Immediately, on October 25, a ceremonial meeting was held for the solemn proclamation of the finally achieved definition of faith. The imperial couple appeared, Marcian and Pulcheria. As befits a Roman emperor, Marcian made a speech in the official Latin language; only then was it read by the translator into Greek. 355 bishops and their deputies gave their signatures. The number of signatories was about 150 people less than the number of those gathered at the council. Obviously, the deaf opposition to the new course for many ordinary provincials tempted them to flee under various pretexts from responsibility, and the government, not without a sense of relief, sent them home to the state expense, thus purifying the atmosphere of the cathedral.

The minutes of the meeting, apparently, bring together the exclamations of the previous and this meeting: "We all believe so! We all agree! We signed everything unanimously. This is the faith of the fathers, the Apostles, the Orthodox! Glory to Marcian, the new Constantine, the new Paul, the new David! You are the world of the world! You have affirmed the Orthodox faith! Many years to the Empress! Thou art the lamp of the Orthodox faith! Peace reigns everywhere with you! Marcian is the new Constantine, Pulcheria is the new Helen!"

In conclusion, according to established custom, the useless prohibition to draw up any new definition of faith other than this one was ascribed. In this hopeless attempt to stop the historical movement of church life, there was obviously a modest tactical goal – simply an authoritative shout from above at the too rampant element of theological litigation and leader's adventurism.

On the clergy and laity who did not submit to the conciliar oros, punishments were imposed, depending on the degree of guilt: suspension, defrocking, excommunication from the church, with all the consequences.

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The culmination of the conciliar efforts was the birth and establishment of the above-mentioned oros. And the culminating point within the most extensive oros is its negative dialects: ασυγχυτως, ατρεπτως, αδιαιρετως, αχωριστως — unmerged, untransformed, inseparable — inseparably excluding the access of heretical tendencies into it. The psychology and logic of heresies are characterized by the hypertrophy of rationalistic arrogance, which deceives both the inventor of the heresy himself and the disciples who are carried away by him with a new explanation of the mystery of revelation, which seems to be a simplification, but in fact leads to the abolition and destruction of the dogma. Like all dogmas, the dogma of the God-Man is a mystery that surpasses our "arithmetical" reason. But this mystery is a Divinely revealed and God-given fact, i.e. an immutable, irrevocable truth. This is truly c'est à prendre ou à laisser (to admit or reject). When our little reason, the ratio, which comprehends neither the mystery of the world's existence nor the mystery of our own self, imagines that it has somehow comprehended them, and then boldly bursts into the mystery of the dogma, breaks the facets of its crystalline outline, its definition, it commits barbarous violence against the mystery, "goes mad" and in mad ecstasy cries out: "Eureka!" There is prophetic rapture from the Holy Spirit, and there is false grace from the "spirit of flattery." One must have the gift of discerning spirits, whether they are from God. (1 Cor. 12:10). The poor clever Apollinaris of Laodicea, having composed his "Apollinarian" heresy, which simplified (i.e., destroyed) the mystery of the God-Man, in "falsely grace-filled" ecstasy ascribed to the text of his interpretations a most sincere self-outpouring: "Oh, the new faith! In order not to slip into this alluring abyss of false reason and not to fly in seductive rapture on the wings of demons (Matt. 4:6), the Council of Chalcedon erected in the Christological oros what seemed to be simple partitions, a barrier that would prevent falling into the abyss of heresies. The barrier is very thin, barely noticeable, lacy, consisting of only four negatives. But Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy had well trained the heads of the members of the commission epistemologically. They knew that this is the only way for man to reason about the absolute and incomprehensible. And the past experience confirmed this seemingly simple school directive. The commission inscribed: (1) "Unmerged" ("άσυγχύτως"), for the extreme Monophysites poured the water of the flesh into the fire of the divinity, and it evaporated, disappeared, or, like grass, burned, and only the fiery element of the divine nature, i.e., "one nature," remained. 2) "Untransformed" ("άτρέπτως"), because for the more cunning, supposedly moderate Monophysites, humanity, by transforming its being, lost its reality, became only an apparent shell. (3) "Inseparable" ("αδιαιρέτως"), while among the Nestorians the two natures are placed side by side only in an illusory union. 4) "Inseparable" ("άχωρίστως"), and for the Marcellians, on the day of the last judgment, the God-Man will excommunicate from Himself, throw into nothing the human nature that has served Him.

