He endeavoured to please both parties by steering a middle course in reference to the Chalcedon decrees, but was induced after great hesitation to agree to the request of Anastasius that he should accept the Henoticon, or decree of union, issued by the emperor Zeno. It brought upon him the anathema of the patriarch of Constantinople. Nevertheless riots broke out in ca 511 between the rival parties in the streets of Antioch and emperor Anastasius I's sympathy of Monophysitism prompted loss of favor in Flavian. A synod was convened in Sidon in 512 by the Monophysites, which resulted in Flavian being replaced by Severus. Flavian was then banished to Petra, where he died in 518.
Flavian was soon posthumously enrolled among the saints of the Orthodox Church, and after some opposition he was also canonized by the Latin Church.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.