Council of Ephesus

Nestorius, a celebrated preacher from Antioch who became archbishop of Constantinople in 428, objected to calling Mary Theotokos and proposed Christotokos, “Mother of Christ”, instead; his opponents, led by Cyril of Alexandria, accused him of dividing Christ into two persons. Pope Celestine I sided with Cyril, and the emperor’s sister Pulcheria was also hostile to Nestorius. Theodosius II summoned a general council to Ephesus, a city devoted to the veneration of Mary, for Pentecost (7 June) 431.

Without waiting for John of Antioch and the Syrian bishops, and over the protests of the imperial commissioner Candidian, Cyril opened the council on 22 June; nearly two hundred bishops condemned Nestorius, who refused to appear, and deposed him. When John arrived a few days later, he and his supporters held a rival council that deposed Cyril and Memnon, the bishop of Ephesus. The papal legates, who came in July, endorsed Cyril’s council. Theodosius at first confirmed the depositions of all three and had Cyril and Memnon kept under guard, but in the end accepted the verdict against Nestorius, who retired to his monastery near Antioch (in 435 he was exiled to Egypt). The council, which met until 31 July (some accounts date its last, seventh session to 31 August) and was dissolved in early October, reaffirmed the Nicene Creed and forbade the composition of any other.

In 433 Cyril and John of Antioch were reconciled on a common confession of faith, and John accepted the condemnation of Nestorius, but the controversy flared up again over the teaching of Eutyches and led to the councils of 449 and 451. The Christians of the Persian Empire did not accept the condemnation: their church increasingly aligned itself with the theology of Nestorius and his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia, whom the metropolitan of Nisibis, Barsauma, publicly accepted as an authority in 486, and the Church of the East was later called “Nestorian”.