Alexander Schmemann

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

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 15

The Horos of Chalcedon ended the dialectical opposition of Antioch and Alexandria. After the “thesis” and “antithesis” came this synthesis, from which a new chapter emerged in the history of Orthodox theology, that of Byzantium. Chalcedon is the theological formula of historical Orthodoxy. Expressed once more in Antiochene language, in a paradoxical way it reveals the faith of Cyril of Alexandria, who remains the forerunner of Chalcedon and the great teacher of the meaning of divine Incarnation. The historical limitations of each school were burned away and the ambiguity and inadequacy of words overcome. All Orthodox theology flows from the “miracle” of Chalcedon, and unendingly reveals and interprets that source.

Incidentally, the Council of Chalcedon was a triumph for Constantinople, whose primacy as a center of the Christian Church was finally confirmed in the famous twenty-eighth canon. After confirming the third rule of the Second Ecumenical Council, “in view of the fact that the city is honored by the presence of the Emperor and the Senate,” the canon also introduced a new element: from now on the bishop of Constantinople was allotted the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace, and the bishops of barbarian peoples subject to these dioceses. In this way the two systems outlined earlier found a formal co-ordination: Constantinople became the center of a definite region, or patriarchate as it was later called, like Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, which was also elevated at Chalcedon. It likewise retained its primacy of honor over the more ancient sees, in recognition of its civic significance. Nothing shows better the spirit of this evolution than the episcopal synod, which developed literally by itself in these years around the archbishop of Constantinople. Bishops from the provinces would come to the capital on business, and the practice arose of convening them to review various ecclesiastical matters. This was the seed of future patriarchal synods, the first budding of a completely new, centralized concept of the authority of the first bishop of a region, which became dominant later on. It represented a victory of the imperial structure of the Church over the last remnants of its pre-Nicene form.

All attempts to halt the growth of the influence and importance of Constantinople proved useless. Roman historians frequently represent this growth as a deliberate policy on the part of its bishops, allegedly ambitious and power-seeking, who intentionally subjected the East to themselves. This is a very superficial judgment, however. The fact is, among the bishops of Constantinople at that time we see no special ambition; Gregory the Theologian, St. Nectarius, St. John Chrysostom, even Nestorius and finally Flavian — none could be compared in ambition with the popes of Alexandria: Theophilus, Cyril, and Dioscurus. If there was such a policy of expanding domination, it was of course at Alexandria, not in Constantinople. Some historians do not see that this growth of Constantinople was inevitable and would have taken place even if all its bishops had been like Gregory the Theologian, whose modesty and kindness hindered him from discerning that Maxim the Cynic was a sinister adventurer. The roots of the development lay deep in the very foundations of the new vision of a Christian oekumene.

Alexandria’s last and hopeless attempt to retain its hegemony had been the Synod of Robbers at Ephesus in 449, two years before Chalcedon, of which the disgrace inevitably made reaction against it all the stronger. Antioch had been weakened and deposed by Nestorianism; now it was Alexandria’s turn.

 

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