The Divided Orthodox Reception

The Agreed Statements divided the Orthodox world. On one side stood the Joint Commission and its defenders, who judged the theological analysis sound and the ancient anathemas the product of a terminological misunderstanding. On the other stood the Sacred Community of Mount Athos, a body of theologians led by Jean-Claude Larchet’s book-length critique, and several local churches with formal reservations. This file presents both positions in their strongest form, names who said what, and renders no verdict — because the Church has rendered none.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Why This File Does Not Adjudicate

Every other file in this collection confesses the faith of the Church where the Church has spoken. This one does not, and the reason is precise.

The question here is not whether Chalcedon is an Ecumenical Council — it is, and Section 04 confesses it. It is not whether the anathemas against Dioscorus and Severus were validly imposed — they were, and Section 06 says so. It is not whether communion has been restored — it has not, and the previous file establishes that as a fact both parties concede.

The question is whether a modern theological initiative, which the Church has not adopted, was sound in its diagnosis and right in its recommendation. Orthodox hierarchs and theologians of standing have publicly disagreed about that, no pan-Orthodox synod has judged between them, and METHODOLOGY §4.2 governs precisely such cases: disputes within Orthodoxy, and the reception of modern initiatives she has not adopted, are reported with both sides named and unadjudicated.

The Case That the Statements Are Sound

[Disputed: whether the Agreed Statements of 1989 and 1990 accurately state the faith of both families and rightly recommend the lifting of the anathemas. The two Orthodox positions follow.]

(a) The affirmative case.

Those who judged the statements sound argued as follows.

The terminological diagnosis is historically correct. St. Cyril used physis and hypostasis nearly interchangeably; Chalcedon prised them apart along the Cappadocian line. Once that is seen, “one nature” in Severus’ usage (physis = the concrete subject) and “two natures” in Chalcedon’s usage (physis = the common nature) are not contradictory claims but the same confession in two grammars. Each side affirms what the other means to affirm — one Christ, fully God and fully man, unconfused and undivided — and each condemns what the other condemns, Nestorius and Eutyches alike. This is not a modern invention: it is what the Fifth Ecumenical Council itself said when it affirmed that both “one incarnate nature of God the Word” and “two natures” may be said orthodoxly (see The Three Chapters and Constantinople II).

The historical record supports it. Cyril himself signed “two natures” in the Formula of Reunion of 433; the Chalcedonian Definition explicitly receives Cyril’s letters as its standard; Severus anathematized Eutyches and Julian of Halicarnassus and confessed the double consubstantiality. The scholarship establishing the last point is old and not partisan — Lebon’s Le monophysisme sévérien dates from 1909 — and it is accepted by Grillmeier and by the standard modern literature.

Named proponents. On the Orthodox side the position was argued by the Joint Commission itself under its Orthodox co-chairman, Metropolitan Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Switzerland; by Fr. John S. Romanides, a member of the dialogue and one of its most vigorous theological advocates; and by Prof. Georgios Martzelos of the Theological Faculty of Thessaloniki, who argued from St. John of Damascus that the non-Chalcedonians are to be classed as schismatics rather than heretics, since their theology does not in substance differ from the Chalcedonian confession — while holding that they must formally accept the Seven Ecumenical Councils for union to be achieved (Martzelos, “Orthodoxy and Heresy of the Anti-Chalcedonians according to St. John Damascene”; Ladouceur, “Orthodox Critiques of the Agreed Statements between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 60.3 [2016]: 333–368, surveying the positions).

The consequence they drew. If the substance of the faith is one and the ancient anathemas rested on a misreading of words, then consistency requires that the anathemas be lifted and communion restored; to refuse once substantial agreement is acknowledged is to prefer fifth-century vocabulary to the truth it was trying to express.

The Critical Case

(b) The critical case.

Those who judged the statements unsound argued as follows.

The formulations are ambiguous and susceptible of a non-Chalcedonian reading. The critics held that the statements’ language — particularly the glossing of physis with hypostasis in the Cyrilline formula and the affirmation that the natures are distinguished “in contemplation only” — can be read in a sense the Chalcedonian tradition cannot accept, and that a text designed to be signable by both sides has purchased agreement at the cost of precision. This is the objection the Henotikon attracted in the fifth century, in modern dress (see The Henotikon and the Acacian Schism).

