Second Council of Ephesus
The Second Council of Ephesus was a Christological church synod in 449 convened by Emperor Theodosius II under the presidency of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria.
Those who accepted the teaching of Chalcedon but resided in areas dominated by Oriental Orthodox bishops were called by the non-Chalcedonians Melkites ("King's men"), as the Emperors were usually Chalcedonians.
His opponents charged him with detaching Christ's divinity and humanity into two persons existing in one body, thereby denying the reality of the Incarnation.
A combination of politics and personalities contributed to Nestorius being judged a heretic and deposed at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.
When Leo had received the Acts of the council, he concluded that Eutyches was a foolish old man who had erred through ignorance, and might be restored if he repented.
Dioscurus of Alexandria, imitating his predecessors in assuming a primacy over Constantinople, simply annulled the sentence of Flavian, and absolved Eutyches.
[citation needed] The Acts by the Second Council of Ephesus are known through a Syriac translation by a monk, that was published by the British Museum (MS. Addit.
The emperor gave Dioscorus of Alexandria the presidency: ten authentian kai ta proteia (Greek).
The legate Julius is mentioned next, but when his name was read at Chalcedon, the bishops cried: "He was cast out; no one represented Leo".
Pope (Patriarch of Alexandria) Dioscorus declared that it was not a matter for inquiry but that they had to consider only recent activity, as all present had acknowledged that they strictly adhered to the faith.
He claimed that he had been condemned by Flavian for a mere slip of the tongue even though he had declared that he held the faith of Nicaea and Ephesus, and he had appealed to the present council.
The bishops agreed that the acts of the condemnation of Eutyches, at the 448 Constantinople council, should be read, but the legates of Rome asked that Leo's letter might be heard first.
[citation needed] Evidence given at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon contradicts the account in the acts of the final scene of the session.
It was reported at Chalcedon that secretaries of the bishops had been violently prevented from taking notes and it was declared that both Barsumas and Dioscorus struck Flavian.
The papal legate Hilarius uttered a single word in Latin, "Contradicitur", annulling the sentence in Leo's name.
Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum appealed to the pope, and their letters, only lately discovered, were probably taken by Hilarus to Rome, which he reached by a devious route.
At Chalcedon, Bishop Diogenes of Cyzicus claimed that, while Flavian was being beaten, Barsumas exclaimed "Strike him dead!
It is evident that the non-Chalcedonian editor disapproved of the first session and purposely omitted it, not because of the high-handed proceedings of Dioscorus but because the later Miaphysites generally condemned Eutyches as a heretic and did not wish to remember his rehabilitation by a council that they considered to be ecumenical but the rest of Christianity scorned.
He was received by the people of Edessa on April 12, 449, with shouts in honour of the emperor, the governor, and the late Bishop Rabbula and against Nestorius and Ibas.
[citation needed] In the next case, that of Ibas's nephew, Daniel of Harran, it was declared that they had clearly seen his guilt at Tyre and had acquitted him only because of his voluntary resignation.
[citation needed] Theodoret, an opponent of Dioscorus and a personal supporter of Nestorius, had been confined within his own diocese by the emperor in the preceding year to prevent him from preaching at Antioch.
First was read Theodoret's letter to the monks of the East (see Mansi, V, 1023), then some extracts from a lost Apology for Diodorus and Theodore.
The very name of the work was sufficient, in the view of the council, to condemn Theodoret, and Dioscorus pronounced the sentence of deposition and excommunication.
[citation needed] When Theodoret, in his remote diocese, heard of the sentence pronounced in his absence, he at once appealed to Leo in a letter (Ep.
The council had sent him an account of their actions, and he replied, according to the Acts, that he agreed to all the sentences that had been given and regretted that his health made his attendance impossible.
[citation needed] Immediately after receiving this message, the council proceeded to hear a number of petitions from monks and priests against Domnus.
Domnus was accused of friendship with Theodoret and Flavian, of Nestorianism, of altering the form of the Sacrament of Baptism, of intruding an immoral bishop into Emessa, of having been uncanonically appointed himself and of being an enemy of Dioscorus.
[citation needed] Meanwhile, Leo I had received the appeals of Theodoret and Flavian (of whose death he was unaware) and had written to them and to the Emperor and Empress, nullifying all of the Acts of the council.
He eventually excommunicated all who had taken part in it and absolved all whom it had condemned (including Theodoret), with the exception of Domnus of Antioch, who seems to have had no wish to resume his see and retired into the monastic life that he had left many years earlier with regret.
[citation needed] The Council of Chalcedon gave rise to what has been called the Monophysite Schism[1][2] between those who accepted the Council of Chalcedon and those who rejected it: many Byzantine emperors over the next several hundred years attempted to reconcile the opposed parties,[1][3] in the process giving rise to several other schisms and teachings later condemned as heresy, such as monoenergism and monotheletism, which were devised as attempted compromises between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian parties (cf.
