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Chalcedonian and non -chalcedonian
What are the real difference between Chalcedonian(greeks, russians, romanians...) and non -chalcedonian churchs(coptic, armenian , syriac or ethiopian...), I am syriac orthodox , and , as my coptic or armenian brothers in Christ, I am orthodox but not chalcedonian.
I know that the problem invoved the interpretation about christologic nature, what are the reasons of the misunderstanding of the Chalcedon Council(419?) ?
I know that the problem invoved the interpretation about christologic nature, what are the reasons of the misunderstanding of the Chalcedon Council(419?) ?
Comments
What are the real difference between Chalcedonian(greeks, russians, romanians...) and non -chalcedonian churchs(coptic, armenian , syriac or ethiopian...), I am syriac orthodox , and , as my coptic or armenian brothers in Christ, I am orthodox but not chalcedonian.
I know that the problem invoved the interpretation about christologic nature, what are the reasons of the misunderstanding of the Chalcedon Council(419?) ?
Shlomo,
The Council of Chalcedon was held in 451. To cut a long story short, there was disagreement between the two sides regarding the term "two natures."
Pope Dioscoros of Alexandria felt that it did not adequately preserve the unity of Christ's humanity and divinity.
The supporters of the Council, particularly Pope St. Leo of Rome, however, felt that the term "two natures" was essential in preserving the faith against Eutychean monophysitism.
This is not to say that Chalcedonians reject the Cyrillian term "One nature of the Logos Incarnate", which was upheld as Orthodox by the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553.
These were the theological concerns. However, politics were just as important. Leo's condemnation of Discoros; Dioscoros' condemnation of Leo; the Council's reaction to this by condemning Dioscoros; Leo's support for Theodoret; Dioscoros' support for Eutyches; anti-imperialist sentiments within Egypt; claims of Constantinople trying to up its political power; claims of Rome trying to enforce papal claims, etc, etc, etc.
Its a pretty complicated matter to say the least.
In recent meetings between the two Churches, their respective leaders have declared that the other side is wholly Orthodox with respect to Christology.
I also know that the Antiochian and Syriac churches are in something of a quasi-communion. Bishops may not concelebrate, but priests may in certain cirumstances. Also, one church will be expected to cater for the needs (including Holy Communion) of believers from the other side where they cannot be catered for there - i.e. if a Syriac Christian lives in a town with no Syriac church, he can commune in an Antiochian one and vice-versa.
Also, the Coptic and Greek Patriarchates of Alexandria have agreed to recognise eachothers marrage services as valid. This also entails that all sacraments can be administered by both churches to those in such an inter-marriage.
So the rift is slowly beginning to heal. God willing, it won't take too long.
Other differences are merely related to cultural expressions, which vary as much within the respective communions as they do between them (music, language, vestments, etc.).
Then, of course, there are Saints. This is a bigger problem. For example, Chalcedonians revere Pope St. Leo as a Saint, whilst non-Chalcedonians revere people like Samuel the Confessor, who was vehemently against Leo and accused him of heresy.
To draw a comparison between Leo's relation to Theodret, and St. Dioscoros relation to Eutychus, is absurd and fits well the Chalcedonian agenda of mispresenting the truth.
First, what exactly is the heresy that Eutychus taught ? When was it a danger and when did he give a formula for his faith that is clearly a heresy ? There is no hard evidence to convict Eutychus of the monophysite heresy that the Chalcedonian invented as a counter attack to what is a very weak position of the council.
Second, St.Dioscoros never accepted Eutychus when he was excommunicated under the council of Constantinople 448, although it was one made of clowns and heretics. Only after the holy synod in 449 a.d. was summoned and the heretics of the likes of Flavian and Eusebius as well as Theodret were condemned and Eutychus presented a sound statement of faith was he accepted back in communion. This is the work of a holy Pope like St.Dioscoros, who did never break any church canon and cannot be convicted by association with Eutychus.
As for Leo and Theodret, Leo is the Father of the heresy of Papal SUpremacy and did not view himself as subordinate to any council, he viewed himself as above the Church and as such did not pay respect the holy decisions of the council of Ephesus 449 that excommunicated Theodret. He accepted a heretic back into communion without any repentance of Thedoret.
Leo knew all along that Theodret was a heretic, for after the council of Chalcedon, he sent to him rebuking him for not accepting to anathemize Nestorius. This does not make Leo orthodox, for the Tome is full of Nestorianism but in another level.
