Council of Chalcedon
Council of Chalcedon
Date
451 A.D.
Accepted
by
Roman Catholicism, Eastern
Orthodoxy, Anglicanism,
Lutheranism, and most
Protestant denominations
Previous
council
First Council of Ephesus
Next
council
Second Council of
Constantinople
Convoked
by
Emperor Marcian
Presided
by
Anatolius of Constantinople
Pope Leo I (through papal
legates Bishops Paschasinus and
Lucentius)
Attendance 500 to 600
Topics of
discussion
Eutychian monophysitism, divine
and human nature of Jesus, the
judgments issued at the Second
Council of Ephesus in 449
Documents
and
statements
Chalcedonian Creed,
condemnations of Eutyches and
Dioscorus, 28 canons
Chronological list of Ecumenical councils
The Council of Chalcedon is believed to
have been the fourth ecumenical council by
the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman
Catholic Church. It was held from 8 October
to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon (a city of
Bithynia in Asia Minor), today the district of
Kadıköy on the Asian side of the Bosphorus,
incorporated into the city of Istanbul.
In 325, the first ecumenical council (First
Council of Nicaea) verified through Scripture
that Christ was God, "consubstantial" with
the Father, against Arius’s contention that he
was a created being. This was reaffirmed at
the First Council of Constantinople and the
Council of Ephesus.
In 449 the Second Council of Ephesus, the
so-called Robber Council which is not con-
sidered one of the ecumenical councils,
didn’t just rehabilitate Eutyches, who had
been deposed by Flavian, the patriarch of
Constantinople, for teaching that the Word
had been made flesh and not just assumed
flesh from the Virgin. Dioscorus the patriarch
of Alexandria who had convened Ephesus II,
moved to depose Flavian for teaching that
Christ had two natures, which violated a can-
on of Ephesus I. Flavian was mortally
wounded in the fight that broke out. At the
next session Dioscorus pressed his advantage
by
having
Cyril’s
Twelve
Anathemas
posthumously declared orthodox.[1] Their in-
tent was to make it impossible to confess
anyth