The leading Eastern bishops were coerced, after a short resistance, into subscribing. Mennas, Patriarch of Constantinople, first protested that to sign was to condemn the Council of Chalcedon, and then yielded, as he told Stephen the Roman apocrisarius (ecclesiastical diplomat) at Constantinople, that his subscription should be returned to him if the Pope disapproved of it. Stephen and Dacius, Bishop of Milan, who was then at Constantinople, broke off communion with him. Zoilus the Patriarch of Alexandria, Ephraim the Patriarch of Antioch, and Peter the Patriarch of Jerusalem, all yielded after a brief resistance. Of the other bishops those who subscribed were rewarded, those who refused were deposed or had to "conceal themselves".