Trinity

TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD:
PROF. M. M. NINAN
The Emperor finally sided with the Orthodox position. To get the Fathers to agree, he
called on deputies to be sent to Chalcedon from both councils. The deputies, which
included the Papal legates and Bishop Yuvenali of Jerusalem on one side and Theodoret
and John of Antioch on the other arrived, but could not agree. While the Syrian bishops
agreed in principle to the condemnation of Nestorius, they rejected the anathemas of St
Cyril, calling them heretical. The Emperor then ordered all bishops to return to their
cathedras, and ordered the deposition of Nestorius.
The Resolution: Ephesus and Chalcedon
In June, 431, the Council of Ephesus, opened by Cyril himself and bringing together
mainly his followers, condemned and excommunicated Nestorius and proclaimed Cyril’s
second letter to Nestorius completely consonant with the Nicene Creed.
Patriarch John of Antioch, supporting Nestorius, organized his own Council, condemning
Cyril and declaring the schism official. He and some of his adepts later reconciled with
Cyril.
Cyril won the dispute, but the uncertainty regarding the one or two physeis and the way
they got united caused another major rift. Soon after Cyril died, in 444, Eutyches
(archimandrite of a monastery in Constantinople) claimed that the difference between
the Word and the human nature was so serious that the former absorbed the latter (a
doctrine called monophysitism).
The rise of monophysitism led to the Council of Chalcedon. Here, in November, 451,
Cyril’s second letter to Nestorius and the one to John of Antioch were confirmed
again. They were made part of the official dogma: two natures in one person, human
and Divine, Jesus being consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father and mankind to
the same degree. Both natures were complete and in no way mixed, changed by the
union or somehow separated (O’Collins, 2009, p. 196).
In the words of The Council of Chalcedon’s Definition of Faith, “the difference of the
natures is not destroyed because of the union, but, on the contrary, the character of
each nature is preserved and comes together in one person and one hypostasis” (in
Norris, 1980, p. 159).
This excluded both the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches, deepening the rift with the
Church of the East and opening a new rift with what were going to become the Oriental
Orthodox Churches.
Finally, Nestorius and his doctrine were condemned at the First Council of Ephesus in
431, which was reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
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