Paragraph 8 is not an acceptance of the councils. The Second Agreed Statement records that the Oriental Orthodox “consider this declaration of the Orthodox as their interpretation” of the four later councils. To the critics this is the decisive weakness: the four councils are not received, they are noted; and the Sixth Council’s definition of the two natural wills and two natural energies — which the non-Chalcedonian tradition did not receive and which was defined against a Christology of the one activity — remains outside the agreement.

An anathema of an Ecumenical Council cannot be lifted by a commission. This is the ecclesiological objection, and it is the sharpest. The critics held that to set aside, by an act of the present hierarchy, a sentence pronounced by a council received by the whole Church is to place a modern authority above an Ecumenical Council, and that the 1993 proposal to have the heads of the churches sign an act to that effect makes the problem explicit rather than solving it.

Named critics. The Sacred Community of Mount Athos issued a memorandum on 27 May 1995 — Hypomnēma tēs Hieras Koinotētos tou Hagiou Orous peri tou Dialogou Orthodoxōn kai Antichalkēdoniōn — warning against a hurried union. Its objections included that the agreed language is susceptible of a non-Chalcedonian interpretation; that the non-Chalcedonians must unconditionally accept the decrees of all the Ecumenical Councils and their universality; that the anathemas of the councils were imposed by the Holy Spirit and cannot be treated as products of a want of love since remedied; and that the proposal to purge from the liturgical books the texts describing the anti-Chalcedonians as heretical would be an unacceptable innovation. A further Athonite document set out suggestions of a committee of the Holy Mountain on the same dialogue (Memorandum of the Sacred Community of Mount Athos, 27 May 1995; Ladouceur, SVTQ 60.3 [2016], surveying the Athonite texts).

The fullest scholarly critique is Jean-Claude Larchet’s book-length study, “La question christologique: à propos du projet d’union de l’Église orthodoxe et des Églises non chalcédoniennes — problèmes théologiques et ecclésiologiques en suspens,” first published in Le Messager orthodoxe 134 (2001) and republished in his collected dogmatic essays Personne et nature: La Trinité — Le Christ — L’homme (Paris: Cerf, 2011). Larchet argues that the theological and ecclesiological problems the union project raises remain unresolved, and the piece is regularly cited as the reference statement of the critical position (Larchet, Personne et nature, 2011; Ladouceur, SVTQ 60.3 [2016]).

Local church reservations. The Russian Orthodox Church, at its Bishops’ Council of December 1997, approved a report holding that the Second Agreed Statement is not a final document sufficient for the restoration of full communion, that it contains ambiguities in some Christological formulations, and that these should be clarified before any question of communion arises. Objections were also raised in Greece and by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and on the Oriental Orthodox side the Ethiopian Church was among those unwilling to proceed (Decisions of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, December 1997; Ladouceur, SVTQ 60.3 [2016]).

Where the Disagreement Actually Lies

The two cases are not simply for and against reunion. Both parties want the schism healed; both invoke real principles. The disagreement is narrower and harder than it looks, and it comes to one question:

Does the terminological diagnosis, once granted, settle the dogmatic question or only frame it?

If Severus and Chalcedon meant the same thing by different words, then the condemnations were a tragedy of language and the honest course is to say so. If the terminological difference is real but not exhaustive — if a Christology which distinguishes the natures “in thought alone” and confesses one composite activity leaves something unsaid that the Definition and the Sixth Council say — then the diagnosis clears away a caricature without resolving the substance.

Both positions are held by serious Orthodox theologians. Neither has been adopted by the Church. This collection reports both, in their strongest form, and does not choose.

What Both Sides Agree On

It is worth recording the common ground, because it is larger than the polemics suggest and because it constrains what either side can honestly say.

