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Coptic Interpretations of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon

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Coptic Interpretations of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon 1 1 Coptic interpretations of the Fourth Ecumenical Council Table of contents 1 The Chalcedon Crisis and Monophysitism 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Misunderstanding 1.3 Common Declaration 1.4 Monophysitism and the Council of Chalcedon 1.5 Two Different Traditions 1.6 Mia Physis 1.7 Mia Physis and Soteriology 1.8 Common Faith 1.9 Recent Efforts for Unity 1.10 Conclusion 2 Agreed Official Statements on Christology with the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches 2.1 Eastern Orthodox Opponents of the Chambesy Union 3 Article by Fr. John S. Romanides 4 Chalcedon (An Analysis) 5 After Chalcedon - Orthodoxy in the 5th/6th Centuries 6 Pope Saint Dioscorus I of Alexandria (Coptic POV) 6.1 Related Saint: St. Timothy Aelurus of Alexandria 6.1.1 The Consecration of St. Timothy 6.1.2 The Murder of Proterius 6.1.3 The Exile of St. Timothy 6.1.4 The Return of St. Timothy from Exile 6.1.5 The Christology of St. Timothy of Alexandria 6.2 Related Event: The Martyrdom of Thirty Thousand Christians in Alexandria 6.3 Related Saint: St. Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople 6.4 Pope Timothy III of Alexandria, Empress Theodora, and Patriarch Anthimus I of Constantinople 7 The Orthodox Christology of St. Severus of Antioch 8 The Humanity of Christ (What Oriental Orthodox Believe) 9 The One Will and the One Act, By HH Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria 10 Additional/Miscellaneous Notes 2 2 The Chalcedon Crisis and Monophysitism Monophysitism: Reconsidered Mia-Physis By Fr. Matthias F. Wahba St. Antonius Coptic Orthodox Church Hayward, California USA Introduction The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, in which I am a priest, is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. These churches are the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, Ethiopian, and the Malankara Indian Churches. The common element among them is their non-acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon of AD 451. Accordingly they prefer to be called "Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches." The Council of Chalcedon caused a big schism within the church which lasted until the present. In addition, after the Arab invasion in the seventh century, the churches lost communication with each other. Through this long period, the non-Chalcedonians were accused of Eutychianism, and called "Monophysites", meaning that they believe in one single nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. They never accepted this idea considering it a heresy. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the issue. Misunderstanding Several publications reflect such an attitude. In The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, for instance, Alexander Kazhdan shows monophysitism as a "religious movement that originated in the first half of the 5th C. as a reaction against the emphasis of Nestorianism on the human nature of the incarnate Christ." The Encyclopedia of the Early Church carries an entry on "monophysitism" where Manlio Simonetti writes, "The term monophysites indicates those who admitted a single nature in Christ, rather than two, human and divine, as the Council of Chalcedon (451) sanctioned." Then he gives examples of Apollinarius and Eutyches, and goes on to mention St. Cyril the Great as having a "Monophysite Christology". Furthermore, in the Coptic Encyclopedia, W.H.C. Frend defines monophystism as a doctrine: opposed to the orthodox doctrine that He (Christ) is one person and has two natures..... The monophysites hold.... that the two natures of Christ were united at the Incarnation in such a way that the one Christ was essentially divine although He assumed 3 3 from the Virgin Theotokos the flesh and attributes of man. Now, what is the actual belief of the Church of Alexandria and the other non- Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches on the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ? Common Declaration In May 1973 H.H. Pope-Shenouda III of Alexandria visited H.H. Pope Paul VI of Rome. Their Common Declaration says: We confess that our Lord and God and Savior and King of us all, Jesus Christ, is perfect God with respect to His divinity, perfect man with respect to His humanity. In Him His divinity is united with His humanity in a real, perfect union without mingling, without commixtion, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without separation. After fifteen centuries, the two prelates declare a common faith in the nature of Christ, the issue which caused the schism of the church in the Council of Chalcedon. This will lead us to throw some light on that council. Monophysitism and the Council of Chalcedon 1- According to some Scholars, there, was no need for it, but politics played a big role. "It was only under constant pressure from the Emperor Marcian that the Fathers of Chalcedon agreed to draw a new formula of belief." 