50 - Cyril of Alexandria, Letter of Reunion to John of Antioch

Summary

The two rival parties that met in Ephesus in July 431, one led by Cyril and his allies and the other by Nestorius and John of Antioch, failed to reach an accord and instead each condemned the legitimacy of the other. Emperor Theodosius II then intervened by arranging for a smaller group of representatives from each side to have a series of meetings in Chalcedon under his personal supervision. With Cyril under house arrest in Ephesus and Nestorius deposed and sent into exile, it was hoped that the two sides could achieve reconciliation. Some of the Easterners (so called because they came from the Roman diocese of Oriens or “East”), including John of Antioch himself, were willing to agree to Nestorius’s excommunication, but they continued to hold that Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas (also called the Twelve Chapters) appended to his Third Letter to Nestorius were tainted with heresy (especially Apollinarianism) and so insisted that they too had to be condemned. As these negotiations stretched into October, it became evident that a resolution would not be achieved in the short term, so Theodosius finally released all the bishops to disperse to their sees, including Cyril who had already departed for Alexandria.