The Council of Chalcedon is an Ecumenical Council and its Definition is dogma. No party to this dispute denies it. The affirmative case holds that the non-Chalcedonian confession is compatible with the Definition, not that the Definition is dispensable.
Eutychianism is a heresy, and the Oriental Orthodox churches anathematize it. Both sides say so; the caricature is used by neither.
Communion has not been restored, no anathema has been lifted, and no pan-Orthodox synodal act has received the statements.
No local Orthodox church may act alone in this matter; pan-Orthodox consensus is required. The 1993 proposals themselves say so, and the Russian objection insists on it.

Where the Matter Stands

As of July 2026:

The Agreed Statements of 1989 and 1990 and the Proposals of 1993 have not been received by any pan-Orthodox synodal act. No mutual anathemas have been lifted. There is no eucharistic communion between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Council of Chalcedon and the three Ecumenical Councils after it retain their full dogmatic authority in the Orthodox Church, and the conciliar condemnations of the fifth and sixth centuries stand unaltered. The Holy and Great Council held in Crete in June 2016 did not act on the statements.

The dialogue itself has continued. Representatives of the two families met at the Logos Papal Centre, Monastery of St. Bishoy, Wadi al-Natrun, Egypt, on 16–17 September 2024, co-chaired by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon and Metropolitan Thomas of Quosia and Mir, and issued a communiqué expressing a commitment to deepen the theological dialogue, a shared concern for a common celebration of Pascha in the 1700th anniversary year of Nicaea, and joint concern over contemporary social and anthropological questions; the communiqué did not address the anathemas or the Agreed Statements (Communiqué of the meeting of representatives of the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Wadi al-Natrun, 16–17 September 2024, published by the World Council of Churches). An unofficial academic conference, “Eastern-Oriental Churches Relations: Reassessing the Dialogue and Moving Toward Communion,” was held at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, on 4–6 November 2025, hosted by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute and described by the hosts as the first of its kind in the United States; participants included Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Ethiopian and Indian representatives, and the conclusions were published in February 2026 as “Moving the Dialogue Forward” (Huffington Ecumenical Institute, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 4–6 November 2025; conclusions published in the Orthodox Observer, February 2026). It should be read for what it was — a gathering of theologians and scholars, not a synodal act — and it alters nothing stated above.

Readers should check for developments after this date. The state of the question changes only by synodal act, and no such act has occurred.

References

First and Second Agreed Statements of the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Anba Bishoy Monastery, 20–24 June 1989; Chambésy, 23–28 September 1990); Proposals for Lifting the Anathemas (Chambésy, 1–6 November 1993).
Memorandum of the Sacred Community of Mount Athos concerning the Dialogue between the Orthodox and the Non-Chalcedonians, 27 May 1995; with the subsequent “Suggestions of a Committee from the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain Athos.”
Larchet, Jean-Claude. “La question christologique: à propos du projet d’union de l’Église orthodoxe et des Églises non chalcédoniennes — problèmes théologiques et ecclésiologiques en suspens.” Le Messager orthodoxe 134 (2001); republished in Personne et nature: La Trinité — Le Christ — L’homme. Paris: Cerf, 2011.
Martzelos, Georgios. “Orthodoxy and Heresy of the Anti-Chalcedonians according to St. John Damascene.” (Thessaloniki; representative of the position defending the dialogue’s conclusions.)
Decisions of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, December 1997, on the dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox Churches (report of the Synodal Theological Commission presented by Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk).
Ladouceur, Paul. “Orthodox Critiques of the Agreed Statements between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches.” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 60.3 (2016): 333–368. (The fullest scholarly survey of the opposition and the responses to it, which does not resolve the dispute in either direction.)
Communiqué of the meeting of representatives of the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Logos Papal Centre, Monastery of St. Bishoy, Wadi al-Natrun, Egypt, 16–17 September 2024.
“Eastern-Oriental Churches Relations: Reassessing the Dialogue and Moving Toward Communion.” Conference of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, MA, 4–6 November 2025; conclusions published as “Moving the Dialogue Forward,” Orthodox Observer, February 2026. (An unofficial academic gathering, carrying no synodal authority.)
Samuel, V. C. The Council of Chalcedon Re-Examined. Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1977. (A representative Oriental Orthodox study, cited per METHODOLOGY §4.1 for the position it states, not for its verdict.)