Council of Chalcedon and the First Permanent Christian Schism

Date

8 October - 1 November 451 CE

Category

Religion & ideology

Region

Middle East

Era

Classical Antiquity

Significance

The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council, convened from 8 October to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon in Bithynia (modern Kadikoy, Istanbul), summoned by the Eastern Roman emperor Marcian and attended by roughly 520 bishops, the largest gathering of the early councils.

To resolve the dispute over how Christ could be both fully divine and fully human, the council adopted the Chalcedonian Definition, drawing on Pope Leo I's Tome, declaring that Christ exists in two natures 'without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.' It condemned and deposed Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, and rejected the Monophysite teaching associated with the monk Eutyches. Many churches in Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and Palestine refused to accept the two-nature formula, regarding it as a betrayal of Cyril of Alexandria's Christology, which precipitated the first permanent schism in Christianity. This split produced the non-Chalcedonian (Oriental Orthodox) churches, including the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopian communities, a division that remains unhealed to this day and weakened Byzantine control of its eastern provinces.

Empires active in 8 October - 1 November 451 CE

• Sassanid Empire
  224 CE – 651 CE
• Kingdom of Funan
  50 CE – 550 CE
• Roman Empire
  27 BCE – 476 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE – 1453 CE
• Gupta Empire
  320 CE – 550 CE
• Pyu City-States
  200 BCE – 1050 CE

Related religion & ideology events

• Edict of Thessalonica makes Nicene Christianity the state religion
  27 February 380 CE
• First Council of Nicaea convenes
  325 CE
• Battle of the Milvian Bridge and the Edict of Milan
  28 October 312 – 313 CE
• Baptism of Clovis I and the conversion of the Franks
  c. 496–508 CE
• Judah ha-Nasi Codifies the Mishnah
  c. 200 CE
• The Kingdom of Aksum adopts Christianity under King Ezana
  c. 330s CE

Further reading

A Little History of Religion

The wider story

A Little History of Religion

Richard Holloway

Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.

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