2- The different expressions of the one faith are due in large part to non-theological issues, such as "unfortunate circumstances, cultural differences and the difficulty of translating terms." It is debated whether the opposition to Chalcedon was out of a Christological issue or an attempt to assert Coptic and Syrian identity against the Byzantine. 3- Ecclesiastical politics had been very confused ever since the legislation, in the Council of 381, of a primacy of honor for Constantinople, the New Rome," second only to that of the old Rome. It seems that both Rome and the Emperors used the Council of Chalcedon to carry out their respective plans: Rome for asserting its claim for primacy over the Church and the Emperors for trying to bring the entire Church in the East under the jurisdiction of the See of Constantinople. 4- No one can deny the disadvantages of the imperial interventions in the dispute. Most probably, Chalcedon's decisions and terms would have been different if the Emperor Marcian and his wife Pulcheria had not intervened. Since 450, they were gathering signatures for the Tome of Leo, the bishop of Rome. Many bishops of Chalcedon approved it only as a concession to the bishop whom the imperial authority supported. 4 4 5- The definitions of the Tome were composed in a way that it could be interpreted by different persons, each in his own way. It is known that Nestorius, who was still alive in 451, accepted the Tome of Leo, while the Alexandrines rejected it. 6- The Council of Chalcedon, which is believed to have condemned Eutyches, did not deal with him but with Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria. Eutyches himself was not present at the council. Scholars state that Dioscorus was deprived of office on procedural grounds and not on account of erroneous belief . At Chalcedon Dioscorus strongly declared, "If Eutyches holds notions disallowed by the doctrines of the Church, he deserves not only punishment but even the fire. But my concern is for the catholic and apostolic faith, not for any man whomsoever." The evidence is sufficient for us to look for other reasons for his condemnation. Rome was annoyed by the extraordinary vitality and activity of the Church of Alexandria and its patriarch. 7- As soon as the members of the council had assembled, the legates of Rome demanded that Dioscorus be banished on account of the order of the bishop of Rome whom they called, "the head of all churches". When the imperial authorities asked for a charge to justify the demand, one of the legates said that he "dared to conduct a council without the authorization of the apostolic see, a thing which has never happened and which ought not to happen." As a matter of fact, the Council of 381 had been held without the participation, not to say the authorization, of the bishop of Rome, and the Council of 553 against his wishes. It is evident that the delegates intended by the words, "the head of all churches" to assert the claim of Rome of ecumenical supremacy over the church. 8- Chalcedon rejected the Council of 449, and Leo of Rome considered it as latrocinium, a council of robbers, a title which "has stuck for all time." This may uncover the intention behind such an attitude. A council which ignored Rome's authority, robbing its claim of supremacy, was not for Leo a church council but a meeting of robbers. The Council of Chalcedon, without even examining the issue, denounced the Council of 449, putting the entire responsibility for its decrees exclusively on Dioscorus. Only one hundred and four years later, the decision, not of Chalcedon, but of the so called latrocinium was justified. The Council of Constantinople in 553 anathematized Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa, and condemned their Three Chapters. It is remarkable that the desire of the Emperor Justinian to reconcile the non-Chalcedonian churches was behind the decree. Two Different Traditions Dioscorus, then, was not a heretic. The majority of the bishops who attended the Council of Chalcedon, as scholars indicate, believed that the traditional formula of faith received from St. Athanasius was the "one nature of the Word of God." This belief is totally different from the Eutychian concept of the single nature (i.e. Monophysite). The Alexandrian theology was by no means docetic. Neither was it Apollinarian, as stated clearly. It seems that the main problem of the Christological formula was the divergent interpretation of the issue between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian theology. While Antioch formulated its Christology against Apollinarius 5 5 and Eutyches, Alexandria did against Arius and Nestorius. At Chalcedon, Dioscorus refused to affirm the "in two natures" and insisted on the "from two natures." Evidently the two conflicting traditions had not discovered an agreed theological standpoint between them. Mia Physis The Church of Alexandria considered as central the Christological mia physis formula of St.
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