The Council of Chalcedon

A synod at Constantinople under its bishop Flavian had condemned the monk Eutyches, who confessed two natures in Christ before the union and only one after it (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 1.9). Leo I of Rome supported Flavian in his Tome, which teaches that each nature keeps its own properties and that both meet in one person (Leo, Letters 28.3–5 (the Tome)). In 449 a council at Ephesus under Dioscorus of Alexandria restored Eutyches and deposed Flavian (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 1.10) (Leo, Letters 44.1). Leo called it a meeting “not of judges but of robbers” (Leo, Letters 95.2). The next emperor, Marcian, who owed his throne to the empress Pulcheria and married her, summoned a new council (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 2.1–2).

It met in October 451 in the church of the martyr Euphemia at Chalcedon (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 2.3) (Council of Chalcedon session 3, sentence on Dioscorus). Leo’s legates objected that Dioscorus had come to be judged and must not sit as a judge; he was seated in the middle, and the minutes of Ephesus were read; Dioscorus said that he accepted “of two” natures but not “two” (Council of Chalcedon session 1). He did not answer three summonses and was deposed for disregarding the canons and disobeying the council (Council of Chalcedon session 3, sentence on Dioscorus).

The bishops at first refused to write a new statement of faith (Council of Chalcedon session 2). When the Tome was read they cried out that Peter had spoken through Leo and that Leo and Cyril taught the same (Council of Chalcedon session 2, after the Tome). A first draft did not satisfy the Roman legates, who threatened to leave; the emperor’s officials asked whether the bishops followed Dioscorus or Leo, and a committee wrote a new text (Council of Chalcedon session 5). This Definition confesses one and the same Christ, perfect in Godhead and in manhood, “in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably”, the property of each nature being preserved and united in one person and subsistence (Definition of Chalcedon). Marcian attended the session that followed (Council of Chalcedon session 6).

Canon 28 gave the see of Constantinople, as the imperial city, privileges equal to those of old Rome and the rank next after it (Council of Chalcedon canon 28). The Roman legates, absent when it was voted, protested (Council of Chalcedon session 16). Leo welcomed the council’s judgment on the faith but annulled this canon as contrary to those of Nicaea: a city could be royal, he wrote, without being an apostolic see (Leo, Letters 104.1–3) (Leo, Letters 105.2–3). The Eastern churches kept the canon and renewed it in 692 (Council in Trullo canon 36).

The Greek and Latin churches received the Definition; Gregory the Great later wrote that he revered the four councils like the four Gospels (Gregory the Great, Letters 1.25). Many in Egypt and Palestine refused it; Alexandria rose against the bishop appointed in place of Dioscorus, and he was later killed (Evagrius, Ecclesiastical History 2.5, 2.8). A historian of that side honours Dioscorus as a confessor and confesses Christ as one nature from two (Zachariah, Chronicle 3.1–2); Cyril had written that the incarnate nature of the Word is, after the union, conceived of as one (Cyril, Against Nestorius 2, preface). The Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopian churches, with others, form the Oriental Orthodox family (Catholic–Oriental Orthodox Commission, Report (2016)). They condemn the teaching of Eutyches, receive the first three councils and keep Cyril’s wording (Orthodox–Oriental Orthodox Agreed Statement (1990) 1, 7–8). Modern agreements are told under Ancient Christological Divisions Are Addressed.