The Robber Council of Ephesus

Established chronology

1. 448Eutyches, an archimandrite of Constantinople, is condemned by the Home Synod under St Flavian for teaching one nature in Christ after the union.
2. 449The emperor Theodosius II convenes a council at Ephesus under Dioscorus of Alexandria; it reinstates Eutyches and deposes St Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum, and the Tome of St Leo is never read.
3. 449 to 450St Flavian, assaulted amid the council's violence, dies of his injuries in exile.
4. 451The Council of Chalcedon annuls the whole, deposes Dioscorus, vindicates Flavian as a confessor, and receives the Tome of St Leo.

Synodal decisions

• Chalcedon reversed the acts of 449 and confessed the one Christ in two natures. The council of 449 was never received as a council of the Church and is remembered by the name St Leo gave it, the Latrocinium, the den of robbers.

Actions of the saints

• St Flavian confessed the two natures and died for it; St Leo of Rome refused to receive the council and labored two years for its reversal; his legate fled the session crying that it was contradicted.

Competing interpretations

• The case is not itself disputed; its lesson is. It establishes that imperial convocation and a presiding patriarch do not make a gathering the Church's council; reception by the Body, guided by the Spirit, is the seal. The Church has always applied this by the criterion of the faith and of reception, not by procedure alone, which is why it is invoked against false councils and not against lawful ones.