This is the second of a three-part series explaining the history, meaning, and significance of the Ecumenical Councils. You can read part one here and part three here.
The Third Ecumenical Council
As we have already seen, the first two councils were occupied with questions regarding the Holy Trinity and the relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity — God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We saw that both the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are consubstantial with God the Father — that is, the three persons of the one God are the same in their substance or essence. The following five councils were engaged with theological questions regarding not the Trinity, but the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
The first two councils clearly showed that the Son of God is truly God — but how is this to be understood? For, Jesus Christ was at the same time a man who was born, lived amongst people here on earth, hungered, became tired, experienced anguish, suffered on the cross, and died. How can we understand these very different realities? In the first half of the 5th century, the new archbishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, offered his assumptions as to how this can be understood. It seemed to him that it wasn’t proper, and was even blasphemous, to speak about God being born, being a child, suffering, and dying. Therefore, he rejected the term ‘Theotokos’ or ‘Mother of God’ and insisted that the Most-Holy Virgin Mary was only the ‘Mother of Christ.’ According to the doctrine of Nestorius, Jesus Christ was a man in whom, in a parallel fashion, God was to be found. God came to dwell in Him, but it was not permissible to think that God had joined Himself to a man. God and man remained separate one from another. All those actions of Jesus Christ that were irreconcilable with the idea of God, such as birth from a woman and suffering on the cross, related to the human Jesus Christ. All that which was unnatural for a man — miracles, divine teaching, related to God, taught Nestorius.
The citizens of the capital were outraged by this new teaching, and went so far as to loudly contradict this heresy while the hierarch preached in the church. The defense of Orthodoxy was taken up by the Holy Hierarchs Celestine, the Pope of Rome, and Cyril of Alexandria, who wrote to Nestorius thrice, attempting to convince him that his ideas were contrary to the Orthodox faith. These attempts did not bear fruit. Therefore, in 431, the Third Ecumenical Council gathered in Ephesus. This council was called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, the grandson of Theodosius the Great. It was attended by 200 holy fathers that confirmed the Orthodox teaching that Jesus Christ was at the same time both God and man. The human nature and divine nature are joined in the person of Jesus Christ. There are no two parallel beings or persons in Christ, but one Christ. The Holy Hierarch Cyril beautifully and clearly lays out this Orthodox teaching in his epistles. In his third epistle, the Holy Hierarch Cyril notes that in Christ there are two natures, “in the same sort of way a human being, though he be composed of soul and body, is considered to be not dual, but rather one out of two.”1 Therefore it is completely correct to call the Most-Holy Virgin the Mother of God, since she did indeed give birth to God.
This council and that dogma, or teaching, that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, is both God and man, are important for each one of us for the same reason that the first and second councils are important. For us sinful people, it is beyond our strength to live without sin, to become God-like, and, in such a way, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven without an intercessor between mankind and God. Only He who can join together man and God can be such an intercessor. This cannot be simply a man, nor an angel, nor any other created creature — for God, by His own nature, is incomprehensible. Only God Himself can join man to God. If, as Nestorius taught, God did not become a man, was not born, did not suffer or die on the cross, then we — that is the entire human race — do not have a firm union with Him and our hope for salvation is futile. On the other hand, if Jesus Christ is at the same time both God and man, as St Cyril and the other fathers of the Third Ecumenical Council taught — which continues to be the teaching of the Church to this day — the most sublime possibilities are before us, about which even the angel cannot dream for themselves. We have an open door to the incomprehensible God Himself through His Son, who was incarnate and became the most real man, lived amongst us, and accepted voluntary death for the sake of our salvation.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council
Not long after the completion of the third council, new theological disagreements about the second person of the Holy Trinity began to appear. As is sometimes the case, the reaction to a certain evil can be too energetic, and a new extreme can appear. This is what happened after the Third Ecumenical Council. Let’s remember that the heretic Nestorius taught that in the person of Jesus Christ there are two separate beings — man and God — and that there is no sound union between these two beings. Nestorius denied God’s incarnation, suffering, and death. As a reaction to this teaching, a certain monk named Eutychius — an abbot of a large monastery of the capital — began to preach that the union between God and man in the person of Jesus Christ was to such a degree that His human nature, although it existed in the beginning, was completely consumed by the divine nature. As a consequence, he taught that in Christ there was but one divine nature, contrary to the Orthodox dogma that in the person of our Saviour there are two natures, human and divine.
