Chalcedonian Creed

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The Confession of Chalcedon (also Definition or Creed of Chalcedon) was adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 in Asia Minor. That Council of Chalcedon is one of the seven ecumenical councils accepted by Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and many Protestant Christian churches. It is the first Council not recognized by any of the Oriental Orthodox churches.

The Chalcedonian creed was written amid controversy between the western and eastern churches over the meaning of the Incarnation (see Christology), the ecclesiastical influence of the emperor, and the supremacy of the Roman Pope. The western churches readily accepted the creed, but some eastern churches did not.

The creed became standard orthodox doctrine, while the church of Alexandria dissented, holding to Cyril's formula of the oneness of Christ’s nature as the incarnation of God the Word. This church felt that this understanding required that the creed should have stated that Christ be acknowledged "from two natures" rather than "in two natures." This miaphysite position, often erroneously known as "Monophysitism", formed the basis for the distinction from other churches of the Coptic church of Egypt and Ethiopia and the "Jacobite" churches of Syria and Armenia (see Oriental Orthodoxy). Over the last 30 years, however, the miaphysite position has been accepted as a mere restatement of orthodox belief by Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church and by Pope John Paul II of the Roman Catholic Church.

[edit] English translation

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood;

truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body;

consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;

in all things like unto us, without sin;

begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood;

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;

as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.