Why we reject the Council of Chalcedon ?

Copti

Yes - the hypostatic union and variants are both boggling and inane.

The simplicity scriptural teaching - there is one God - the Father - and one mediator between man and God - the man Christ Jesus - whom His God and Father - made Lord and Christ.

Just that simple when we stick with the plain texts of scripture.

Best,
Aner

Aner said:

Copti

Yes - the hypostatic union and variants are both boggling and inane.

The simplicity scriptural teaching - there is one God - the Father - and one mediator between man and God - the man Christ Jesus - whom His God and Father - made Lord and Christ.

Just that simple when we stick with the plain texts of scripture.

Best,
Aner

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That is not the case. Your taking one verse out of context and ignoring others. That is Arianism. Which was rejected at the First Ecumincal Council. Jesus is Equal To the Father AND God.

LankyKnight,

Actually wouldn't his heresy be adoptionism or Nestorianism? Since it would be a man adopted to divinity or the divine logos and the human jesus? Arianism is summed up in the expression of arius 'In the beginning was the word,but there was a time the word was not".That the divine nature of Christ is infact a created being,thus the word being of a different nature then the father and created.

Actually we believe in the doctrine about christological nature of our Lord Jesus Christ put forward by our venerated father, Cyril of Alexandria in the third council at Ephesus (431). We believe that when Word the God became flesh through Holy Spirit and Holy Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, divine nature of the Word hypostatically united with human nature at the time of incarnation to become one nature which is fully human and fully divine without change, confusion or seperation. Hence Jesus Christ had only one (theo-anthropic) nature and it is wrong to divide the natures of Christ. We know that when sugar is mixed with water it is impossible to differentiate which is which but we know both sugar and water are present in the same quantity without change in it, but it has become a single homogeneous sugar solution. Just like that any attempt to see Jesus Christ's nature into individual natures is impossible and wrong. But we know that he is fully divine so as to have same divine nature with Father and Holy Spirit and fully human in that he lived just like us and suffered like us. Since He is fully divine, it is perfectly justified to call Holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Just as the three hypostases in the Holy Trinity remain together to have a single divine nature, two natures in Christ remain together in Him to have a single nature of Word the God. How it can remain single nature and at same time fully human and fully divine is a mystery that cannot be explained by human comprehension and we should not try to attempt it. We are accused of being monophysites but our view is that our position is that of "miaphysitism" and we reject the monophysite doctrine proposed by Eutyches in 449 AD.

Hence we feel that by accepting Pope Leo's Tome at Council of Chalcedon (451), church was almost going back to the same heresy for which Nestorius had been excommunicated at Council of Ephesus (431). We are of the view that church needn't have had to explain the nature of Christ from what St. Cyril had already done.

Bino

While I appreciate your effort to refine and historically connect your christology, it remains to suffer from the egregious defect of denying the human person of Jesus Christ - the man Christ Jesus who is our only mediator with God. Thus in your Christology there is no legitimate mediator or savior - merely a god in a human puppet (nature). Not much hope for man-kind there.

Ask yourself a simple question - if that human "thing" in Mary developed on its own without being invaded by the Logos - would it be able to function independently?? No, you say?? Then you don't have the man Christ Jesus who is the only mediator between man and God.

Best,
Aner

Aner said:

Bino

While I appreciate your effort to refine and historically connect your christology, it remains to suffer from the egregious defect of denying the human person of Jesus Christ - the man Christ Jesus who is our only mediator with God. Thus in your Christology there is no legitimate mediator or savior - merely a god in a human puppet (nature). Not much hope for man-kind there.

Ask yourself a simple question - if that human "thing" in Mary developed on its own without being invaded by the Logos - would it be able to function independently?? No, you say?? Then you don't have the man Christ Jesus who is the only mediator between man and God.

Best,
Aner

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Still harping the same fallacy I see. You do remember where I demonstrated, using the terminology of the Christological debates of the 5th c, that the idea of a person possessing one nature adopting fully a second nature does not invalidate nor contradict (inherently) the validity of the second nature.

Whether we phrase this as Christ possessing two natures after the Incarnation or one fully-human-fully-divine nature (the Incarnate Logos in Coptic theology) doesn't matter. The point is that JUST because the Logos pre-existed the Incarnation does NOT imply that after the Incarnation there isn't a complete human person.

