| Second Council of Constantinople | |
|---|---|
 Fresco in theFerapontov Monastery, 1502 | |
| Date | 553 |
| Accepted by | |
Previous council | Council of Chalcedon |
Next council | Third Council of Constantinople |
| Convoked by | EmperorJustinian I |
| President | Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople |
| Attendance | 152 (including 16 Western Church bishops)[1] |
| Topics | Nestorianism,Origenism |
Documents and statements | 14 canons onChristology and against the Three Chapters, 15 canons condemning the teaching of Origen and Evagrius |
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TheSecond Council of Constantinople is the fifth of thefirst seven ecumenical councils recognized by both theEastern Orthodox Church and theCatholic Church. It is also recognized by theOld Catholics and others.Protestant opinions and recognition of it are varied. Some Protestants, such asCalvinists, recognize the first four councils,[2] whereasLutherans and mostAnglo-Catholics accept all seven. Constantinople II was convoked by theByzantine EmperorJustinian I under the presidency ofPatriarchEutychius of Constantinople. It was held from 5 May to 2 June 553. Participants were overwhelminglyEastern bishops—only sixteenWestern bishops were present, including nine fromIllyricum and seven fromAfrica, but none from Italy—out of the 152 total.[1][3]
The main work of the council was to confirm the condemnation issued by edict in 551 by theEmperorJustinian against theThree Chapters. These were the Christological writings and ultimately the person ofTheodore of Mopsuestia (died 428), certain writings againstCyril of Alexandria's Twelve Anathemas accepted at theCouncil of Ephesus, written byTheodoret of Cyrrhus (diedc. 466), and a letter written against Cyrillianism and the Ephesian Council byIbas of Edessa (died 457).[4]
The purpose of the condemnation was to make plain that the Great Church, which followed aChalcedonian creed, was firmly opposed toNestorianism as supported by theAntiochene school which had either assistedNestorius, the eponymousheresiarch, or had inspired the teaching for which he was anathematized and exiled. The council also condemned the teaching thatMary could not be rightly called theMother of God (Greek:Theotokos) but only the mother of the man (anthropotokos) or the mother of Christ (Christotokos).[4]
The Second Council of Constantinople is also considered as one of the many attempts by Byzantine Emperors to bring peace in the empire between the Chalcedonian andnon-Chalcedonian factions of the church which had been in continuous conflict since the times of theCouncil of Ephesus in AD 431.
The council was presided over byEutychius,Patriarch of Constantinople, assisted by the other three eastern patriarchs or their representatives.[6] Pope Vigilius was also invited; but even though he was at this period resident in Constantinople (to avoid the perils of life in Italy, convulsed by the war against the Ostrogoths), he declined to attend, and even issued a document forbidding the council from proceeding without him (his 'First Constitutum'). For more details seePope Vigilius.[7]
The council, however, proceeded without the pope to condemn the Three Chapters. And during the seventh session of the council, the bishops had Vigilius stricken from thediptychs for his refusal to appear at the council and approve its proceedings, effectively excommunicating him personally but not the rest of the Western Church. Vigilius was then imprisoned in Constantinople by the emperor and his advisors were exiled. After six months, in December 553, he agreed, however, to condemn the Three Chapters, claiming that his hesitation was due to being misled by his advisors.[4] His approval of the council was expressed in two documents, (a letter to Eutychius of Constantinople on 8 December 553, and a second "Constitutum" of 23 February 554, probably addressed to the Western episcopate), condemning the Three Chapters,[8] on his own authority and without mention of the council.[3]
In Northern Italy the ecclesiastical provinces ofMilan andAquileiabroke communion with Rome. Milan accepted the condemnation only toward the end of the sixth century, whereas Aquileia did not do so until about 700.[3][9] The rest of the Western Church accepted the decrees of the council, though without great enthusiasm. Though ranked as one of the ecumenical councils, it never attained in the West the status of either Nicaea or Chalcedon.[citation needed]
In Visigothic Spain (Reccared having converted a short time prior) the churches never accepted the council;[10] when news of the laterThird Council of Constantinople was communicated to them by Rome it was received as thefifth ecumenical council,[11] not the sixth.Isidore of Seville, in hisChronicle andDe Viris Illustribus, judged Justinian a tyrant and persecutor of the orthodox[12] and an admirer of heresy,[13] contrasting him withFacundus of Hermiane andVictor of Tunnuna, who was considered a martyr.[14]
Despite the conflict between the council and the pope, and the inability to reconcile Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, the council still made a significant theological contribution. The canons condemning the Three Chapters were preceded by ten dogmatic canons which defined Chalcedonian Christology with a new precision, bringing out that Christ has two natures, the human and the divine, in one person. The 'two natures' defined at Chalcedon were now clearly interpreted as two sets of attributes possessed by a single person, Christ God, the Second Person of the Trinity.[15] Later Byzantine Christology, as found inMaximus the Confessor andJohn of Damascus, was built upon this basis. It might have proved sufficient, moreover, to bring about the reunion of Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, had it not been for the severance of connections between the two groups that resulted from theMuslim conquests of the next century.[citation needed]
The original Greek acts of the council are lost,[16] but an old Latin version exists, possibly made for Vigilius, of which there is a critical edition[17] and of which there is now an English translation and commentary,[18] and a modern Greek translation and commentary.[19] It has been alleged (probably falsely) that the original Acts of the Fifth Council had been tampered with[20] in favour ofMonothelitism.[3] It used to be argued that the extant acts are incomplete, since they make no mention of the debate over Origenism. However, the solution generally accepted today is that the bishops signed the canons condemning Origenism before the council formally opened.[21] This condemnation was confirmed by Pope Vigilius and the subsequent ecumenical council (Third Council of Constantinople) gave its "assent" in its Definition of Faith to the five previous synods, including "... the last, that is the Fifth holy Synod assembled in this place, against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius ...";[22] its full conciliar authority has only been questioned in modern times.[23]
There is aSyriac account of the council in theMelkite Chronicle of 641.[24]
Also, one of the Acts of the Council at Constantinople, were theAnathemas issued against those who rejected thePerpetual Virginity of Mary.[25]
Justinian hoped that this would contribute to a reunion between the Chalcedonians andnon-Chalcedonians in the eastern provinces of the Empire. Various attempts at reconciliation between these parties within the Byzantine Empire were made by many emperors over the four centuries following the Council of Ephesus, none of them successful. Some attempts at reconciliation, such as this one, the condemnation of the Three Chapters, and the unprecedented posthumousanathematization of Theodore—who had once been widely esteemed as a pillar of orthodoxy—caused furtherschisms andheresies to arise in the process, such as the aforementionedschism of the Three Chapters and the emergent semi-monophysite compromises ofmonoenergism andmonotheletism. These propositions assert, respectively, that Christ possessed no human energy but only a divine function or principle of operation (purposefully formulated in an equivocal and vague manner, and promulgated between 610 and 622 by theEmperor Heraclius under the advice of the PatriarchSergius I of Constantinople) and that Christ possessed no human will but only a divine will, "will" is understood to mean the desires and appetites in accord with nature (promulgated in 638 by the same and opposed most notably byMaximus the Confessor).[4]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Thomas J. Shahan (1913). "Councils of Constantinople". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.| International | |
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