Chalcedon was a council of thugs and heretics.
So to have more firsthand information, in order to have a sound view - can we post the Tome of Leo for instance, and examine/discuss it (especially the so called nestorian parts)??
I'm curious what's written in this Tome in the first place!!
Its crucial to understand whats not orthodox about the Tome, in order to understand the correct faith.
Anyone agree?
http://www.orthodoxunity.org/document01.html
ears of the most blessed John and received from him the written
confession of faith which he sent by the most blessed Paul, we all held
him to be a heretic; but after he accepted it, we were in communion: he
communicated with us and we with him.’
134. Samuel said: ‘The most devout bishop says this now in an attempt
to correct his error. It is for us to prove that he called Cyril a heretic, and
afterwards corrected himself and said, “Until he anathematized his
chapters, he was a heretic”.’
135. The most religious Bishop Ibas said: ‘I have no memory of an
anathema; I followed the council of the Orient. Do you want written
testimony? Produce written testimony. Do you want oral testimony?
Produce oral testimony.’
136. The most God-beloved bishops said: ‘If it transpires that after the
death of the most blessed and holy Cyril the most religious Bishop Ibas
called him a heretic and held him to be a heretic, prove it.’
137. Maras said: ‘We can prove it.’94 …95
The same hallowed secretary read out the following:
93 Justinian attempted to argue that this implies a denial of the authenticity of his Letter to
Mari the Persian, written after the accord of 433 and yet critical of Cyril; see Facundus, Defence
of the Three Chapters 5.2.4.
94 The bishops demand proof that Ibas called Cyril a heretic not merely after the
reconciliation between the churches in 433 but after Cyril’s death in 444. But the real question
is whether Ibas claimed that Cyril had been a heretic before 433 or followed the approved line
that, once Cyril and the Orientals had come to a proper understanding of each other’s position,
they realized that the charge of heresy had arisen only as a result of misunderstanding. It was
Chalcedon2_09_10th session 294 9/29/05, 9:33 AM
THE TENTH SESSION (BERYTUS 449) 295
Translation of a letter written by the most devout Ibas bishop of the city
of Edessa to Mari the Persian 96
138. After the introduction – In brief we have endeavoured to make
known to your lucid understanding, which by means of little discerns
much, what happened before this and what has happened here now,
knowing, in writing this to your religiousness, that through your pains
there will become known to all those there97 our message that the
scriptures given by God have not suffered any distortion. I shall begin
my account with matters that you yourself know well.
Since the time your religiousness was here, a controversy arose
between those two men, Nestorius and Cyril, and they wrote harmful
tracts against each other, which were a snare to those who heard them.
For Nestorius asserted in his tracts, as your religiousness knows, that
the blessed Mary is not Theotokos, with the result that he was thought by
most people to share the heresy of Paul of Samosata, who asserted that
Christ was a mere man. Meanwhile Cyril, in his desire to refute the
tracts of Nestorius, slipped up and was found falling into the teaching of
Apollinarius: for like him he also wrote that the very God the Word
became man in such a way that there is no distinction between the
therefore not unreasonable of Ibas’ accusers to produce Ibas’ Letter to Mari at this point, even
though it was not directly relevant to the demand made by the bishops. It is not necessary to
adopt Schwartz’s suggestion (ACO 2.1.3 p. xxv) that the accusers’ true response has been
suppressed.
95 Some omissions may be detected here. The secretary would not have read out the Letter
to Mari without instructions from the bishops. In addition, this sentence is followed in the
Greek MSS by the words
νγνων,
νγνωµεν,
νγνω, a formula of verification that often
follows a speech by the chairman at Chalcedon (see II. 2n.): this implies, as Schwartz observes
ad loc., that an interruption by the chairman in the reading of the minutes of Berytus was at first
recorded and then omitted. More serious is the omission of any introduction to, or discussion of,
the following letter. This all points to editorial suppressions at the time of the Three Chapters
controversy, for which see pp. 271–2 above.
96 This letter was written by Ibas, when still a presbyter, in the wake of the agreement
between Cyril of Alexandria and the Syrian bishops expressed in the Formula of Reunion of
433; for the events narrated here, see General Introduction, vol. 1, 18–24. Van Esbroeck 1987
identifies Mari with a monk, probably a Persian refugee, of the Acoemete monastery at
Constantinople; he sees this identification confirmed by the reference to ‘day and night’
exercises at the end of the letter. But Syriac sources from the sixth century identified him with
a bishop in the Persian empire (‘Mari’ simply means ‘my lord’), and the wording of the
beginning of the letter suggests that he was living with his compatriots.
