The Non-Chalcedonian separation

Established chronology

1. 451Chalcedon confesses the one Christ in two natures; parties in Egypt, Syria and Armenia reject the definition as a betrayal of St Cyril and separate.
2. 482The emperor Zeno's Henotikon attempts a compromise formula that satisfies neither side and breeds the Acacian schism with Rome (484 to 519).
3. 6th c.The separation hardens through the hierarchy of Severus of Antioch and parallel successions; the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) confirms Chalcedon in its Cyrilline sense to answer the objection, without reunion.
4. 1989 to 1990The Joint Commission of Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonian theologians issues agreed statements proposing that the difference is one of terminology rather than of faith.

Synodal decisions

• Chalcedon and the Fifth Ecumenical Council stand, and the Non-Chalcedonian communions remain outside Orthodox communion. The agreed statements of 1989 to 1990 have not been received by any Orthodox council as reuniting the churches, and a number of local Churches and monastic centers, notably on Athos, have rejected them.

Actions of the saints

• The defenders of Chalcedon, St Euthymius the Great, St Sabbas, St Theodosius the Cenobiarch, held the councils against the one nature party and its imperial patrons; St Maximus later held the same line against Monothelitism, the doctrine's subtler refinement.

Competing interpretations

• Whether the difference is real or merely verbal is exactly what is disputed. The dialogues hold that the Non-Chalcedonians confess the same faith in other words; the critics answer that the rejection of an ecumenical council, and the veneration of teachers it condemned, is not a matter of terminology, and that no union may be declared without their reception of the council. This library records it as an open, unreconciled question, not a healed one.