Eutyches - Career

Career

Eutyches denied that Christ's humanity was limited or incomplete, putting him perfectly in line with Alexandrine doctrine, but the energy and imprudence with which he asserted his opinions led to his being misunderstood. He was accused of heresy by Domnus II of Antioch and Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum, at a synod presided over by Flavian at Constantinople in 448. His explanations deemed unsatisfactory, the council deposed him from his priestly office and excommunicated him.

In 449, however, at the Second Council of Ephesus convened by Dioscorus of Alexandria, overawed by the presence of a large number of Egyptian monks, not only was Eutyches reinstated to his office, but Eusebius, Domnus and Flavian, his chief opponents, were deposed, and the Alexandrine doctrine of the "one nature" received the sanction of the church. This judgment is the more interesting as being in distinct conflict with the opinion of the bishop of Rome—Leo—who, departing from the policy of his predecessor Celestine, had written very strongly to Flavian in support of the doctrine of the two natures and one person.

Meanwhile the emperor Theodosius II died, and Pulcheria and Marcian who succeeded summoned, in October 451, a council (the fourth ecumenical) which met at Chalcedon. There the synod of Ephesus was declared to have been a "robber synod," its proceedings were annulled, and, in accordance with the more dyophysite (two-nature) strand in the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria, it was declared that the two natures are united in Christ (without any alteration, absorption or confusion) and 'come together to form one person and one hypostasis'. Eutyches died in exile, but of his later life nothing is known.

Those who rejected the Chalcedonian Definition -- later called 'Monophysites' and who nowadays style themselves 'Oriental Orthodox', including the Coptic Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, and the Syrian Orthodox Church -- agreed with Eutyches over 'one nature' in Christ, but did not attempt to rehabilitate him, recognizing that he had been wrong to reject Christ's dual consubstantiality (with the Father and with us men). His memory was kept alive by the Chalcedonians, who until recently used the term 'Eutychean' as a pejorative description of the non-Chalcedonians.