Council of Chalcedon (451)

STAMENKA E. ANTONOVA

After the death of Emperor Theodosius II, his sister Augusta Pulcheria married General Marcian, and the two emperors summoned the ecumenical council of Chalcedon (a suburb of Constantinople on the Asia Minor shore) in 450, to meet in 451. It was occasioned by a crisis that had flared up in Christology, resulting from the varied recep­tion that the Council of Ephesus (431) had received since its promulgation. Large parts of the Syrian churches remained unhappy, and Rome wished to have a review of matters related to the pugnacious affirmation of Ephesus 431 that had taken place at Ephesus in 449 under the presidency of Dioscorus of Alexandria. Chalcedon was meant in part as a trial of Dioscorus for his behavior there. The other (related) immediate cause of the council was the controversial teaching of the highly placed Constantinopolitan Archi­mandrite Eutyches, who began to preach in 448 that Christ had two natures before the incarnation but only one nature (Monophysis) after the incarnation. He did this so as to assert the profound unity of the two natures and the integral oneness of the person of Christ. He thought he was follow­ing in the footsteps of Cyril of Alexandria, though his thought significantly deformed Cyril’s theology. Archbishop Flavian of Con­stantinople condemned his teachings in 448 and, consequently, Eutyches turned for help to the Emperor Theodosius II and to Pope Leo I. Hearing that Dioscorus of Alexandria supported Eutyches, they were convinced that the issue merited a much wider dis­cussion at a new council. In 449, there­fore, a synod was called in Ephesus, which led to the highly controversial deposition of Archbishop Flavian, and the acceptance of Eutyches’ Monophysitic teaching. Both Flavian and Theodoret of Cyr appealed to Pope Leo I about the legality of the council, which subsequently gained the epithet of the Latrocinium (Synod of Thieves). Chalcedon was in large measure meant to reopen this case and bring healing to a bitter contro­versy since Flavian had died, seen by many as a direct result of his mistreatment. While he was alive Emperor Theodosius would not countenance a “revision” of what he saw as the united policy of Ephesus 431 and 449, but his accidental death (he fell from his horse) in 450 allowed Pulcheria to move.

Pope Leo I presented the Roman views to the Chalcedonian meeting of largely Greek bishops (they had been refused a reading in 449) in a theological treatise known as Leo’s Tome, which was composed of tra­ditional christological statements drawn from Tertullian and Augustine. The council fathers declared the rightfulness of asserting two natures (physeis), one divine and one human, inhabited by the single divine per­son (hypostasis) of Jesus Christ, the selfsame who was Word of God; with both natures indivisibly but unconfusedly united. This christological formula rested on Greek phil­osophical concepts and carefully tried to balance all the controversial issues. It was resisted by many in the East who wished to make Cyril of Alexandria’s thought the standard term of reference, though Rome and Syrian voices demanded that a clearer sense of the “two natures after the union” must be proclaimed. Even so, the safeguard of the unity of the single divine person was heavily emphasized. The Chalcedonian set­tlement also taught the doctrine of the “Exchange of Properties” (antidosis idiomatum), namely that it was theologi­cally legitimate (because of the singleness of subject in the Lord) to refer the deeds and propria of each nature to the same person: thus the Word of God could be said to weep at the tomb of Lazarus, and the human flesh of Christ could be worshipped as Life and Life-giving. Never­theless, many churches in Egypt and Syria rejected the Chalcedonian statement of faith because of the reference to “Two Natures after the Union,” seeing it as a denial of the unity of the One Christ. They have remained to this day as the Non-Chalcedonian Oriental Orthodox.

The council condemned Eutyches for his teachings and deposed Dioscorus of Alexandria, rehabilitating the memory of Flavian. The Egyptian hierarchs at Chalcedon then left in a bloc, and the resulting divisions caused one of the greatest and longest rifts in church unity in the East. The anti-Chalcedonian move­ment (the Monophysite/Miaphysite schism) spread from Egypt to Syria and beyond, leading to extensive religious and political opposition between the Byzantine and the eastern provinces of the empire. The dissatisfaction in Syria and Egypt with the Chalcedonian Greek Church and the Byzantine emperors perhaps facilitated the Islamic conquest of these Christian ter­ritories in the 7th century, thus hindering further the possibility for reconciliation. The Chalcedonian fathers also added canons to the council, reforming many aspects of the church, and elevating the ecclesial status of Constantinople, establishing the chief sees of the empire as a pentarchy of patriarchates. Rome, for many years, accepted the teaching of the council but refused to endorse the ecclesiastical canons. It did so later; though the relative interpre­tation of the statutes regarding the relative precedence of the churches remained controversial for centuries between Rome and Constantinople, and eventually was at the center of the Great Schism of East and West.

SEE ALSO: Christ; Constantinople, Patri­archate of; Ecumenical Councils; Monophysitism (including Miaphysitism)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Gray, P. T. R. (1979) The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451–553). Leiden: E. J. Brill

Grillmeier, A. and Bacht, H. (1973) Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegentwart, 3 vols., 4th edn. Wuerzburch: Echter.

Samuel, V. C. (1977) The Council of Chalcedon Re-examined. Serampore, India: Serampore College.

Sellers, R. V. (1953) The Council of Chalcedon: A Historical and Doctrinal Survey. London: SPCK. Tanner, N. P. and Albergio, G. (eds.) Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. London: Sheed and Ward.