There is one person. This person is human. This person is divine. None of these propositions contradicts the other. Therefore, your implied syllogism (which you still persist in phrasing only the form of a rhetorical question rather than making an actual argument) doesn't work.

To my Coptic brothers & sisters: forgive my intrusion on your board! Hope its ok.

In Christ,
Macarius

I would assume then, from what I have read---we all agree as Leo stated, 2 natures, one person in Christ


it all seems silly that there is any division between the OO and the EO and for that matter any division with the Eastern and Western Catholic Churches--we are all apostolic heirs---

of course as a catholic, I belive rome to be a center of unity---as the ancient church reflected

If you do indeed reject Monophysitism, then you reject the idea that Christ exists as one nature---but you then say, he has a fully human nature and fully divine, but one nature fused together. Sounds like semantics, this "nature" or fusing element, is simply person in catholic theology---two full natures, one person. your saying two full natures, yet use the same word, "nature' again to define. Maybe a different term would help express this, because it would seem you are saying Christ was a man was fully human with a soul and created, and the divine Logos took upon this human nature and unified it to himself to form one person.

While I say person, you are using the word NATURE....I would assume this is semantics

I believe that as part of the process of ecumenical reconciliation, we should recognize the EO position as refined by the Aecond Ecumenical Council as valid and compatible with Cyrillian miaphysis, in return for their recognition that our concerns were legitimate due to the malign influence of crypto-Nestorians (who caused a major problem in the Western Church, the Three Chapters Controversy).

Christiancounseling said:

If you do indeed reject Monophysitism, then you reject the idea that Christ exists as one nature---but you then say, he has a fully human nature and fully divine, but one nature fused together. Sounds like semantics, this "nature" or fusing element, is simply person in catholic theology---two full natures, one person. your saying two full natures, yet use the same word, "nature' again to define. Maybe a different term would help express this, because it would seem you are saying Christ was a man was fully human with a soul and created, and the divine Logos took upon this human nature and unified it to himself to form one person.

While I say person, you are using the word NATURE....I would assume this is semantics

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The position is more nuanced than that. We adhere precisely to the view of St. Cyril. The incarnate nature is from two natures; the humanity and divinity of our lord exist without confusion, change, or separation. I am also entirely comfortable with the EO perspective.

The tragedy of the fifth century was that the Chalcedonians confused us with Eutychians, and we accused them of Nestorianism.

I have no idea why this thread was bumped to answer a post from over a year ago, but it is as always very easy to just point out what we pray in the Coptic Orthodox Church as part of the priest's confession before the Eucharist in the Liturgy of St. Basil, which specifically denies any idea of a "mixture" or "fusion" of natures, no matter how many times ignorant Chacledonians insist that it must be so because they don't understand our Orthodox position. So once again, here it is:

Amen. Amen. Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath, that this is the life-giving body that your only-begotten Son, our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ took from our lady, the lady of us all, the holy Theotokos Saint Mary. He made it one with his divinity without mingling, without confusion and without alteration. He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. He gave it up for us upon the holy wood of the cross, of his own will, for us all. Truly I believe that his divinity parted not from his humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye. Given for us for salvation, remission of sins and eternal life to those who partake of him. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is so in truth. Amen.

+ + +

This is as clear as it can get, and cannot be dismissed as "semantics". This is the Orthodox faith of all of our holy fathers from the beginning of the Church down to this very day, and forever after that too.

the word "will" maybe is criptic and need deep interpretations. when I heard than Christ had two natures, that was OK, when I heard than Christ had two wills, it made me scratch my head. I though well, Christ said: be thou will, not mine, then there´s a human will and a divine will (shared by the Father and the Holy ghost) the point is that Christ cant sin, cant desire other thing that the will of God, that is also his divine will. If that´s the point, why separate two wills, an human will and a divine will? actually there´s only one will, the will of God. In God the will of the father is bless his Son, and the will of the son is honoring his Father, but as God there´s only one will, when Christ descenden on earth was for making us enter in the divine life through him (obeying the Father). I thing the problem is that could be not only anathemas, but martyrs in both sides, and maybe they think they would betray them if they recognize they were wrong. Anyway is a disgrace the split of the church. EO and OO are the SAME THING, but those little points that can be harmonized

copticorthodoxy said:

Chalcedon is anathematised because the members of the council contradicted the faith of Nicaea, introducing a different nature into the Trinity by proposing a fourth hypostasis.

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I guess you mean that the hypostasis of the incarnate Son in Jesus Christ is a 4th hypostasis. How do OO avoid this dilemma?