97 Ibas’ letter was intended for wide circulation among the Christians of Persia, who indeed
refused to follow the church in the Roman empire in condemning Nestorianism.
Chalcedon2_09_10th session 295 9/29/05, 9:33 AM
296 THE ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON
temple and the one who dwells in it. He wrote the Twelve Chapters, as I
think your religiousness knows, asserting that there is one nature of the
Godhead and the manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that it is
wrong, he said, to divide the sayings that were uttered, whether those
spoken by the Lord about himself or by the evangelists about him.98 How
packed this is with every form of impiety, your holiness will know even
before we say it. For how is it possible that ‘In the beginning was the
Word’99 be taken to refer to the temple born from Mary, or that ‘You have
made him a little less than the angels’100 should be said of the Godhead
of the Only-begotten? What the church says, as your religiousness knows,
and what has been taught from the beginning and confirmed by the
divine teaching of the writings of the blessed fathers is this: two natures,
one power, one person, who is the one Son and Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of this controversy the victorious and pious emperors
ordered the senior bishops to assemble in the city of Ephesus, so that the
writings of Nestorius and Cyril could be judged in the presence of all.
But before all the bishops who had been ordered to assemble had reached
Ephesus, Cyril acted prematurely and pre-empted the hearing of all with
a spell that could blind the eyes of the wise; he had as his motive his
hatred for Nestorius. Even before the most holy and God-beloved
Archbishop John arrived at the council, they deposed Nestorius from the
episcopate, without there being a trial and investigation. Two days after
his deposition we arrived at Ephesus. When we learnt that on the
occasion of the deposition of Nestorius, carried out by them, they had
also proclaimed and confirmed the Twelve Chapters composed by Cyril,
which are contrary to the true faith, and expressed agreement with them
as if they were in harmony with the true faith,101 all the bishops of the
Orient deposed Cyril himself, and decreed a sentence of excommunication
on the other bishops who had endorsed the Chapters. And after this
chaos each returned to his own city; but Nestorius, since he was hated by
his city and by the great men in it, was not able to return there.
98 Ibas is citing the Third and Fourth Anathemas (or Chapters) appended to Cyril’s Third
Letter to Nestorius (Select Letters, 28–31).
99 Jn 1:1.
100 Ps. 8:6, applied to Christ at Heb. 2:9.
101 It is doubtful whether the Chapters were formally approved at the first session of
Ephesus I, but they were immediately inserted into the minutes, and other sources confirm that
the Oriental bishops, on their arrival, understood them to have been promulgated by the
council. See de Halleux 1992, esp. 445–54.
Chalcedon2_09_10th session 296 9/29/05, 9:33 AM
THE TENTH SESSION (BERYTUS 449) 297
The council of the Orient continued to refuse communion to those
bishops who were in communion with Cyril. As a result there was much
resentment among them, with bishops contending against bishops and
congregations against congregations. The event fulfilled the words of
scripture that ‘the foes of the man’ were ‘those of his own household’.102
As a result much abuse was directed at us by both pagans and heretics;
no one dared to travel from city to city or from region to region, but
everyone persecuted his neighbour as if he were an enemy. Many who
did not have the fear of God before their eyes, under the pretext of zeal
for the churches, hastened to put into action the hidden hatred they had
in their hearts. One of these happened to be the tyrant of our city,103 who
is not unknown to you, who on the pretext of the faith avenged himself
not only on the living but also on those who had formerly departed to the
Lord. One of these was the blessed Theodore,104 the herald of the truth
and teacher of the church, who not only in his lifetime compelled the
heretics to accept his true faith but also after his death bequeathed to the
children of the church a spiritual weapon in his writings, as your
religiousness discovered from meeting him and became convinced on the
basis of his writings. But the one of limitless effrontery had the effrontery
to anathematize publicly in church the man who, out of zeal for God, not
only converted his own city from error to the truth but also instructed far
distant churches by his teaching. A great search was made everywhere
for his books, not because they are contrary to the true faith – indeed,
while he was alive, he constantly praised him and read his books –, but
out of the secret hatred he had towards him, because he had publicly
reproved him at the council.105
While these evils were taking place, with each person, as it is
written,106 wandering off on his own, the God we must worship, who in
his mercy at all times looks after the church, moved the heart of our most
faithful and victorious emperor to send a great and notable man from his
102 Mt. 10:36.
103 Bishop Rabbula of Edessa (412–35). He was initially a supporter of Theodore of
Mopsuestia and Nestorius, but changed over to the side of Cyril immediately after Ephesus I.
