The Council of Chalcedon (; Latin: Concilium Chalcedonense) was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey) from 8 October to 1 November 451. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. The principal purpose of the council was to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the teachings of Eutyches and Nestorius. Such doctrines viewed Christ's divine and human natures as separate and distinct (Nestorianism), or viewed Christ as solely divine (monophysitism). The Council of Chalcedon issued the Chalcedonian Definition, stating that Jesus is "perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man." The council's judgments and definitions regarding the divine marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates.
Agenda
The ruling of the council stated:
We all teach harmoniously [that he is] the same perfect in godhead, the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a reasonable soul and body; homoousios with the Father in godhead, and the same homoousios with us in manhood… acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.
Whilst this judgment marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates, it also generated heated disagreements between the council and the Oriental Orthodox churches, which did not agree with such conduct or proceedings. This disagreement would later cause the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Chalcedonian churches to schism, and led to the council being regarded as Chalcedon, the Ominous by the Miaphysites.
The council's other responsibilities included addressing controversy, dealing with issues such as ecclesiastical discipline and jurisdiction, and approving statements of belief such as the Creed of Nicaea (325), the Creed of Constantinople (381, subsequently known as the Nicene Creed), two letters of St. Cyril of Alexandria against Nestorius, and the Tome of Pope Leo I. The Christology of the Church of the East may be called "non-Ephesine" for not accepting the Council of Ephesus, but it did finally gather to ratify the Council of Chalcedon at the Synod of Mar Aba I in 544. Through the 1994 Common Christological Declaration between the Chalcedonian Catholic Church and the Nestorian Assyrian Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church each accepted and confessed the same doctrine of Christology.
Background
In 325, the first ecumenical council (First Council of Nicaea) determined that Jesus Christ was God, "consubstantial" with the Father, and rejected the Arian contention that Jesus was a created being. This was reaffirmed at the First Council of Constantinople (381) and the First Council of Ephesus (431).
Eutychian controversy
About two years after Cyril of Alexandria's death in 444, an aged monk from Constantinople named Eutyches began teaching a subtle variation on the traditional Christology in an attempt to stop what he saw as a new outbreak of Nestorianism. He claimed to be a faithful follower of Cyril's teaching, which was declared orthodox in the Union of 433.
Cyril had taught that "There is only one physis, since it is the Incarnation, of God the Word." It was argued by Pope Leo I that due to potential ambiguity between the various Greek terms and their Latin equivalents, in addition to the energy and imprudence with which he asserted his opinions, Eutyches was misunderstood, and many believed that he was advocating Docetism, a sort of reversal of Arianism – where Arius had denied the consubstantial divinity of Jesus, Eutyches seemed to be denying that Jesus was fully human. Pope Leo I wrote that Eutyches' error seemed to be more from a lack of skill than from malice.
Eutyches had been accusing various personages of covert Nestorianism. In November 448, Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople held a local synod regarding a point of discipline connected with the province of Sardis. At the end of the session of this synod one of those inculpated, Eusebius, Bishop of Dorylaeum, brought a counter charge of heresy against the archimandrite. Eusebius demanded that Eutyches be removed from office. Flavian preferred that the bishop and the archimandrite sort out their differences, but as his suggestion went unheeded, Eutyches was summoned to clarify his position regarding the nature of Christ. Eventually, Eutyches reluctantly appeared, but his position was considered to be theologically unsophisticated, and the synod finding his answers unresponsive condemned and exiled him. Flavian sent a full account to Pope Leo I. Although it had been accidentally delayed, Leo wrote a compendious explanation of the whole doctrine involved, and sent it to Flavian as a formal and authoritative decision of the question.
Eutyches appealed against the decision, labeling Flavian a Nestorian, and received the support of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria. John Anthony McGuckin sees an "innate rivalry" between the Sees of Alexandria and Constantinople. Dioscurus, imitating his predecessors in assuming a primacy over Constantinople, held his own synod which annulled the sentence of Flavian, and absolved Eutyches after he claimed to have repented.
Latrocinium of Ephesus
Through the influence of the court official Chrysaphius, godson of Eutyches, in 449, the competing claims between the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria led Emperor Theodosius II to call a council which was held in Ephesus in 449, with Dioscorus presiding.
Pope Leo sent four legates to represent him and expressed his regret that the shortness of the notice must prevent the presence of any other bishop of the West. He provided his legates, one of whom died en route, with a letter addressed to Flavian explaining Rome's position in the controversy. Leo's letter, now known as Leo's Tome, confessed that Christ had two natures, and was not of or from two natures.
On August 8, 449 the Second Council of Ephesus began its first session. The Acts of the first session of this synod were read at the Council of Chalcedon, 451, and are thus preserved. The remainder of the Acts (the first session being wanting) are known through a Syriac translation by a Miaphysite monk, written in the year 535 and published from a manuscript in the British Museum. Nonetheless, there are somewhat different interpretations as to what actually transpired. The question before the council by order of the emperor was whether Flavian, in a synod held by him at Constantinople in November, 448, had justly deposed and excommunicated the Archimandrite Eutyches for refusing to admit two natures in Christ.