Hi Andrewn. Welcome to the forum and to CF more generally.

Not to be rude, but the OP was posted 13 years ago, so it is very doubtful that this particular poster is still around to answer your question. Can you explain a bit more about what you mean about the incarnate Son in Jesus Christ being a fourth hypostasis? I've never heard that in any OO church I've been to, so I'm not sure what it means or how to address it.

dzheremi said:

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean about the incarnate Son in Jesus Christ being a fourth hypostasis?

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Thank you for the welcome. What does OP mean?
The original poster said that Chalcedon introduced a different nature into the Trinity by proposing a fourth hypostasis.
I'm just trying to understand what he meant.

I couldn't really tell you, since I'm not the OP. That's the danger in replying to such an old post. The OP is not around anymore to explain exactly what they mean(t).

I will say that it was common in the old days for OO writers such as Severus of Antioch, Dionysius Bar Salibi, and others to accuse the Chacledonians of this, and the issue lies in our underlying difference in terminology. Before Chalcedon, hypostasis was often understood in a sense more akin to 'person' (prosopon) than to 'essence' (ousia), as when St. Basil of Caesarea (329-379) wrote the following on the difference between hypostases and ousia:

"The distinction between ousia and hypostases is the same as that between the general and the particular; as, for instance, between the animal and the particular man. Wherefore, in the case of the Godhead, we confess one essence or substance so as not to give variant definition of existence, but we confess a particular hypostasis, in order that our conception of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be without confusion and clear."

You will note here that ousia is used for the general (that which is shared by all members of the class, i.e., 'nature') while hypostases is used for the particular (one particular member of that class, i.e., 'person'). This is the sense that was and is still preserved by the non-Chalcedonians because Alexandrian theology traditionally taught such a vision of the incarnation, as you can tell by reading HH St. Cyril's On the Unity of Christ and other pre-Chalcedonian works (I am aware that there are Chalcedonian interpretations of these as well, but this board is not the place to advocate for them), wherein the unity of the natures by/with/at the incarnation is emphasized.

Hopefully this background understanding will help make it obvious why our fathers accused the Chalcedonians of this, as two hypostases in one person makes it sound like He is two individuals/two 'people' in one person. Hence, if Christ is two 'people' in one (which does sound terribly Nestorian, to the point that the Nestorians themselves thought so; see here the two letters to the Orthodox in Persia written by Catholicos Baken/Babgen II of the Armenians on the eve of their council of Dvin in 506, which is where the Armenians formally condemned the Tome of Leo only after being alerted to its contents by Nestorians in Persia who harassed the local Armenians by claiming that the Greeks now agreed with them, not with the Armenians), it would make sense that there is then a fourth hypostasis in the Holy Trinity. It is not exactly that "the hypostasis of the incarnate Son in Jesus Christ is a fourth hypostasis" (I don't really understand that, but maybe that's a common way to refer to Christ in Chalcedonian churches; I believe we would say that the incarnate Son is Himself the hypostasis, i.e., the individual manifestation in human flesh of the incarnate Word, since we don't divide the natures in the first place), but rather that by separating the natures after the incarnation, they propose Him to be so, at least according to the prevailing definition as it was before Chalcedon. (You will note, I hope, that Caesarea is far from Alexandria, and although that is not the only definition possible of these terms, nor the only one found at the time, it does show how far the pre-Chalcedonian definition of these terms that saw hypostases used in just the way the St. Basil used it there had reached outside of Alexandria and its immediate environment, lest anyone reduce this all to some kind of power struggle between Leo and Dioscorus, which I suppose is tempting given their bad blood with regard to Ephesus II and the mutual striking of one another from their respective diptychs and all the other stuff that had gone on between the two since their first known contact in 445, where Leo had requested that Alexandria adopt several distinctly Roman practices, which did not happen.)

I should note that this is by no means a common criticism of Chalcedonianism now, especially since the Chalcedonians dealt with the crypto-Nestorians among them in their subsequent council in Constantinople in 553 (whereas we dealt with the crypto-Eutychians among us at the Third Council of Ephesus in 475, presided over by the direct successor of Pope Dioscorus, HH Pope Timothy II, and attended by 500-700 bishops), but is still a criticism that has some historical weight to it and may be leveled in contemporary settings, insofar as the Chalcedonians have never really given it its proper due.

dzheremi said:

The OP is not around anymore to explain exactly what they mean(t).

