THE CANONS (ANATHEMAS) OF THE SECOND COUNCIL OF 

CONSTANTINOPLE (553 AD)



The Second Council of Constantinople was called to resolve certain 

questions that were raised by the Definition of Chalcedon, the most 

important of which had to do with the unity of the two natures, God and 

man, in Jesus Christ. The Second Council of Constantinople confirmed the 

Definition of Chalcedon, while emphasizing that Jesus Christ does not just 

embody God the Son, He _is_ God the Son. 



I.



If anyone does not confess that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit 

are one nature or essence, one power or authority, worshipped as a trinity 

of the same essence, one deity in three hypostases or persons, let him be 

anathema. For there is one God and Father, of whom are all things, and one 

Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in 

whom are all things. 



II.



If anyone does not confess that God the Word was twice begotten, the first 

before all time from the Father, non- temporal and bodiless, the other in 

the last days when he came down from the heavens and was incarnate by the 

holy, glorious, God-bearer, ever-virgin Mary, and born of her, let him be 

anathema. 



III.



If anyone says that God the Word who performed miracles is one and Christ 

who suffered is another, or says that God the Word was together with Christ 

who came from woman, or that the Word was in him as one person is in 

another, but is not one and the same, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of 

God, incarnate and become human, and that the wonders and the suffering 

which he voluntarily endured in flesh were not of the same person, let him 

be anathema. 



IV.



If anyone says that the union of the Word of God with man was only 

according to grace or function or dignity or equality of honor or authority 

or relation or effect or power or according to his good pleasure, as though 

God the Word was pleased with man, or approved of him, as the raving 

Theodosius says; or that the union exists according to similarity of name, 

by which the Nestorians call God the Word Jesus and Christ, designating the 

man separately as Christ and as Son, speaking thus clearly of two persons, 

but when it comes to his honor, dignity, and worship, pretend to say that 

there is one person, one Son and one Christ, by a single designation; and 

if he does not acknowledge, as the holy Fathers have taught, that the union 

of God is made with the flesh animated by a reasonable and intelligent 

soul, and that such union is according to synthesis or hypostasis, and that 

therefore there is only one person, the Lord Jesus Christ one of the holy 

Trinity -- let him be anathema. As the word "union" has many meanings, the 

followers of the impiety of Apollinaris and Eutyches, assuming the 

disappearance of the natures, affirm a union by confusion. On the other 

hand the followers of Theodore and of Nestorius rejoicing in the division 

of the natures, introduce only a union of relation. But the holy Church of 

God, rejecting equally the impiety of both heresies, recognizes the union 

of God the Word with the flesh according to synthesis, that is according to 

hypostasis. For in the mystery of Christ the union according to synthesis 

preserves the two natures which have combined without confusion and 

without 

separation. 



V.



If anyone understands the expression -- one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus 

Christ -- so that it means the union of many hypostases, and if he attempts 

thus to introduce into the mystery of Christ two hypostases, or two 

persons, and, after having introduced two persons, speaks of one person 

according to dignity, honor or worship, as Theodore and Nestorius insanely 

have written; and if anyone slanders the holy synod of Chalcedon, as though 

it had used this expression <one hypostasis> in this impious sense, and 

does not confess that the Word of God is united with the flesh 

hypostatically, and that therefore there is but one hypostasis or one 

person, and that the holy synod of Chalcedon has professed in this sense 

the one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ; let him be anathema. For the 

Holy Trinity, when God the Word was incarnate, was not increased by the 

addition of a person or hypostasis. 



VI. 



If anyone says that the holy, glorious, and ever-virgin Mary is called God-

bearer by misuse of language and not truly, or by analogy, believing that 

only a mere man was born of her and that God the Word was not incarnate of 

her, but that the incarnation of God the Word resulted only from the fact 

that he united himself to that man who was born of her; if anyone slanders 

the Holy Synod of Chalcedon as though it had asserted the Virgin to be God-

bearer according to the impious sense of Theodore; or if anyone shall call 

her manbearer or Christbearer, as if Christ were not God, and shall not 

confess that she is truly God-bearer, because God the Word who before all 

time was begotten of the Father was in these last days incarnate of her, 

and if anyone shall not confess that in this pious sense the holy Synod of 

Chalcedon confessed her to be God- bearer: let him be anathema. 



VII. 



If anyone using the expression, "in two natures," does not confess that our 

one Lord Jesus Christ is made known in the deity and in the manhood, in 

order to indicate by that expression a difference of the natures of which 

the ineffable union took place without confusion, a union in which neither 

the nature of the Word has changed into that of the flesh, nor that of the 

flesh into that of the Word (for each remained what it was by nature, even 

when the union by hypostasis had taken place); but shall take the 

expression with regard to the mystery of Christ in a sense so as to divide 

the parties, let him be anathema. Or if anyone recognizing the number of 

natures in the same our one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word incarnate, does 

not take in contemplation only the difference of the natures which compose 

him, which difference is not destroyed by the union between them -- for one 

is composed of the two and the two are in one -- but shall make use of the 

number two to divide the natures or to make of them persons properly so 

called, let him be anathema. 



VIII. 



If anyone confesses that the union took place out of two natures or speaks 

of the one incarnate nature of God the Word and does not understand those 

expressions as the holy Fathers have taught, that out of the divine and 

human natures, when union by hypostasis took place, one Christ was formed; 

but from these expressions tries to introduce one nature or essence of the 

Godhead and manhood of Christ; let him be anathema. For in saying that the 

only-begotten Word was united by hypostasis personally we do not mean that 

there was a mutual confusion of natures, but rather we understand that the 

Word was united to the flesh, each nature remaining what it was. Therefore 

there is one Christ, God and man, of the same essence with the Father as 

touching his Godhead, and of the same essence with us as touching his 

manhood. Therefore the Church of God equally rejects and anathematizes 

those who divide or cut apart or who introduce confusion into the mystery 

of the divine dispensation of Christ. 



IX. 



If anyone says that Christ ought to be worshipped in his two natures, in 

the sense that he introduces two adorations, the one peculiar to God the 

Word and the other peculiar to the man; or if anyone by destroying the 

flesh, or by confusing the Godhead and the humanity, or by contriving one 

nature or essence of those which were united and so worships Christ, and 

does not with one adoration worship God the Word incarnate with his own 

flesh, as the Church of God has received from the beginning; let him be 

anathema. 



X. 



If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in 

the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; 

let him be anathema. 



XI. 



If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, 

Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, together with their impious, godless 

writings, and all the other heretics already condemned and anathematized by 

the holy catholic and apostolic Church, and by the aforementioned four Holy 

Synods and all those who have held and hold or who in their godlessness 

persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those heretics just 

mentioned; let him be anathema. 



---------------- Posted by: Lon Mendelsohn Source: CHRISTIA File Archives 

(for more info send INDEX CHRISTIA to listserv@asuvm.inre.asu.edu)



jab/15-Mar-94



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