Severos

   Bishop of Antioch (qq.v) from 512-518 and untiring promoter of Monophysitism (q.v.). He gained great prominence during the reign of Anastasios I (q.v.), who favored him. However, in 518 Justin I (q.v.) sent Severos into exile and launched a persecution of Monophysites. Justinian I (q.v.) invited him to Constantinople (q.v.) for negotiations, where Theodora (q.v.) arranged for him to stay at the Great Palace (q.v.). Nevertheless, he was condemned at a synod in Constantinople in 536 and spent the last years of his life in the Egyptian desert. The theologian Leontios of Byzantium (died ca. 543) wrote a work attacking him. Zacharias of Mytilene (q.v.) wrote his vita (q.v.).