First Agreed Statement of the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches
A statement on the person of Christ agreed at the Anba Bishoy monastery in Egypt in June 1989 by delegates of the Eastern Orthodox churches, which receive Chalcedon, and of the Oriental Orthodox churches, which do not.
The commission met at the Anba Bishoy monastery in Wadi El-Natroun from 20 to 24 June 1989. Its statement describes the two groups as two families of Orthodox churches long out of communion with each other. It says that they found common ground in the formula of Cyril of Alexandria, one incarnate nature (or hypostasis) of God the Word, and that the four adverbs that qualify the union of divine and human in Christ, without confusion, without change, without separation and without division, belong to the tradition of both. Those who speak of two natures, it says, do not deny their inseparable union, and those who speak of one united divine-human nature do not deny the continuing presence in Christ of the divine and the human.
A second statement followed in 1990 (see Second Agreed Statement of the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches). Both are texts agreed by a commission and submitted to the churches. See Ancient Christological Divisions Are Addressed.
Cited in
- 1973 to 1994, firm date