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Thank you for the detailed explanation.

dzheremi said:

You will note here that ousia is used for the general (that which is shared by all members of the class, i.e., 'nature') while hypostases is used for the particular (one particular member of that class, i.e., 'person').

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I really prefer to stick with Greek terms since the English words 'nature' and 'person' have many different connotations.

dzheremi said:

two hypostases in one person makes it sound like He is two individuals/two 'people' in one person.

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But this is not what Chalcedonies believe. The Chalcedonian definition is:
"One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ;"
Sorry that the quoted passage has the same English terms I objected to <g>.

dzheremi said:

I believe we would say that the incarnate Son is Himself the hypostasis, i.e., the individual manifestation in human flesh of the incarnate Word,

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I don't see how this is any different from the Chalcedonian definition. The question I have though is whether the hypostasis of the Son _changed_ after the incarnation.

dzheremi said:

lest anyone reduce this all to some kind of power struggle between Leo and Dioscorus, which I suppose is tempting given their bad blood

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I reached this conclusion decades ago and never found any reason to change my mind.

dzheremi said:

I should note that this is by no means a common criticism of Chalcedonianism now, especially since the Chalcedonians dealt with the crypto-Nestorians among them in their subsequent council in Constantinople in 553

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But the OO never accepted the Second Council of Constantinople.

Andrewn said:

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

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You are welcome.

I really prefer to stick with Greek terms since the English words 'nature' and 'person' have many different connotations.

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Okay. That's fine. My only point was to highlight the different traditions that are inherent in the use of the terms (how they are used), because that explains why the Oriental Orthodox rejected Chalcedon. It violated our preexisting Christology and our understanding of the incarnation.

But this is not what Chalcedonies believe. The Chalcedonian definition is:
"One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ;"

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I'm aware of that, thanks to the subsequent clarification of 553 which ruled out the Nestorian interpretation of the above. I'm explaining how it is that the Oriental Orthodox came to reject Chalcedon, and the Tome in particular.

It is important to note here that what is quoted above is itself a new definition of faith, and hence can be seen as in violation of Ephesus I (cf. the same logic at play by which both the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox reject the filioque, even if it too can be understood in an 'orthodox' fashion, at least according to some EO theologians like H.E. Metropolitan Ware). The Chalcedonians themselves apparently recognize that as in post #2 in a discussion on the term "prosopon" at Monachos.net, where it is recognized that Chalcedon equated hypostasis and prosopon, whereas Nicea had equated hypostasis and ousia. This was, as the EO poster there puts it, a "distinctly Chalcedonian" definition.

From where I'm sitting (as a non-Hellene), the equation of hypostasis and ousia is how we get the Oriental objection in the first place, because it is assumed that if you have a hypostasis (an individual member, recalling St. Basil from earlier), that hypostasis is going to have an ousia which it shares with all other members (e.g., the Father and the Holy Spirit). The hyposatsis is, to borrow the wording from the Monachos poster, following the Council of Constantinople in 381, "the subsisting, concrete reality of a being or nature". So we have historically looked at that and said "Yes! As Christ is the subsisting, concrete reality of the incarnate Word, as testified to via the incarnation -- He was truly incarnate, and born of the true flesh of St. Mary, in perfect, unchanged, incorruptible union with the Divine nature which He never ceased nor ceases to share with the Father and the Holy Spirit!" (or something like that)

This -- what was already present with Constantinople in 381 (not the thing that I just wrote out of my own brain as our reaction; feel free to pick at that as much as you want to) -- is perfect Christology as it is. Orthodox and still standing, as it will forever.

With the introduction of the equation of hypostasis and prosopon, it is introduced that the hypostases are something within the prosopon, is it not? Because now, with the hypostases being the focus, they are said to operate quasi-independently of one another. Quoting another part of the Tome: "For each form does what is proper to it with the co-operation of the other; that is the Word performing what appertains to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what appertains to the flesh. One of them sparkles with miracles, the other succumbs to injuries." Is this true? Do ousiai or hypostases within the prosopon perform miracles or succumb to injuries? Our fathers said no by rejecting the Tome, but the Chalcedonians I assume would say yes, in conformity with the Tome.

