A Formula That Also Split the Church It Was Meant to Settle

Chalcedon's definition became the standard confession of Christ's person for the churches that trace their line through Rome, Constantinople and the later Protestant churches, all of which count Chalcedon among the councils that carry binding doctrinal weight. It did not, however, settle the dispute for everyone at the table. A significant body of churches, centered in Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia, judged Chalcedon's language of two natures too close to the very division into two subjects the council claimed to be rejecting, and preferred instead the formula associated with Cyril of Alexandria, one incarnate nature of God the Word, a position now generally called miaphysite rather than the older and less accurate label monophysite. These churches, now known collectively as Oriental Orthodoxy, broke communion with Chalcedon's supporters in the years following 451, a division that has lasted more than fifteen centuries and has only recently been the subject of serious reconciling dialogue. Modern theological conversation between Chalcedonian and Oriental Orthodox churches has increasingly concluded that both sides were affirming the same underlying reality, a real union of full divinity and full humanity in one Christ, disagreeing chiefly over which technical vocabulary best protected that truth against being misread, though the historic ecclesial separation between the two communions remains unresolved to this day.