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Alexander Schmemann
3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)
From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox ChurchPage 8
Third Ecumenical Council.
While Cyril continued to expose Nestorius, at first in letters to him, such as his celebrated Dogmatic Epistle, and later in special theological works, Nestorius took advantage of the complaints of certain Alexandrian clerics against their bishop and planned to have him condemned at an ecclesiastical court. Cyril’s personality and his unlimited authority throughout all Egypt had won him many enemies. Instead of giving a theological answer to a theological accusation, Nestorius simply attempted to crush him with the support of the emperor, the weak-willed and indecisive Theodosius II. Perceiving the danger, Cyril turned to Rome. There Nestorius was already disliked for his one-sided support, given without consultation with Rome, of the Pelagians, heretics who were disturbing the Christian West at the time. Cyril sent examples of Nestorius’ teachings to Pope Celestine; they were sharply condemned by the local expert on Eastern matters, John Cassian, an abbot of Marseilles. In August 430 a council of bishops under the leadership of the pope condemned the doctrine of Nestorius. The bishop of Constantinople was given ten days from the time he received the Roman decision to recant from his errors.
This decision was transmitted to Constantinople through Cyril, whom the Pope empowered to be his representative. When he had learned the decision of the Roman council, Cyril convened his own bishops in Alexandria, who of course confirmed the condemnation of Nestorian doctrine. The council also approved a formula of recantation in the form of twelve “anathemas” which Cyril had composed for Nestorius. All this material was sent to Nestorius and to the bishops of the main Eastern churches — John of Antioch, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Acacius of Berea, and other friends of Nestorius and followers of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Meanwhile, Nestorius, in order to parry what seemed to him a new attack by the ambitious Alexandrian, who had converted even Rome to his side, persuaded the emperor to summon an ecumenical council. The sacra, or summons, of the emperor, sent out to the bishops in November 430, called them to Ephesus on Pentecost of the following year.
Outwardly the history of the Third Ecumenical Council was tragic. It met in an atmosphere of mutual suspicions, offenses, and misunderstanding. Again, as in the Arian dispute, it was not a simple conflict of black and white, of heresy against orthodoxy; there was also a real misunderstanding due to different shades of thought and use of words. Again the synthesis had to be arrived at by lengthy and tormenting analysis, the gradual process of finding a meeting ground between words and traditions.
The Eastern bishops, under the leadership of John of Antioch, attacked Cyril although they, too, were disturbed and frightened by the extreme and provocative conclusions drawn by Nestorius from the premises with which they were familiar. They did not take their position simply out of friendship for Nestorius; Cyril’s language and theology seemed to them plainly unacceptable. His twelve anathemas then led to a storm of protests and condemnations in Syria. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, leading light of Antiochene theology, was especially outspoken against them.
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/schmemann-orthodoxy-3-councils.asp?pg=8