The point is not even "Aha! They're wrong!", because it's not wrong to point out that some of what Christ does is in keeping with His humanity (e.g., Jesus wept), while other things of what He does are in keeping with His divinity (e.g., rising from the dead). Our only point is now and as far as I can tell always has been that Christ is the one Who does these things in either case. In other words, we do not separate the natures according to what exactly Christ is doing, even as we recognize that whatever He does is a manifestation of the two natures of which He is composed.

See, I'm a non-Chalcedonian and I can say it: Christ has two natures. No lightning bolts will fly out of the sky to hit me, nor will I be excommunicated, because our fathers did not object to the phrasing of "from two natures" for precisely the reason: it preserves the unity of the incarnation without denying that, yes, He is composed of two. The 'point' of the incarnation, from the Oriental Orthodox view, is that the incarnation is the union of those two into one*, such that after the incarnation, it is no longer appropriate to speak of Him as being in two natures. This is what I mean when I wrote earlier that it violates our understanding of the incarnation. But if we are speaking of the natures 'in theoria', is as accepted by HH St. Cyril, then there is no problem in recognizing the two of which He is composed. In our hymns, this is explicit, as in Theotokia when the womb of the holy ever-virgin Theotokos St. Mary is referred to as "the uniting place of the undivided natures" (plural).

Sorry that the quoted passage has the same English terms I objected to <g>.

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Hahaha. It's basically impossible to avoid. That's fine. I want to emphasize, though, that while you may prefer Greek terms out of a sense that this might provide a more precise understanding, it is important to note that basically all of the Fathers claimed by the Oriental Orthodox as really central to our Christological and incarnational understanding (e.g., HH St. Cyril, HH St. Severus, etc.) wrote in Greek themselves. So the problem of misunderstanding or whatever you want to call it won't necessarily be solved by appealing to Greek, as these are preexisting traditions which both existed alongside each other in the Greek language. No doubt when HH St. Cyril and John of Antioch communicated well before Chalcedon (and came to an agreement, thanks be to God!), they did so in Greek, as there is no indication that HH St. Cyril was conversant in Syriac (and I don't really know what language John would've used, since I don't know anything about him outside of this exchange; I'm going to assume it was Greek, as Antioch was a major city with a developed political elite, and some distance away from Edessa, which was the center of Syriac Christianity at the time).

I don't see how this is any different from the Chalcedonian definition.

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Good, I suppose! That either means that the Chalcedonians are closer to us than we have realized, or that we are closer to them than they have realized. We'll take either. We do not want to be separated, and never have (the letters of HH St. Timothy II, the successor to HH St. Dioscorus, bearing witness).

The question I have though is whether the hypostasis of the Son _changed_ after the incarnation.

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Absolutely not! Here is the priest's confession before the Eucharist that is prayed in every Coptic Orthodox liturgy, and has had its current form since c. 12th century AD (i.e., well after Chalcedon, when if we were truly the heretics they say we are, we could've easily manifested it in our prayers by this time, as it's not like the Muslims care for this kind versus that kind of Christian):

I reached this conclusion decades ago and never found any reason to change my mind.

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That's fine, I suppose. At its root, I do not think it is about personalities, though I will certainly grant that this played a large part in it (as is true of all schisms). As our teacher HH St. Dioscorus said of the heretic Eutyches at Chacledon, our concern is with the faith, not with any one man.

But the OO never accepted the Second Council of Constantinople.

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But that does not prevent us from noting that it happened, and agreeing with it in so far as we can agree with it. (It's not binding upon us in the first place, so we obviously don't agree with everything in it.)

Part of what keeps us apart is the vastly different way the EO and OO seem to look at councils, with the EO commonly saying that we need to accept all seven councils that they commonly accept (nevermind that some of them say there are more than these) in order to be 'Orthodox', and us brushing that off, because the councils were made for the Church, not the other way around. Where was the Church before the conclusion of the seventh council, then? Surely it existed. I have seen this attitude called by OO online the 'neo-Chalcedonian' viewpoint, but I don't know or care to know enough about the Chalcedonian mindset to look into what makes it 'neo-', as I'm sure the EO themselves would object to that characterization for a thousand and one reasons I don't even care to look into in the first place, and I don't wish to entertain that viewpoint here, since too many already take discussions online as an excuse to dump on the OO on what is supposed to be our sanctuary on CF, no matter how few active members we may have here. (Thank you for not doing so, by the way.)

* edited to add the forgotten aside: This incarnational theology is present even in the name of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which in their liturgical language is called Tewahedo, a cognate of the Arabic tawhid, meaning 'being made one'.