Council 5: Constantinople, 553

Justinian's aim was to show that Chalcedon could be read in a thoroughly Cyrilline way, and so to recover the churches that had not received it. His instrument was the condemnation of the Three Chapters: Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings, Theodoret's writings against Cyril, and a letter attributed to Ibas of Edessa.

The council condemned them and issued fourteen capitula clarifying the Christological confession. It issued no creed and no disciplinary canons.

Its Western reception was difficult because condemning men long dead, two of whom Chalcedon had received into communion, looked to many Western bishops like an attack on Chalcedon. Pope Vigilius was in Constantinople, refused to attend, condemned the proceedings, and accepted them the following year. Local schisms in northern Italy lasted into the seventh century.

The policy failed in its central aim: the non-Chalcedonian churches were not reconciled. The council also anathematised Origen by name, though whether the separate fifteen anathemas against Origenism belong to it is genuinely disputed.

Council and canon connections

• The full guide, with the council's own documents, is at Constantinople, 553.

Why this matters in lived Orthodoxy

The Cyrilline reading of Chalcedon fixed by this council is how Chalcedon has been understood in the East ever since, and it shapes Orthodox Christological language to this day.

Review

Going deeper

• The council guide, with its archived texts.