Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 10

Two weeks passed in waiting for the Easterners; the Roman legates were also late. The mood became more intense and uneasiness spread in the city. Cyril decided to wait no longer and on June 22 opened the council, despite the disapproval of the imperial officials and a protest signed by sixty-eight bishops supporting Nestorius. Thus it was a council of Cyril’s supporters alone. But the population of the city, led by Memnon, bishop of Ephesus, supported him. Nestorius, also in Ephesus, was sent three summonses to appear. He rejected them; from an accuser he had suddenly become the accused. Then Cyril proceeded to a trial in absentia; the bishops approved his writings against Nestorius and the bishop of Constantinople was unanimously condemned.
The emperor’s representative, Candidian, protested, but feared to act openly since the whole city was for Cyril. When the bishops emerged from the church where they had been in session until late at night condemning Nestorius, they were met by an immense crowd with flaring torches and escorted home in triumph.

Four days later the caravan of Easterners finally arrived. Indignant at what had happened, they immediately formed their own council and condemned and deposed Cyril and his supporters for heresy and disturbing the peace of the Church. Although they did not even enter into communion with Nestorius, the rebellion became an open one. When it was all over the Roman legate, who arrived last, joined Cyril, and reaffirmed the condemnation of Nestorius.

Cyril’s council held several more sessions. It affirmed the Nicene Creed, forbidding anything to be added to it. This was to be the argument used by the Orthodox against the addition in the West of Filioque (“and from the Son”) to the description of the Holy Spirit, “which proceedeth from the Father.” It forbade the creation of new creeds and solved several canonical problems; among others it recognized the ecclesiastical independence of the Church of Cyprus from Antioch, to which it had been previously subordinated.

Both sides, and Candidian as well, sent reports of all the proceedings to the emperor. Each tried to represent the matter in the most advantageously partisan light. We have seen that the sympathies of Theodosius had been with Nestorius and the Easterners, but now the mood in Constantinople began to shift. Church members expressed themselves more clearly as opposed to him and processions of monks in the capital demanded his condemnation. Even his friends, who were indignant at Cyril’s procedure, silently accepted his condemnation. It can be truly said that the condemnation of Nestorius was accepted by the whole Church.

But for the Easterners the main problem was not that of Nestorius but of what seemed to them an even more vicious heresy, the doctrine of Cyril himself. The emperor wavered. His first reaction was typical.
He wished to restore peace by removing the controversial individual from each camp: Nestorius and Cyril. The state would never understand that such methods were inevitably doomed to failure. He then summoned representatives of both parties to Constantinople, but no agreement could be reached between them. Then Nestorius himself resigned from his see, thus permitting the election as his successor of someone acceptable to all. Cyril, ignoring the emperor, simply returned to Alexandria, where he was under the protection of a devoted following and any attempt to touch him would result in popular rebellion. The powerless Theodosius had no recourse but to recognize the facts and be reconciled to the division.

 

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