Ecumenical Councils Turkey Council of Chalcedon (451)
Although Pope Leo I, the Great, asked Theodosius II to summon a
council for the definition of the orthodox doctrine once more, to bring
an end to the ecclesiastical chaos, his request was refused. Shortly
after Theodosius' death his sister Pulcheria, marrying a senator and
veteran soldier Marcian (450-57), became empress and in accordance with
the Pope's wish summoned a great council at the church of St. Euphemia
in Chalcedon.
The participancy of some six hundred bishops at this council shows the
extent of the displeasure that the Robbers Council had created in the
eastern provinces. This was the greatest of the seven Ecumenical
Councils, and in importance second to only the First Council of Nicaea.
The
council
reconfirmed that Christ was a single person with two natures, one divine
and one human. However, it was unable to define the relationship between
the two natures which was the cause of the controversy. Thus both
Nestorianism, which overstressed the human element in Christ, and
Monophysitism, which overemphasized the divine at the expense of the
human nature of Christ, were condemned.
The result did not satisfy either Alexandria or Antioch. Among the other
decisions taken at the council - when the Roman delegates were absent -
was the elevation of Constantinople to the level of Rome: 'The See of
Constantinople shall enjoy equal privileges with the See of Old Rome.'
This left Rome nothing but titular supremacy. In other words while the
bishop of Rome might enjoy a primacy of honor in the Church universal,
the bishop of Constantinople, the evident capital of what was left of
the Roman empire, became his equal in authority.
This canon known as 'Canon Twenty-Eight' was strongly objected to by
Rome and became one of the steps which ultimately led to the separation
of the Churches of the East and West in 1054. The new position given to
the church of Constantinople, combined with national and political
factors, also alienated Egypt, Syria and Palestine from the empire.
Shortly after the council the Egyptian Monophysites elected their own
patriarch in Alexandria, separate from the one assigned to the port by
the capital, and took the first step for the foundation of the Egyptian
Church which would be known as the Coptic Church. When the Moslem armies
who believed in the single Person of Allah arrived in the seventh
century, the Coptic Church readily submitted to them.
Ecumenical Councils Turkey
First Council of Nicaea
(325)
First Council of Constantinople
(381)
Council of Ephesus
(431)
Council of Chalcedon
(451)
Second Council of Constantinople
(553)
Third Council of Constantinople
(680-1)
Second Council of Nicaea
(787)