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Difference between "Hypostatic Union" and "Union of Natures"?

dzheremi

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Also, sorry for that wrong impression. Another Coptic Orthodox on another forum told me it was viewed as Ecumenical.

That would be news to me, as I've never once heard it mentioned in any of our liturgies. The most I've heard (and this I've repeated here) is that if it were treated as though it is ecumenical -- say, if icons were made of it and placed in churches, or of course if it were added to the appropriate places in the liturgy -- then I would consider it to be so. But at best it has kind of an ambiguous status, in the sense that we do not exactly disclaim it (it's a part of our history, so there's no point in pretending that it didn't happen), but we also do not afford it space alongside the councils we actually do recognize. Think of how mixed the reaction of the EO was to their recent Pan-Orthodox Council: some things were agreed to by some, some things were disagreed with by others, and it seems that many deliberately shied away from officially approving what had happened there, or accepting them as binding upon all Eastern Orthodox churches (see, for instance, the Russian Orthodox Church's ultimate decision, as reported at the link).

I don't mean to imply that things are still as close to being in flux regarding Ephesus II as they may or may not be among the EO regarding Crete (it's just a general analogy), only that there is something in between accepting a council and calling it a "robber council". I would say that for us Ephesus II exists in that sort of in-between area, and we're fine with it staying there, because we have already dealt with the bad that came out of it (Eutyches, for instance, who was condemned at Ephesus III in 475), insofar as it is possible with regard to that council in particular (not Chalcedon, which took on a life of its own due to circumstances beyond anyone's control).
 
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dzheremi

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I just want to hear your perspective on how Pope Dioscorsus was justified and how Chalcedon isn't.

Justified with regard to what -- not accepting Chalcedon? Chalcedon is rejected because we will not say that Christ is in two natures after the union. That has nothing to do with the person of HH Pope Dioscorus. He didn't establish that.

If you mean with regard to Ephesus II, I'm not entirely sure that he was, depending on how exactly you mean that. The list of charges against HH Pope Dioscorus with regard to that council seem to run the gamut from the understandable (that he exacerbated already-existing tensions with Pope Leo by refusing to allow Leo's Tome to be read there), to the unverifiable (that he gave the bishops there blank papers to sign, to be filled in later), to the clearly polemical (that he personally instigated the murder of Flavian), so I am not willing to issue any blanket statements about anything concerning it. It strikes me that if HH is going to be condemned for having readmitted Eutyches, for instance, then so should everyone present have been, and also that it is ridiculous to condemn anyone for not being a mind reader, since Eutyches produced what was accepted at the time by all present as a suitably Orthodox written confession. The fact that he was lying cannot rightly be laid at the feet of HH or any of the other bishops. Murder is clearly another matter entirely, but I think that is one of those charges that will never be confirmed nor falsified to anyone's respective satisfaction, given how thoroughly condemned and how thoroughly exonerated HH has been by the subsequent Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian parties. It is important to note, however, that the rejection of Chalcedon is not now and has not ever been in the past about the exoneration of HH Pope Dioscorus. The Armenians have never venerated him, and yet they rejected Chalcedon beginning in 506 following their Council at Dvin where they thoroughly examined it and found it to be unacceptable, no differently than the fathers of the Chalcedonians examined it in 451 and found it to be acceptable.
 
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