Coptic interpretations of the Fourth Ecumenical Council - Saint Mina ...

Additional/Miscellaneous Notes
1. St. Cyril of Alexandria called the Blessed Holy Virgin Mary the Theotokos, Mother
of God, not mother of the human nature of Christ.
2. The Non-Chalcedonian, Oriental Orthodox were habitually represented by their
Chalcedonian opponents as denying all reality to the human nature of Christ after the
union, but this is definitely not true and was never the case.
3. There is a difference between the word "will" taken to mean the faculty, mere
velleity or wish, and the same word taken to mean the decision taken by the will (the
will willing vs. the will willed; also voluntas ut natura [thelesis] as opposed to
voluntas ut ratio [boulesis]). In case of Christ, the Incarnate Logos, there was
definitely one will willed (willed will). The Chambesy 1990 Agreement
(http://www.monachos.net/mb/messages/4225/ORIENT3-20256.doc) reads, "Both
families agree that the Hypostasis of the Logos became composite by uniting to
His divine uncreated nature with its natural will and energy, which He has in
common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, created human nature, which He
assumed at the Incarnation and made His own, with its natural will and energy.
Both families agree that the natures with their proper energies and wills are
united hypostatically and naturally without confusion, without change, without
division and without separation, and that they are distinguished in thought alone.
Both families agree that He who wills and acts is always the one Hypostasis of the
Logos incarnate."
4. More information on St. Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (from the Coptic Orthodox
Synaxarium): (http://www.copticchurch.net/synaxarium/2_2.html#1),
(http://www. copticchurch. net/synaxarium/4_10. html#1),
(http://www.copticchurch.net/synaxarium/6_9.html#1),
(http://www. copticchurch. net/synaxarium/6_14. html#1).
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