It is very possible to perceive that the accomplishments of the Empress Pulcheria may not have been possible without the influence of Christianity in the Roman Empire. The historian and theologian H.J.A. Sire writes of how Christianity was responsible for much of the empowerment of women in the imperial governance:
"[A]s Christianity became the imperial religion...we see also a new prominence of women close to the throne. The example was set by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. Under Theodosius II, his sister Pulcheria and his wife Eudocia were powers in the imperial court. On the death of Theodosius in 450, Pulcheria, who is honoured as a saint, became the first woman in Roman history to succeed as Empress in her own right, although convention obliged her to raise a husband to her side in a purely formal marriage; her consort, Marcian, was the first emperor to rule through the matrimonial choice of a woman." (Phoenix From the Ashes, 312-313)
This prominence of women in the imperial government of the Romans prior to Christianity was relatively absent. We also see this transition being made in the lives of the Empresses Irene and Theodora.
Pulcheria was also involved in restoring the succession of Valentinian III as Emperor of the West. Her aunt Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his wife Galla. Placidia had been captured by the Goths and married to their king Ataulf. He died in 415. Placidia would marry the Emperor Constantius III of the Western Roman Empire and he died in 421. She came to Constantinople after a dispute between her and his brother-in-law Honorius. She and her children were received by the Empress Pulcheria and her brother Theodosius II and they conferred the title of Emperor on her son Valentinian III restoring him to the succession of his late father.
The Empress and her brother also participated in the translation of the relics of the Patriarch John Chrysostom into Constantinople. John Chrysostom and had been banished by their parents at a corrupt council ordered by the Empress Eudocia, wife of Arcadius. He went through bitter cold, was savaged by hordes of barbarians in Armenia, and eventually died from starvation. He was never reconciled to the Church in his life as the excommunication was not lifted before he reposed, but the excommunication was glaringly considered unjust by the Church and he was glorified as one of the greatest spiritual teachers, homilists, and saints of all time. His liturgy is celebrated to this day in churches that follow the Byzantine rite, Catholic and Orthodox.
The Eastern Empire flourished in art, intellect, and civilization. The barbarians were suppressed in the East under Pulcheria's governance. Christianity flourished throughout the East too. But heresies also flourished. Guided by her devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Pulcheria very quickly sniffed out the Nestorian heresy. The Patriarch of Constantinople preached that the Virgin could only be called "Christokos" because she gave birth only the human nature of Christ. While acknowledging the dual nature, Nestorius split the natures, leaving the Divine in Heaven and the Human operated independently. But if this heresy was true, then God couldn't have provided a deifying sacrifice for humanity. The natures had to be together when the incarnation occurred. God had to have assumed a human nature or the body of Christ on Earth might as well have been an illusion. She counselled her brother to convene the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus which denounced the heresy of Nestorius and established that Our Lady was to be rendered the title "Theotokos", birth-giver of God, for she gave birth to his humanity that was inseparable from His divinity.
Otto of Freising mentions during the thirtieth year of the Emperor Theodosius II's reign, there was an earthquake in Constantinople but the people, with their bishop Proclus sang "Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us!" the earthquake ceased. "Therefore it was commanded by the emperor and his sister Pulcheria that this chant should be sung all over the world." (The Two Cities, Bk. 4.25) This chant is still sung in churches today and is referred to as the Trisagion. Pulcheria was not about to cease in her contributions to the Church either. She had been known to make many donations to churches, and had combatted the Nestorian heresy. Pope Leo the Great wrote of her,
"How much protection the Lord has extended to His Church through your clemency, we have often tested by many signs. And whatever stand the strenuousness of the priesthood has made in our times against the assailers of the Catholic Truth, has redounded chiefly to your glory: seeing that, as you have learned from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, you submit your authority in all things to Him, by whose favour and under whose protection you reign." (Letter 31)
There was one more heresy for her to combat. After her brother reposed, she took on the Roman commander Marcian as her husband and by this marriage elevated him to the imperial throne in Constantinople. The marriage was chaste and they lived as brother and sister as she never broke her early vow of virginity. Another heresy had been emerging since the Nestorian heresy. This heresy was the monophysite heresy. The monophysite heresy asserted that Christ had one nature which was a mixture of divine and human. Various different forms of the monophysite heresy have broken out over the years. What this would entail is that Christ's nature would have to either be absent of humanity or of a different essence altogether from the Father and the Holy Spirit. This could either lead to denying that Christ was man, in which case the deifying sacrifice could not be made for in the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, "that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved" (Letters, Division 1). The monophysite doctrine would have denied the very central tenant of the incarnation that human flesh was assumed.
Thus, the Empress, following the urging of Pope Leo the Great, called upon Marcian to convene the Council of Chalcedon which reiterated the position of the hypostatic union established at the Council of Ephesus and condemned the monophysite position of the single nature of Christ. But there was still confusion over what this meant afterward. Many people believed that this Council had adopted a position that led to too "Nestorian" a position and the confusion spread throughout the Eastern Empire, often times triggered by the deficiencies of the language to describe the hypostatic union. One of the victims of this confusion was her sister-in-law Eudocia. Pulcheria would continue to urge Eudocia back into union with the Catholic and Apostolic Faith of Chalcedon and Eudocia would heed the urgings of Pulcheria. Because of Pulcheria's urgings to her sister-in-law, calling her back to the faith, we are also able to venerate Eudocia as a saint. Pulcheria went to blessed eternity in the year 453. Pulcheria's Feast Day falls on September 10. She also shares a Feast Day with her husband Marcian on February 17 and with the Empress Irene on August 7. St. Pulcheria, pray for us!
See also:
Dictionary of Saintly Women, Agnes B.C. Dunbar
Pious Kings and Right-Believing Queens, Protopresbyter James Thornton
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