Commemoration of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) — July 25 / August 7 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, July 25 according to the Julian Calendar (August 7 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

The Fifth Ecumenical Council was convened in the year 553, in Constantinople, in the reign of the right-believing Emperor Justinian I (527–565). Its purpose was to examine the question of three bishops already deceased — Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa — who as early as the time of the Third Ecumenical Council (431; commemorated September 9) had expressed Nestorian views in their writings. The Council of Chalcedon (451; commemorated July 16), which anathematized the Monophysites, had not judged these hierarchs, and for this reason the followers of Eutyches accused the participants of that council of Nestorianism. In order to deprive the heretics of this pretext for reviling the Orthodox, Saint Justinian issued an edict in whose three chapters each of the three above-mentioned fathers was censured in turn; but since this edict did not win universal acceptance among the representatives of the Church — especially in the West, and in particular in Africa — there arose the dispute concerning the “Three Chapters.” It was precisely this that made the convocation of the Fifth Ecumenical Council necessary.

One hundred and sixty-five bishops attended the council. Pope Vigilius (535–555), who was then in Constantinople, refused to take part in it, although he was invited three times by an official deputation sent in the name of the assembled hierarchs and of the emperor himself.

The council was presided over by the holy Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople (552–565; 577–582). In accordance with the emperor’s edict, the question of the “Three Chapters” was carefully examined in the course of eight sessions held from May 4 to June 2 of the year 553. In the end, Theodore of Mopsuestia and his teaching were given over to anathema; several writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and of Ibas of Edessa were likewise condemned, while these fathers themselves, as men cleansed by repentance, were shown mercy. Pope Vigilius, as one who had sided with the heretics, was excommunicated from the Church; but after the council he joined himself to the common mind of the fathers and signed the council’s decree.

The fathers of the council also examined and anathematized the heretical teaching of the well-known church figure of the third century, the presbyter Origen. Those heretics who denied the universal resurrection of the dead were condemned as well.