Dioscorus began the council by banning all members of the November 448 synod which had deposed Eutyches from sitting as judges. He then introduced Eutyches who publicly professed that while Christ had two natures before the incarnation, the two natures had merged to form a single nature after the incarnation. Of the 130 assembled bishops, 111 voted to rehabilitate Eutyches.
Throughout these proceedings, Hilary (one of the papal legates) repeatedly called for the reading of Leo's Tome, but was ignored. The Eastern Orthodox Church has very different accounts of The Second Council of Ephesus. Pope Dioscorus requested deferring reading of Leo's Tome, as it was not seen as necessary to start with, and could be read later. This was seen as a rebuke to the representatives from the Church of Rome not reading the Tome from the start.
Not having wanted for the letter to be read aloud for this reason, Dioscorus was then forced to depose Flavian of Constantinople and Eusebius of Dorylaeum on the grounds that they taught the Word having two distinct hypostases, in contrast to Cyril's teachings. According to Chalcedonian accounts, when Flavian and Hilary objected, Dioscorus called for a mob to enter the church which assaulted Flavian as he clung to the altar; other accounts blame one monk, Barsauma, and others yet blame Dioscorus himself. Flavian would die three days later. Other sources, however, implicate Empress Pulcheria and Anatolius of Constantinople, as it would not be realistic for a murder witnessed by many bishops and patriarchs at a major council to go unmentioned, and Flavian himself has letters to Leo after the council that make no mention of such events.
The papal legates refused to attend the second session at which several more bishops were deposed, including Ibas of Edessa, Irenaeus of Tyre, Domnus of Antioch, and Theodoret. Dioscorus then had Cyril of Alexandria's Twelve Anathemas declared orthodox with the intent of condemning any confession other than Cyril's one-nature formula.
According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria collected among the letters of Leo I, Hilary apologized for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod, but owing to Dioscurus, who tried to hinder his going either to Rome or to Constantinople, he had great difficulty in making his escape in order to bring to the pontiff the news of the result of the council. Hilary, who later became pope and dedicated an oratory in the Lateran Basilica in thanks for his life, managed to escape from Constantinople and brought news of the council to Leo who immediately dubbed it a "synod of robbers" – Latrocinium – and refused to accept its pronouncements. The decisions of this council now threatened schism between the East and the West.
The claims that bishops being forced to approve actions, were challenged by Pope Dioscorus and the Egyptian Bishops at Chalcedon.
Convocation and session
The situation continued to deteriorate, with Leo demanding the convocation of a new council and Emperor Theodosius II refusing to budge, all the while appointing bishops in agreement with Dioscorus. All this changed dramatically with the Emperor's death and the elevation of Marcian to the imperial throne. To resolve the simmering tensions, Marcian announced his intention to hold a new council to set aside the 449 Second Council of Ephesus which was named the "Latrocinium" or "Robber Council" by Pope Leo. Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius, may have influenced this decision, or even made the convention of a council a requirement during her negotiations with Aspar, the magister militum, to marry Marcian.
Leo had pressed for it to take place in Italy, but Emperor Marcian instead called for it to convene at Chalcedon because it was closer to Constantinople. This would allow him to respond quickly to any events along the Danube, which was being raided by the Huns under Attila.
The council opened on 8 October 451. Marcian had the bishops deposed by Dioscorus returned to their dioceses and had the body of Flavian brought to the capital to be buried honorably. The Emperor asked Leo to preside over the council, but Leo again chose to send legates in his place. This time, Bishops Paschasinus of Lilybaeum and Julian of Cos and two priests Boniface and Basil represented the western church at the council. The council was attended by about 520 bishops or their representatives and was the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. All the sessions were held in the church of St. Euphemia, Martyr, outside the city and directly opposite Constantinople. As to the number of sessions held by the Council of Chalcedon there is a great discrepancy in the various texts of the Acts, also in the ancient historians of the council. Either the respective manuscripts must have been incomplete; or the historians passed over in silence several sessions held for secondary purposes. According to the deacon Rusticus, there were in all sixteen sessions; this division is commonly accepted by scholars, including Karl Josef von Hefele, historian of the councils. If all the separate meetings were counted, there would be twenty-one sessions; several of these meetings, however, are considered as supplementary to preceding sessions.
Paschasinus refused to give Dioscorus (who had excommunicated Leo leading up to the council) a seat at the council. As a result, he was moved to the nave of the church. Paschasinus further ordered the reinstatement of Theodoret and that he be given a seat, but this move caused such an uproar among the council fathers, that Theodoret also sat in the nave, though he was given a vote in the proceedings, which began with a trial of Dioscorus. Ibas of Edessa, was also declared to be orthodox according to the contents of his letter which were read during the minutes of the Council of Chalcedon.