A.D. 451 - Council of Chalcedon
The fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon, A.D. 451, was summoned by the emperor Marcian, and fixed the doctrine respecting Christ's person in opposition to Nestorianism and Eutychianism. The legates of Leo, the Roman bishop, were very active and influential in this council. " Chalcedon," says Gieseler, "was the first general council where they presided;" yet this council decreed, in spite of all Leo's endeavors to prevent it, that the bishop of Constantinople was on an equality with the bishop of Rome. At this council were present 520, some say 630, bishops. The First Canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Chalcedon, reads as follows: " We have judged it right that the canons of the Holy Fathers made in every synod even until now, should remain in force."
When Monophysism began, the chair of St. Peter was occupied by one of the very greatest of his successors, Leo I, called the Great (440-461). St. Leo was a skilled theologian. He was perfectly competent to understand the danger of Eutyches's he1esy ; throughout the first period of Monophysism (till he died in 461) he is to the Catholic side what Athanasius had been in Arian times. As long as Theodosius II lived, the court was for the Monophysites. There would have been great trouble, no doubt a schism, between the East and Rome ; but that just then, fortunately for everyone but himself, the Emperor Theodosius II died (July 28, 450). His sister Pulcheria succeeded him. She married a soldier Marcian, who thereby became Emperor.3 Marcian and Pulcheria were conspicuously pious and orthodox. Marcian at once wrote a most respectful letter to the Pope, calling him guardian of the faith, and declares himself anxious to assist a great synod authorized by Leo.
Marcian and practically the whole synod spoke Greek naturally. Marcian probably knew very little Latin. But Latin was still the off1cial language of the Roman Empire, and on so solemn an occasion as this the Emperor's dignity required that he should use it. The speech which he had laboriously learned in a foreign language then had to be translated into Greek, so that the bishops could understand it. For a time the Pope hoped to restore peace without so serious a step as another great council. Moreover, the times were bad. Attila was raging in the West, Geiserich and his Vandals were an imminent danger. Mean while, however, Marcian, thinking that he was carrying out the Pope's wish, summoned all the bishops of the empire to a synod to be opened at Nicasa on May 17, 451. Leo then, seeing what had happened, agreed.
The bishops came to Nicsea, but the Emperor wrote and told them to wait till he could join them himself: he was busy defending the empire against the Huns. They complained of the delay ; then he told them to go to Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople across the Bosphorus ;4 there he could attend to the council without leaving the capital. On October 8, 451, the bishops opened the council in the Church of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon. This synod, the fourth general Council of Church history, which has made the name of that obscure suburb so famous, completed the work begun at Ephesus in 431, and finally settled the question of our Lord's nature and person.
It is famous for two other things as well. First Chalcedon, the largest synod of antiquity, is also the most pronounced in its recognition of the Pope's primacy. Nothing could exceed the plainness with which these fathers recognize the Pope as supreme bishop and visible head of the whole Church, or of their acknowledgement that his confirmation is necessary to give authority to all they do.' Secondly, it was this Council which, in its famous 28th Canon, made Constantinople into a Patriarchate, giving it the second place after Rome. Rome and the West never accepted this canon. It remained as the germ from which the great schism would arise, four centuries later. The legates protested in the last session against the new position given to Constantinople, to the detriment of Alexandria and Antioch. The See of Jerusalem was raised to the dignity of a Patriarchate, the other Patriarchates being Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch.
It would seem now as if Monophysism were dead. A general Council had rejected it; the Pope had confirmed its rejection. East and West alike condemned it. Unhappily, there was to be as tragic a sequel to this heresy as there had been to Arianism after Nicaea. After Chalcedon there was still a great number of people, chiefly in Egypt and Syria, who refused to accept its decrees. The disturbance lasted for centuries in the empire, and finally produced four heretical Churches. It was still to cause enormous trouble in the Eastern Empire before it finally settled down in the heretical sects of Copts, Abyssinians, Jacobites and Armenians.
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