THE COUNCIL OF ALEXANDRIA IN 633 – 2017-3

Summary

Sargis R. Melkonyan, Samvel S. Mkrtchyan

Key words – the Council of Alexandria, Ezdras I, Emperor Heraclius I, Sergios I of Constantinople, Cyros of Phasis, Theodoros of Pharan, monotheletism, «mia energeia», «mia thelema», chalcedonism, antichalcedonism.

Almost all medieval Armenian sources report about the Council in Theodosiopolis/Karin in the first half of the 7th century with the participation of the Catholicos of the Armenian church Ezdras I and Heraclius, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, where an unia was adopted between two sides. The same sources say that the Catholicos Ezdras was deceived by the Greeks in this Council and took chalcedonism. But a careful analysis of Armenian and Greek sources shows that the religious politics of the empire concerning the anti-chalcedonian churches of the Egyptians, Assyrians and Armenians were not completely chalcedonian. Unfortunately none of Armenian sources saved that document which served as a basis for the adoption of the union. But it was preserved the unional document with the Egyptian ant-chalcedonites, which was adopted in the local Council of Alexandria in 633.

In this article this union between Egyptian monophysites and chalcedonians is investigated in the context of the new unional politics of Eastern Roman Empire from the beginning of the VII century to 633. Its basis was the doctrine «mia energeia» (mia enjervgeia) of Christ. In this article has first been realized the Armenian translation of the unional text of the Council of Alexandria, which consists of nine chapters. It was also carried out a separate analysis of this document. As a result of it, mutuallyacceptable versions of several Christological controversial formulas between monophysites following Cyrill-Alexandrian traditions and chalcedonians were found.. In addition, it becomes clear that this unional document is not based on chalcedonism, because the basic Christological formulas were interpreted in the cyrilian sense and the formula «mia energeia» try to explain with the expression of St. Dionysius the Areopagite «theandrike energeia». There is no mention of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. These facts prove that doctrine laid at the basis of the unional politics of Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius in the first half of the 7th century was not exactly chalcedonism.

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