Eutychius and his teaching were condemned at a local council, which was presided over by the Holy Hierarch Flavian of Constantinople in 448. Eutychius could not come to terms with this outcome, and, instead of repenting, appealed this decision to the Roman and Alexandrian hierarchs. The Holy Heirarch Leo, the Pope of Rome, supported St Flavian and the Orthodox, while Dioscorus of Alexandria supported Eutychius. Once again, turmoil gripped the Church, and the need for an ecumenical council became evident. Unfortunately, a council which gathered in 449 in Ephesus under the presidency of Dioscorus was not ecumenical but, on the contrary, a ‘robber council.’ At this council, Eutychius was admitted to communion, and in such a manner his dogmas were deemed Orthodox. Contrary to the usual customs and procedures of the Church, the representatives of the Roman Pope were not permitted to speak, and the Holy Hierarch Flavian was beaten so severely and abused physically that he died not many days after the council.
To right these injustices, the new emperors, Saints Marcian and Pulcheria, called a council in the autumn of 451. This was the actual Fourth Ecumenical Council, which gathered in Chelcedon. It was attended by 630 fathers. This council was in session for almost a month and diligently studied all the theological and administrative issues which troubled the Church in those years. The position of the Holy Hierarchs Flavian and Leo were deemed Orthodox, while that of Eutychius pronounced heretical. Dioscorus, although he was summoned thrice, refused to attend the council and answer for his actions at the Robber Council of Ephesus held in 449. He was therefore deposed and exiled. In such a way, the Orthodox dogma that in the person of Jesus Christ there is a human as well as divine nature and that “the distinction of natures [is] by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature [is] preserved, and concurring in one Person” (The confession of Chalcedon)2 was confirmed. Do you see that the important idea that God was truly joined to man was preserved by the council?
Unfortunately, the Fourth Ecumenical Council did not calm the turmoil in the Church. The followers of Eutychius and Dioscorus, also known as the Monphysites, that is those that believe in the one (mono) nature (physis) of Christ, especially those in Egypt and in the East, could not accept the decision of the council and, with time, established their own administrative church structures that exist up to our own time, namely, the Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, etc. The following two councils would return to the question of the Monophysites.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council
Of all the ecumenical councils, this one, at first glance, seems to be the most difficult to understand. This council did not condemn a new heresy, nor did it condemn and exile any living church villain, but instead discussed the written works of long-deceased hierarchs. as well as a famous 3rd-century church writer, the priest Origen. Why did the council take up the question of certain people and their teachings, which no longer had any serious influence on the life of the Church? Everything is much simpler if we remember that the Monophysites were reacting to the Nestorian heresy, and that, although the Fourth Council had clearly defended the Orthodox faith and condemned the Monophysites, they continued to exist, and in certain places even prevailed over the Orthodox.
Let’s remember that the Monophysites taught that Jesus Christ has but one divine nature or essence. The Nestorians, on the other hand, said that Christ was not one person, but has within Him two separate beings which were not joined together soundly. The Orthodox believe that Jesus Christ is one person and that in this person are two natures, human and divine, which are soundly united, but which preserve their unique characteristics and are not merged or conflated in such a manner that it becomes impossible to recognize the separate essences.
The Holy Emperor Justinian, who reigned from 527 to 565, endeavored to heal the schism between the Orthodox and the heretical Monophysites throughout his reign. It became clear that there were certain church writers that the Monophysites considered rabid Nestorians, but who had never been condemned by the Orthodox Church. This fact became a stumbling block for the Monophysites. Amongst these writers were Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa. All of them lived in the first half of the fifth century, and although in their writings they espoused Nestorian teachings, no one had condemned them for heresy during their lifetimes, and they all died members and bishops in good standing of the Orthodox Church. Under Justinian, all the heretical words of these writers were collected into a document called the Three Chapters, and the emperor proposed to condemn them, hoping that in such a way the Monophysites could be calmed and drawn back into the bosom of the Orthodox Church.
This action drew the ire of many, especially in the West, for the Church had never before condemned and anathematized people long dead. The Fifth Ecumenical Council was called because of this dispute. The 165 fathers of this council gathered in the spring of 553 in Constantinople. Theodore of Mopsuestia and his many written works, as well as the heretical writings of Theodoret of Cyrus and Ibas of Edessa, were condemned at this council.
These three hierarchs, along with Nestorius, were students of the Antiochian school, which focused on understanding and explaining Holy Scripture in a literal and historical light. Nestorius and Theodore took this method of explaining Holy Scripture to an extreme, and rejected allegorical or spiritual understandings of the Word of God, and, as a consequence, fell into heresy. The council also condemned Origen, who was a follower of the Alexandrian, allegorical school of thinking. Origen reduced to a minimum the importance of history or philology in the study of the Bible and instead explained it almost exclusively from an allegorical point of view. By condemning all of these heretical writings, the Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned two extremes, not just the one which so angered the Monophysites. Unfortunately, the attempts of Justinian and the fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council were unsuccessful in persuading the Monophysites to accept the Orthodox position and return to communion with the Church.