Speaking of this oros of the Fourth Council, we pronounced the word "miracle." This is not for rhetoric. This should be felt by every conscientious historian, who delves into the complexity of the partiality of the contending parties, the ambitions of religion and politics, and, finally, the differences in racial mentality and language. How did this bubbling cauldron, ready to explode and only increase chaos (the Ephesian Councils of 431 and 449 were recent examples of this), suddenly flow a bright stream of wise, reconciling doctrine? How did the muddy water purify, according to the Serbian proverb, after passing through the "prez dvanadeset kamena"? It was as if the unwound schoolchildren were put in a punishment cell and forced to write an exercise they had not completed. And so God blessed this compulsion. It turned out to be for the good. "For it is pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28), as it is customary to repeat in such cases, following the example of the Apostles. Thus, in prose, the blindness of passions, sins and weaknesses of history, bright drops of truth are endured and prayed for, so the Holy Spirit deigns to overshadow with revelation from above the conscientious searches of the human spirit. The more sober and accurate the knowledge of historical reality, the more miraculously the ray of Divine Revelation looms against the background of this prose. A miracle for the eyes of faith. There are no miracles for stupid and blind disbelief anyway.

Both the prophets and the seer "were in the Spirit" for one moment, and then again, as earth-born, they submitted to the pull of earthly narrow-mindedness. In the same way, the collective of the Fathers of the Council, which for a moment rose to the grace-filled height of attaining the wise oros, in subsequent moments in judgments on further particular questions again turns into blind, obsessed individuals.

Meetings on 26, 27 and 28 October were devoted to administrative, disciplinary and personal matters. Let's talk about them briefly. Bl. Theodoret, who had already been acquitted by Rome, also sought justification by the council. He was the brains of the Antiochian school, which the conciliar majority considered simply Nestorianism. Theodoret wanted to justify before everyone the great theological work of his entire life, but they did not want to listen to him. Tired and spiritually crushed by what they had now decided to do, the Council Fathers, still poisoned by the poison of Monophysitism, when they saw Theodoret, they cried out: "There is no need for any reasoning! Anathematize Nestorius, and that's enough!" Theodorite: "What is the use of this until I prove to you that I am Orthodox?" The crowd of bishops shouted: "You see, he is a Nestorian! Get out of heretic! Say clearly: St. The Virgin is the Mother of God and anathema to Nestorius and to anyone who does not call Mary the Mother of God and divides Christ into two sons!" But in front of a crowd that had lost patience, this was impossible. Theodoret in despair, to put it trivially, "waved his hand" and pronounced the required anathema. "Well, if you are Orthodox, then you are worthy of the department! This unwillingness of the episcopate to delve into and understand the Orthodox form of Antiochian theology made the bishops blind and ignorant of the temptations of the familiar form of Alexandrian theology, almost unprotected from the infection of Monophysitism. And for this blindness, life took heavy revenge. 250 years of stubborn Monophysite reaction, combined with a non-Russian nationalist reaction against Hellenism, weakened and belittled the Byzantine Church and have left traces and scars in its dogmatism, its piety and its creativity to this day.

Theodoret was to be followed in front of the council by his double in fate in the era of the dictatorship of Dioscorus, Iva of Edessa. He was interrogated about a sensational letter to Mara, Bishop of Ardashir, in which St. Cyril was accused of Monophysitism. Willow's answer was undeniable. This was until 433, when Cyril yielded to the Antiochians and signed a general conciliatory confession with them. But the members of the council again did not want to delve into the essence of Antiochian theology. They were only interested in the anathema against Nestorius, which, of course, Iva pronounced. The impression remained that Theodoret and Iva were Nestorians. But, as always happens in a heated party atmosphere, this did not in the least calm the suspicion of the Monophysite masses and their leaders. Te decided: "You see, in order to divert eyes, Nestorius (who was still alive) was anathematized, and his old friends, Theodoret and Iva, were acquitted. Therefore, Nestorius won. Down with the Council of Chalcedon and its head, Pope Leo!" is the slogan of the long anti-Chalcedonian movement.

