Acacians

pl. [From Acacius.] Ch. Hist. The name of several Christian sects. 1. Two sects called after Acacius, Bishop of Cæsarea, who flourished between A. D. 340 and A.D. 366, and wavering between orthodoxy and Arianism, was the head first of the one party and then of the other. 2. A sect which derived its name from Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople from A. D. 471 to A. D. 488. He acted in a conciliatory way to the Monophysites, and was in consequence deemed a heretic by the Roman pontiff and the Western Church, who ultimately succeeded in obtaining the erasement of his name from the sacred registers.