Council of Chalcedon

==Consequences: Chalcedonian Schism==<!-- This section is linked from [[Nestorianism]] -->
{{further|Non-Chalcedonianism}}
The near-immediate result of the council was a major schism.{{clarify|reason=it was not 'near-immediate': there was certainly opposition to the council, but schism, in the sense of a rival episcopal hierarchy, distinct from that of the imperial church, only began to develop in the mid-sixth century, and only became complete after the Arab conquest of Syria and Egypt|date=January 2012}} The bishops who were uneasy with the language of Pope Leo's Tome repudiated the council, saying that the acceptance of two ''physes'' was tantamount to Nestorianism. Dioscorus of Alexandria advocated [[miaphysitism]] and had dominated the Council of Ephesus.<ref>"Latrocinium." Cross, F. L., ed. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church''. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005</ref> [[Oriental Orthodox Church|Churches that rejected Chalcedon in favor of Ephesus]] broke off from [[Chalcedonian Christianity|the rest of the Eastern Church]] in a schism, the most significant among these being the Church of [[Alexandria]], today known as the [[Coptic Orthodox Church]].<ref name="georgetown2">{{cite web |url=http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/countries/egypt |title=Egypt |publisher=[[Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs]] |access-date=2011-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111220145046/http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/countries/egypt |archive-date=2011-12-20 |url-status=dead }} See drop-down essay on "Islamic Conquest and the Ottoman Empire"</ref> The rise of the "so-called" Monophysitism in the East (as branded by the West) was led by the Copts of Egypt. This must be regarded{{dubious|date=January 2022}} as the outward expression of the growing nationalist trends{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} in that province against the gradual intensification of Byzantine imperialism, soon to reach its consummation during the reign of Emperor Justinian.
In [[Egypt]], opponents starkly outnumbered adherents, as 30,000 Greeks of Chalcedonian persuasion were ranged against some five million [[Copts|Coptic]] non-Chalcedonians.{{sfn|Bury|1889|p=249}} A significant effect on the Orthodox Christians in Egypt, was a series of persecutions by the Roman (later, Byzantine) empire forcing followers of the Oriental Orthodox Church to claim allegiance to Leo's Tome, or Chalcedon. This led to the martyrdom, persecution and death of thousands{{dubious|date=August 2023}} of Egyptian saints and bishops till the Arab Conquest of Egypt.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/arabconquestofeg00butl|title=The Arab conquest of Egypt and the last thirty years of the Roman dominion|last=Butler|first=Alfred Joshua|author-link=Alfred J. Butler|date=1902|publisher=Oxford, Clarendon Press|others=The Library of Congress}}</ref> As a result, The Council of Chalcedon is referred to as "Chalcedon, the Ominous" among Coptic Egyptians given how it led to Christians persecuting other Christians for the first time{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} in history. Coptic Orthodox Christians continue to distinguish themselves from followers of Chalcedon to this day. Although the theological differences are seen as limited (if non-existent), it is politics, the subsequent persecutions and the power struggles in the Roman Empire, that may have led to the Great Schism, or at least contributed significantly to amplifying it through the centuries.

The divisions in the Church weakened the Byzantine Empire's eastern provinces and helped eased the subsequent Sassanian and Arab invasions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Francesca Aran Murphy |title=The Oxford Handbook of Christology |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780191061677 |page=146}}</ref>

[[Justinian I]] attempted to bring those monks who still rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon into communion with the greater church. The exact time of this event is unknown, but it is believed to have been between 535 and 548. [[Abraham (Copt)|St Abraham of Farshut]] was summoned to Constantinople and he chose to bring with him four monks. Upon arrival, Justinian summoned them and informed them that they would either accept the decision of the council or lose their positions. Abraham refused to entertain the idea. [[Theodora (6th century)|Theodora]] tried to persuade Justinian to change his mind, seemingly to no avail. Abraham himself stated in a letter to his monks that he preferred to remain in exile rather than subscribe to a faith contrary to that of [[Athanasius]].{{clarify|reason=This is a seriously incomplete and misleading account of the complex negotiations between Justinian and the non-Chalcedonians|date=January 2012}} They were not alone, and the non-Chalcedon churches compose [[Oriental Orthodoxy]], with the [[Patriarch of Alexandria|Church of Alexandria]] as their [[primus inter pares]]. Only in recent years has a degree of rapprochement between Chalcedonian Christians and the [[Oriental Orthodoxy|Oriental Orthodox]] been seen.