a critique of the non-chalcedonian orthodox

Oriental Orthodoxy is the communion of Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils—the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the Council of Ephesus.  The separation resulted in part from the refusal of Dioscorus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, to accept the Christological dogmas promulgated by the Council of Chalcedon on Jesus's two natures (divine and human). The Oriental churches accepted that Christ had two natures, but insisted that those two natures are inseparable and united. Dioscorus would accept only "of or from two natures" but not "in two natures." To the hierarchs who would lead the Oriental Orthodox, the Chalcedonian proclamation was tantamount to Nestorianism, which was rejected by the universal church at the Council of Ephesus. 

For starters, we have to remember that while the Church of Alexandria certainly played a crucial role in early Christendom, especially with missionary efforts, it wasn’t the only Church, nor was its Christological formula the only one in use at the time. An insistence on one specific formula for the incarnation ( one which St. Cyril himself took from Apollinaris) does not seem like valid grounds for a perpetual schism. While I agree that the Tome of St. Leo and even the Chalcedonian definition itself could hypothetically be read in a Nestorian way, the Second Council of Constantinople put to rest any possible Nestorian interpretation by identifying the single subjectivity of Christ with the Second Person of the Trinity. We have to keep in mind that just because new terminology comes about in the Church does not make it unorthodox. Even the Cappadocian Fathers dissented from the traditional Nicene interpretation of “hypostasis” and “ousia”, which the First Council of Nicaea had as synonyms. But what the Fathers differentiated between gets us what we have today: one essence in three Persons. The Council of Chalcedon, and especially II Constantinople, makes it very clear how the Chalcedonians define person vs nature, and in my personal opinion, objectively demonstrate that it wasn’t Nestorian. The only objection the anti-Chalcedonians had was that their specific formulation wasn’t accepted as the only standard of orthodoxy, which just seems ethnically prideful to me.

Try to view this from the perspective of Church catholicity: while St. Cyril’s Christology certainly is orthodox, it’s not quite as impeccable as he and his contemporaries thought. To those who were outside of the Alexandrian tradition (as the Latins and Antiochenes were), speaking of “one incarnate nature” did not completely avoid an Apollinarian reading. The clearest example of this would be Euchtyes, who took St. Cyril very literally in his suggestion that after the incarnation you can no longer speak of separate natures, but only one, the consequence of which was positing a mixture of the divine and human natures, making Christ neither divine nor human at best, or adding a fourth person to the Trinity at worst. St. Cyril himself recognized the weakness of the miaphysis terminology in his Reunion of John of Antioch, where he understood that the reason they were so skeptical of the phrase “one incarnate nature” is precisely because there’s nothing in there to safeguard the completeness of both natures, given the phrase “incarnate” may and has been read in an Apollinarian way. If we cannot speak of two natures in Christ after the incarnation, then how does this avoid positing that Christ now has a divine-human nature, thereby making Him deficient in both? This was the concern of the Antiochenes, which was recognized as legitimate by the Fathers of Chalcedon. The main concern of St. Cyril in stressing the unity of natures was to stress the single subjectivity of Christ: that there were not two Christs, but only one incarnate Lord. And it was with both of these concerns in mind that Chalcedon and II Constantinople declared Jesus Christ to be one and the same Lord, Second Person of the Trinity, who is known in two natures, divine and human, and that He was truly born of the Virgin, suffered, and died according to His humanity. Thus, the single subjectivity of Christ is preserved by saying it was the Second Person of the Trinity who was born, suffered, died, and rose again and the completeness of the human and divine natures are preserved in accordance with St. Leo that each nature does what is proper to it: the single Person of Christ suffered and died only in His humanity, for the divine nature is impassible and cannot suffer (very reminiscent of St. Cyril’s popular phrase that “the incarnate Word suffered impassibly”). Essentially it boils down to this: those who initially opposed St. Cyril’s Christology had genuine concerns that Cyril himself took seriously towards the end of his life. From the Chalcedonian standpoint, the anti-Chalcedonians, in their refusal to admit that their terminology could be harmfully interpreted and that the Alexandrian tradition wasn’t the only standard of orthodoxy, disobeyed the Church and separated themselves from her communion.

The ultimate reason why St. Cyril was even formulating his doctrine of the natures and person of Christ in the first place was to preserve the Alexandrian understanding of theosis. He wanted to preserve an ontological soteriology whereby the incarnation fully divinizes humanity and all of creation, and this is how our and the cosmos’ salvation is made possible. And this is precisely the doctrine that the Byzantine (Chalcedonian) Church preserved and developed through Sts. Maximus and John Damascene, all the way to St. Gregory Palamas and beyond, all of whom make the deification of man in Christ the core of their theology and spirituality (which the Palamite councils identified as inseparable). This would not have happened if Chalcedon was truly Nestorian. Can you read Chalcedon in a Nestorian way? If you really tried, which is a bit difficult with Chalcedon’s emphasis on the two natures being inseparable, but still possible. But can you read the tradition of the Chalcedonian Church in a Nestorian way? Absolutely not. Our anthropology, our theology of icons, our devotion to the Theotokos, our understanding of the Eucharist, and our emphasis on the essence-energy distinction and deification radically oppose any hint at Nestorianism. 

I’d also like to add that, despite the anti-Chalcedonians insistence that St. Cyril only allows for the miaphysis and rejected “in two natures”, Cyril actually does allow speak of “in two natures” in his 2nd letter to Succenus paragraph 6 ("We recognise two natures in him") so long as it’s qualified with the fact that the two natures are “without confusion”, “without change”, and “without alteration” and that they exist in “one and the same Son, Christ, and Lord.” And if it’s not obvious already, these are the exact qualifications Chalcedon gives in its definitive statement of faith. Furthermore, in his Reunion with John of Antioch, Cyril explicitly affirms the existence of two natures after the incarnation by stating it is acceptable to ascribe certain attributes to one nature and other attributes to another nature (something St. Leo is criticized for doing).

To sum it up: 

St. Cyril’s language was not precise enough to prevent a resurrection of Apollinarianism, and so the Holy Fathers at Chalcedon decided to qualify the one and the same hypostasis, Person (Jesus Christ) existing in two natures, which undergo no separation, no change, and no confusion. To prevent from being read in a Nestorian way, Cyrilline language was used (one and the same, inseparable, unchanging, etc). II Constantinople further qualified this by affirming that the one single hypostasis, the one and only subjective and personal reality, in whom the two natures subsist is the second Person of the Trinity. There is nothing unorthodox about this, and there’s nothing unorthodox about redefining terms to fend off heresy.