Abstract: Discusses religious and political developments in east and west between 474 and 527, when Italy was ruled from Ravenna by the Arian Ostrogoth Theoderic and the east by the emperors Zeno the Isaurian, Anastasius, and Justin. The period was marked by Theoderic's determination to keep the Latin and Greek churches apart and by Zeno's attempt at reconciliation among eastern Christians by an instrument of union known as the Henotikon (482). But this was opposed by the Monophysites, while the popes in Rome tried again to affirm their authority on the basis of the canons of Chalcedon. Various attempts at conciliation between Rome and Constantinople failed and relations were uneasy at best, violently hostile at worst.

Keywords: Constantinople, Monophysites, papacy, Rome, Zeno the Isaurian,