council of the largest number of bishops in the famous Nicaea.

The End of Nestorius

It is a bitter curiosity of history, that Nestorius thought the same way. He died just in 451, after the convocation of the Council of Chalcedon and before its opening.

As the whole life of Nestorius, according to the apt expression of his friend Irenaeus, is a "tragedy", so his end is dramatic to the point of enchantment. The newly discovered materials about its end are positively waiting for their historian-novelist.

Nestorius' peaceful life in the Great Oasis of Kargeh, in particular in the city of Hibe, was catastrophically disrupted by the raid and devastation of the barbarians, the nobads, who came from the upper reaches of the Nile. The nobads in the crowd of captives also captured Nestorius. But, trembled by their rivals in robbery, namely the tribe of Maziks, the Nobads threw the captives and entrusted them to the intelligent leadership of Nestorius. They were ordered to go to the Nile Valley. In essence, it was liberation. Everyone began to save themselves as best they could. However, a group remained with Nestorius, which reached the city of Panopolis (Ahmin). Here Nestorius stayed for several years, hiding in a very hot place and fearing revenge from the fanatical monastic leader Schnudi, who lived nearby.

But Dioscorus and Chrysaphius (then still in force), having learned of the fate of Nestorius, sentenced him to exile in upper Egypt to Elephantine (Aswan), on the border (a kind of Siberia). From there, it was soon ordered to return him to Panopolis. The old man returned there, already half-broken. On the way, he fell from a donkey and broke his arm and ribs. From here he was sent to a new, fifth place of exile, and from there he was driven to the sixth, they wanted to "drive him in". And the "strong" old man did not abandon his pen in this sixth place of exile, he was completing his apology, a monument known to the historian Evagrius, but just discovered for us in the Syriac language and published only in 1910 in Germany in translation by Bejan and in French with his own cooperation by Abbé Nau (F. Nau. Paris, 1910). In 1908, Béthune-Backer published a study entitled "Nestorius and his Teaching", in which he argued that Nestorius was Orthodox and that his condemnation was a mistake. Indeed, the work of Nestorius (this is a large volume of 300 pages) provides fresh material for the revision of the question of Nestorius. It clearly illuminates Nestorius' subjective point of view on his whole affair.

Nestorius' work in Syrian bears the title "Tegurta Heraclidis". This can be translated: "The Commerce of Heraclides". Béthune-Baker translated: "The Bazaar of Heraclides". But this is probably a translation of the Greek word "πραγματεία", which means a trade treaty, a treatise. Hence the simple "treatise" in the literary sense: "Πραγματεία περι = treatise on..." Heraclides of Damascus is a pseudonym. The name of Nestorius would have doomed the book to be burned. The book presents a dialogue between Nestorius and Sophronius. The latter pseudonym clearly hides Cyril of Alexandria. In the dialogue, the acts of the Council of Ephesus in 431 and many other writings of Cyril are criticized. Nestorius then responds to the information that has reached him about the affair of Eutychus and Flavian, about the shameful triumph of Dioscorus in Ephesus in 449, about the death of Flavian, about the intervention of Pope Leo, about the death of Theodosius II, and about the new course under Pulcherius and Marcian. The last fact, unknown to us from other sources, is Dioscorus' attempt to escape from exile. And in exile, as we know, Dioscorus was nevertheless taken away after the Council of Chalcedon, namely to the Paphlagonian Gangras. Nestorius no longer speaks of the Council of Chalcedon. His pen stopped before receiving information about the acts of the council.

We know that Nestorius was visited in an oasis by Paul, a bishop from Syria, who was later deposed by Dioscorus in Ephesus. At the death of Nestorius, his faithful friend, the exiled bishop Dorotheus of Marcianopolis, was with him. These are the ways in which Nestorius inquired. He was delighted with the tomos of Pope Leo and did not write to him only so as not to damage the authority of the Pope with his correspondence. But Nestorius wrote a letter to the people of Constantinople, expressing his solidarity with Flavian and Pope Leo. Here he condemns and anathematizes Eutychus, criticizes the judgments of certain "Nestorians" and Apollinarians. This letter gave rise in Constantinople to seek that Nestorius be invited to the Council of Chalcedon. A few decades later, the Alexandrian Patriarch Timothy Elurus tells us that at that moment an envoy from the emperor Marcian arrived to Nestorius in the area near Ahmin (Panopolis) and announced to Nestorius, and with him to Dorotheus of Macrianople, that they should no longer fear the persecution of their enemies. Zacharias Scholasticus adds to this that the exiles even set out on their journey. Where to? As if to himself, to his native lands. But the fall from the horse hastened the death of Nestorius. Nestorian biographers depict this moment as the beginning of Nestorius' complete rehabilitation and that only death prevented him from experiencing the triumph. Jacobite biographers (Monophysites), on the contrary, depict this moment as an adventurous attempt by Nestorius to escape from exile, and his fall from his horse ended in a terrible death: the loss of his tongue and the filling of the belly of the man killed by worms...

Nestorius' Apology reflects his heroic conviction that he would not return from exile, and therefore he selflessly writes: "My fervent desire is that the Lord of heaven and earth be blessed! And let Nestorius remain anathema. It pleases the Lord that people should be reconciled to Him, cursing me. I would not refuse to cross out what I said if I were sure that it was necessary and that people would turn to God through it."