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The Council of Ephesus was held in 431 at the Church of Mary in Ephesus, Asia Minor. The council was called due to the contentious teachings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople. St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, appealed to Pope Celestine I, charging Nestorius with heresy. The Pope agreed and gave Cyril his authority to serve a notice to Nestorius to recant his views or else be excommunicated. Before the summons arrived, Nestorius convinced the Emperor Theodosius II to hold a General council, a platform to argue their opposing views. Approximately 250 bishops were present. The [mostly anti-Nestorian] western delegates arived first,and locked out the later Eastern [mostly Nestorian] arrivals[1]. The proceedings were conducted in a heated atmosphere of confrontation and recriminations. It is believed to be the Third Ecumenical Council by the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Old Catholics, and a number of other Western Christian groups. It was chiefly concerned with Nestorianism. Nestorianism emphasized the dual natures of Christ. Patriarch Nestorius tried to answer a question considered unsolved: "How can Jesus Christ, being part man, not be partially a sinner as well, since man is by definition a sinner since the Fall". To solve that he taught that Mary, the mother of Jesus gave birth to the incarnate Christ, not the divine Logos who existed before Mary and indeed before time itself. The Logos occupied the part of the human soul (the part of man that was stained by the Fall). But wouldn't the absence of a human soul make Jesus less human? No, Nestorius answered because the human soul was based on the archetype of the Logos only to become polluted by the Fall, therefore Jesus was "more" human for having the Logos and not "less". Consequently, Mary should be called Christotokos, Greek for the "Christ-Bearer" and not Theotokos, Greek for the "God-Bearer." Cyril argued that Nestorianism split Jesus in half and denied that he was both human and divine. This was essentially a Christological controversy. At the urging of its president, Cyril of Alexandria, the Council denounced Nestorius' teaching as erroneous and decreed that Jesus was one person, not two separate people: complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body. The Virgin Mary was to be called Theotokos because she bore and gave birth to God as a man. This council was originally disputed, however, because Cyril started the council prematurely, without all the legates and bishops present. This caused the Eastern bishops, led by John of Antioch, to hold a competing council where they disputed Cyril's council. Over time, Cyril would eventually triumph. This did not resolve the debate over the union of the two natures of Christ, and related issues were debated at the Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Ephesus declared it "unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa",[2] It did not specify whether it meant the Nicene Creed as adopted by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, or as added to and modified by the First Council of Constantinople in 381. In addition, it condemned Pelagianism.[3] Eight canons[4] were passed:
[edit] References
[edit] SourcesBellitto, Christopher M. The General Councils: a History of the Twenty-One Church Councils From Nicaea to Vatican II. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist P, 2002. 22-25. [edit] External links
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