from the Catholic Church. That story is told in the volume on the Orthodox Eastern Church.
Summary
This chapter is concerned with the long and involved story of the Monophysite heresy. Monophysism began as an exaggerated opposition to Nestorianism. Egypt, the land of Cyril, was always its headquarters. The essence of this heresy is that our Lord has only one nature, that his humanity is so absorbed in his Divinity that he would not really be a man at all. Eutyches, Archimandrite at Constantinople, first brought this view into prominence. Dioscor of Alexandria, St. Cyril's successor, was its chief champion. Dioscor first triumphed at the Robber-Synod of Ephesus in 449. He was defeated and deposed, and Monophysism was condemned by the fourth General Council at Chalcedon in 452. The faith of Chalcedon remains always that of the Catholic Church, as opposed to Monophysism. Pope Leo I had already declared this faith in his Tome, accepted with acclamation by the Council. After Chalcedon the Monophysite party was by no means extinct. It continued to cause enormous trouble to both Church and State for about two and a half centuries. During all this time there were continual attempts on the part of the Government to conciliate the heretics by meeting them half way. None of these attempts were successful, most of them were themselves a betrayal of the faith, all led to further trouble with Rome and the West. Zeno's Henotikon caused the Acacian schism, which lasted thirty-five years (484-519); Justinian's condemnation of the Three Chapters brought about the tragic incident of Pope Vigilius and the fifth General Council (Constantinople II, 553); Heraclius' compromise of Monotheletism caused the scandal of Pope Honorius I and the sixth General Council (Constantinople III, 680). Meanwhile, Monophysism produced a crowd of strange dependent sects. It was firmly established in Egypt and Abyssinia; it had many adherents in Syria and Palestine; the Armenian Church turned Monophysite solidly. So this heresy produced four Monophysite Churches (the Copts in Egypt, the Abyssinians, the Jacobites in Syria and Palestine, the Armenians), with a reaction on the distant missionary Church of Malabar (originally Nestorian).
