Constantinople II

Oversimplified

• The Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), which reaffirmed the unity of Christ's person against lingering Nestorianism (the "Three Chapters") and condemned the errors of Origen.
• It read Chalcedon in a Cyrilline key: two natures, but one and the same divine person — "one of the Holy Trinity suffered in the flesh." Chalcedon

Summary

The Second Council of Constantinople (AD 553), convened under the emperor Justinian, is the fifth of the Ecumenical Councils. Its task was to secure the right reading of Chalcedon against those who used its "two natures" language to smuggle back the Nestorian split. It condemned the "Three Chapters" — certain writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa — that leaned Nestorian, and affirmed that the one who was born, crucified, and glorified is the one divine person of the Word.[^1] Cross-link Nestorianism, Chalcedon, The Incarnation.

"One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh"

The Council's decisive clarification is that "one of the Holy Trinity was crucified in the flesh." This is not a claim that the divine nature can suffer; it is a claim about who suffers — the subject on the Cross is none other than the eternal Son, suffering in His humanity. It guards against imagining "the man Jesus" as a separate someone from the Word. Chalcedon's two natures never became two persons. Cross-link The Incarnation, Suffering.

The condemnation of Origenism

The Council (with the synod surrounding it) also condemned Origenism — the pre-existence of souls, the cyclical return of all things, and the apokatastasis that would empty Hell at the last. This is a key marker against Christian Universalism: the Church weighed the idea and rejected it. Cross-link Universalism, The Transmigration of Souls.

[^1]: The anathemas of the Second Council of Constantinople (553).