NEO-CHALCEDONIAN

NEO-CHALCEDONIAN. This phrase was coined by modern scholarship to describe the movement, ultimately victorious at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (q.v.) in 553, to fix the interpretation of the Chalcedonian formula, “two natures in one person,” in ways congenial to the emphasis Cyril of Alexandria (q.v.) had placed on the unity of God and man in Christ. It was led by such figures as Leontius of Byzantium, the Emperor Justinian (qq.v.), and Joh n of Scythopolis. They stressed the Word of God as the hypostasis of the union, and they insisted thus on the truth of theopaschism, i.e., the Christology (q.v.) contained in the phrase, “one of the Holy Trinity suffered in the flesh.” The hymn “Only-Begotten” (q.v.), traditionally by Justinian, sums up the emperor’s theological program.