Schism of the Three Chapters

[1] The Three-Chapter Controversy arose from an attempt to reconcile the Non-Chalcedonian (Miaphysite) Christians of the Middle East with the positions of the Council of Chalcedon.

To exact a compromise, works of several Eastern theologians such as Theodoret of Cyrus, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, which came to be known collectively as the Three Chapters, were condemned.

The condemnation took the form of an Imperial Edict around 543, accompanied by the Tome of Pope Leo I that had been read at the Council of Chalcedon nearly one hundred years before.

In 553 by council,[2] the bishops of Aquileia, Liguria, Aemilia, Milan and of the Istrian peninsula all refused to condemn the Three Chapters, arguing that to do so would be to betray Chalcedon.

This political change did not affect the relations of the patriarchate with the Apostolic See; its bishops, whether in Lombard or imperial territory, stubbornly refused all invitations to a reconciliation.

Gregory the Great's attempts at conciliation near the end of his pontificate, and especially through the Lombard queen, Theodelinda, began to have some effect.

These dissidents fled to mainland Aquileia and under Lombard protection elected a John as a rival patriarch who maintained the schism.

The Irish missionary Columbanus, who was ministering to the Lombards in Bobbio was involved in the first attempt to resolve this division through mediation between 612 and 615.

[5] As the schism lost its vigour, the Lombards started to renounce Arianism and join western apostolic and catholic orthodoxy.