This was crucial in the steady process of the marginalization of the Antiochene School.
104 Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), the greatest of the Antiochene theologians, on whom
see Young 1983, 199–213.
105 According to Barhadbeshabba Arbaya, a Nestorian bishop writing c.600, Theodore had
rebuked Rabbula at a council at Constantinople for beating one of his clerics (PO IV. 380–81).
106 Perhaps a paraphrase of Joel 2:7, ‘Each man will journey on his own way.’
Chalcedon2_09_10th session 297 9/29/05, 9:33 AM
298 THE ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON
palace to require the lord John the most holy archbishop of the Orient107
to be reconciled with Cyril, who had been deposed by him from the
episcopate. After receiving the emperor’s letter, he sent the most holy
and God-beloved Paul bishop of Emesa, recording through him the true
faith, and instructing him to enter into communion with Cyril if he
assented to this faith and anathematized those who say that the Godhead
suffered and those who say that there is one nature of Godhead and
manhood. And the Lord, who at all times looks after his church, which is
redeemed by his blood, chose to soften even the heart of the Egyptian,108
with the result that he assented to the faith without trouble and accepted
it, and anathematized all those whose beliefs are contrary to it. Now that
they were in communion with each other, controversy was removed from
their midst, and peace returned to the church; no longer is there schism
in it, but peace as before.109
As for what are the words written by the most holy and God-beloved
Archbishop John and the reply he received from Cyril, I have attached
the letters themselves to this one to your religiousness and sent them to
your sacredness, so that when you read them you may discover, and inform
all our brethren who love peace, that controversy has now ceased, the
dividing wall of enmity has been demolished,110 and that those who lawlessly
assailed the living and the dead are shamefaced, apologizing for
their errors and teaching the opposite of their previous teaching; for no
one now dares to say that there is one nature of Godhead and manhood,
but they profess belief in the temple and the one who dwells in it, who is
the one Son Jesus Christ. This I have written to your religiousness out of
the great affection I have for you, confident that your holiness exercises
yourself day and night in the teaching of God, in order to benefit many.111
107 Bishop John of Antioch (428–41/2). The official was the tribune and notary Aristolaus
(PLRE 2, 146–7).
108 Ibas is comparing Cyril to Pharaoh of Egypt, whose heart the Lord repeatedly hardened
until finally he yielded and let the Israelites depart from Egypt (Exodus 7–12). Cf. the
acclamation at Ephesus II with reference to Nestorius and Ibas, ‘Let none remain of the whole
company of Pharaohs’ (Syriac Acts, trans. Perry, 125).
109 For a full account of Paul’s mission, from the meeting at Antioch to the restoration of
peace between Cyril and the Syrian bishops, see Kidd 1922, III, 256–62.
110 Cf. Eph. 2:24. This echoes the opening of one of the letters Ibas is referring to, Cyril’s
Letter to John of Antioch (see I. 246 for the full text).
111 We do not know how the proceedings at Berytus/Tyre continued, except that they were
clearly inconclusive and the judges decided to act as mediators rather than pronounce sentence
as judges (IX. 7).
Chalcedon2_09_10th session 298 9/29/05, 9:33 AM
THE TENTH SESSION 299
(Chalcedon)
139. Ibas the most devout bishop said: ‘Let your clemency order that
the letter from the clergy of Edessa be read, so that you may learn that I am
a stranger to the charges brought against me and have suffered violence.’
‘From what has just been read it has become clear that the most devout Ibas
is guiltless of everything charged against him; and from the reading of the
transcript of the letter PRODUCED BY HIS ADVERSARY his writing has been seen to
be orthodox. I therefore decree that he is to recover the dignity of the episcopate
and his own city, as has been resolved by the most sacred archbishops
representing the most sacred Archbishop Leo and by the most sacred
Anatolius archbishop of the imperial city. Clearly the most God-beloved
Bishop Nonnus who replaced him should retain the same dignity of the
episcopate so that I with the most God-beloved bishops of the diocese121
may come to a decision about him.’