Church history · Patristic Era
Council of Ephesus
AD 431
The third ecumenical council condemned the teaching of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and affirmed the title Theotokos ("God-bearer") for Mary, addressing how the divine and human natures relate in the person of Christ.
The event
The Council of Ephesus arose from a dispute between Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, over how to describe the union of divine and human nature in Christ. Nestorius objected to calling Mary Theotokos ("God-bearer" or "Mother of God"), preferring the more limited title Christotokos ("Christ-bearer"), out of concern that Theotokos implied the divine nature itself had a beginning in Mary's womb — a concern Cyril and his allies interpreted as effectively dividing Christ into two separate persons, one divine and one human.
Emperor Theodosius II convened a council at Ephesus in 431 to resolve the dispute, but the proceedings were marked by significant procedural controversy: Cyril opened and conducted the council's condemnation of Nestorius before the arrival of Nestorius's own supporters, led by John of Antioch, who upon arriving held a rival counter-council that in turn condemned Cyril.
The emperor initially arrested both Cyril and Nestorius, but ultimately Cyril's position prevailed politically; Nestorius was deposed and eventually exiled, and the council's condemnation of "Nestorianism" and affirmation of Theotokos became the accepted orthodox position in most of the church, though the underlying Christological questions were not fully settled and would resurface with even greater intensity at the Council of Chalcedon two decades later.
Communities that continued to hold Nestorius's Christology, or something like it, survived especially in the Church of the East (sometimes historically called the "Nestorian Church"), which spread extensively across Persia and along Silk Road trade routes into Central Asia, India, and China in the following centuries, remaining institutionally and theologically distinct from both the Western Latin church and the Byzantine Greek church.
Other witnesses
- Acts of the Council of Ephesus (431)
Further reading
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