Even the high official spheres weakened themselves by the fact that they themselves were not free from the old "Dioscorus disease." A characteristic documentary imprint of this disease is the clerical forgery in the text of the Chalcedonian Oros itself, as it was published in print according to the most ancient and authoritative originals. In it we now read the "Dioscorus" insertion "of two natures" instead of "of two natures". The self-evidence of the forgery, in addition to the essence of the matter, is documented by the fact that all the ancient patristic quotations of the oros, without exception, contain, as is to be expected, "in two natures."

At the meeting of October 26, the question of the borders of the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem was resolved. Juvenal, thanks to his opportunism, managed to significantly expand his small patriarchate at the expense of the borders of Antioch. The latter was left with the so-called Two Phoenicia (corresponding to today's Lebanon and Syria) plus the indefinite "Arabia". and Jerusalem received "three Palestines" with three metropolitan centers: Caesarea (by the sea), Scythopolis (southern Palestine) and Petra (in Transjordan).

The last two questions about the boundaries of the patriarchates turned out to be quite easy, because they had already been prepared by life. But there was a question of the same category, incomparably more delicate and deeply touching on the traditional concepts of the norms of the supreme administration of the church. This is the question of the canonical powers of the Archbishop of Constantinople in the capital. Against the background of the collapse of the moral authority of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which turned out to be guilty of patronizing heresy, the patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch managed to confirm their privileges. It was the turn to determine the privileges of Constantinople. As early as the 3rd canon of the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 (which in 451 was not yet recognized in Rome as ecumenical), the archbishop of Constantinople was confirmed "the primacy of honor after the bishop of Rome." Here is the full text of this brief but famous canon: "Let the bishop of Constantinople have the privilege of honor according to the bishop of Rome, because this city is the New Rome." Thus, the honor and place of the See of Constantinople were established on a political basis. We know from later history that this motivation for exaltation was unpleasant to other diocesan apostolic sees. But the metropolitan advantage of Constantinople, even over Rome, not to mention other centers, grew irresistibly in the natural-political order. These advantages floated into the hands of the capital's archbishop by themselves, without any effort on his part. All that remained was to state them and legitimize them post factura, as the creation of life itself. These questions were put on the agenda of the meeting on October 31, which was considered very mundane, non-ceremonial, as if post scriptum to the great deed that had been left behind. Apparently, it was not without diplomatic intent that the meeting proceeded "at home", without the participation of Roman legates and not under the chairmanship of senators. It was decided to legalize the practice that had arisen, when the bishops of the dioceses neighboring the capital – Thrace (on the European side) and Pontus and Asia (on the Asia Minor) – almost did not sue their metropolitans, but preferred to resort to the court of the imperial court, which, observing canonical decency, transferred the purely ecclesiastical and hierarchical content of the litigation to the archpastoral court of the capital archbishop. Thus, the prestige of these three neighboring dioceses was, as it were, entirely created by Constantinople. The bishop of the capital, placed by Constantine the Great within the old Metropolis of Heraclius, in the square of the new capital, who had not previously had a normal diocesan territory, quickly acquired for his patriarchate by means of alienation a fairly vast area of the three dioceses mentioned above, which had died out in his bosom, without touching the boundaries of the influence of the patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. There was nothing to be said against this already established factual order. It was recorded by the assembly in canons 9 and 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council without any objections. The Greek episcopate, tragically divided on dogmatic questions, was unanimous and, even more profoundly, unanimous in recognizing the national-religious value of the authority of its native, Christian, henceforth chrismated by the Church, imperial power and its exclusive world ecumenical unity. In the rays and aura of this sacred power, the basileus quickly grew and became, as it were, an inseparable double from it, and the authority of the metropolitan patriarch. To belittle it would be absurd for Greek self-consciousness. The Roman criticism of the foundations and scope of the prestige of the Archbishop of Constantinople was heard without objection, but also without the slightest sympathy. The Greeks were not anti-papists and anti-Romans. They recognized the due honor of the popes and Rome. But they were jealously offended when they sensed from the Latins disrespect for the honor and glory of their Constantinople head of the church. This offended the filial, family pride in the God-crowned fatherland of their native basileus and the patriarch who headed the single state-church organism next to him. Here are two religious-political psychology that hopelessly diverged.