The emperor therefore optimistically believed in the happy consequences of the council: "Let all profane contests be silenced now. Only a completely wicked person can claim the right of personal opinion on a question on which so many ecclesiastical persons have given their unanimous vote. Only a completely insane person can seek artificially deceptive light in the middle of a clear day. And whoever raises further questions, after the truth has been found, is clearly seeking deception (mendatium)." History has shown the inconsistency of this conscientious optimism. Not a single council, not excepting the Council of Nicaea, has there been such a grave controversy. He became a "reputable banner." The entire policy of the emperors for a whole century revolved around one question: to accept or not to accept the Council of Chalcedon? All opponents of the Imperial Church began to call the Orthodox either by the contemptuous nickname "Melkites" (i.e., "royal" – from "melech" – tsar), or "Synodites" ("Chalcidunoe" or "Sunhodoye").

In fact, it turned out that the legal unanimity of the episcopate, however, did not lead to agreement among the very mass of the Church. It turned out that the bishops did not express the mood of the majority. The rulers, of course, turned out to be more competent and wiser than the masses, but the masses did not follow them, they began to betray them. The living concept of Eastern conciliarity cannot be limited to one external form. The teachings of Pope Leo and Eusebius of Dorylaea were not merely a wise mean between Nestorius and Eutychus. The Eastern mass world perceived it as a hidden Nestorianism. In any case, they believed that there was another formula of Orthodoxy – Kirillov's, and it was habitual, its own. But, as is known, it was at the Council of Chalcedon that the 12 anathemas were silenced and even the subsequent conciliatory formula of 433 "of two natures" was crossed out. Cyril was sacrificed to Leo. It was the resistance of the "Cyrillicists" that created a severe Monophysite crisis.

It took two whole centuries to reconcile "Cyril and Leo" in new tactical twists and turns all the time, and in the end to lose huge parts of the church forever... The problem of naked truth and tactics — oikonomia...

When later, under Justinian, the formula "One of the Holy Trinity suffered" was proposed, it was too late. They demanded no longer to reconcile Cyril with Leo, but to sacrifice Leo for the sake of Cyril.

The papal legates, sharpening the proposed formulas and obscuring the compromises that had been in use (433), proved once again that they did not understand the psychology of the East. and that the emperors were mistaken in dogmatics (and not only in tactics) and very crudely, they are forgivable. But the emperors had a special mistake that was unforgivable for them. They were blind in their political, non-theological sphere. They missed the danger of intertwining the Monophysite crisis with the national questions of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Nestorianism had already defined itself as a national movement. The Nestorians called themselves "Chaldean Christians," i.e., the people of the Eastern Syrian language.

Monophysitism affected the same Syrians, Armenians, and Copts.

National issues in the Roman Empire were long-standing and unresolved. The dual empire, even in its cultural core, did not have and did not achieve the dominance of a single language. It split into two languages along with the church. It is not surprising that the border peoples ("languages") also separated from it in all respects.

The Greek language in the East found the limits of its cultural victory. A special rebuff to Hellenization was manifested in Syria. Individual cities of the Eastern Diocese, such as Seleucia, Laodicea, and Antioch, became the pride of Hellenism. The Empress Eudocia, the wife of Theodosius, an Athenian, wishing to pay a compliment to the Antiochians, expressed: "I am proud to belong to your city and to your blood." But already in the vicinity of Antioch the people spoke Syriac. John Chrysostom himself, as a presbyter, had to preach in Syriac in Antioch itself. and in the villages, the presbyters spoke only Syriac. In the lower classes, the word "Rumoye", i.e. Romans, meant "soldiers", i.e. it reminded of conquest and sometimes of cruelty. There was something to start the separatist intrigue on. And it flared up.

In Alexandria, according to the news of the acts of martyrdom, the Christians living near Alexandria did not understand the interrogations in Greek at the trial. The Coptic mass also colored the character of the monastic movement. And it was so tenacious that it gave support to the leaders for the national movement against the empire in the era of Monophysitism. and then it was formed into a special nation with its recognized governor, who in 640, at the time of the Arab invasion, directly handed over Upper Egypt (above the Delta) into the hands of new conquerors. There were 6 million Copts (according to other reports, 12 million), and Orthodox Greeks, mostly newcomers, only about 300 thousand.

Thus the factors of the Monophysite reaction against the Council of Chalcedon were formed. The first to suffer from the anti-Hellenic reaction were the bishops, who had previously short-sightedly fraternized with such Monophysites as Juvenal of Jerusalem and Thalassius of Caesarea-Cappadocia.

Unrest in Palestine.

The pliable and submissive episcopate, accepting the pressures of Roman formulas, was silent. But against the voice of the council, not afraid of imperial repressions, brave and fearless people rose up – monks. It began with Palestine. The monk Theodosius rebelled against Juvenal as a "traitor to the faith." The monks led by him shouted: "Cyril is betrayed, Nestorianism is confirmed!" Juvenal himself brought Theodosius, who had previously lived with Dioscorus, to the Council of Chalcedon. Theodosius fled from the council immediately after the signing of the oros and raised a movement in Palestine. The 10,000-strong monks of Palestine (especially in the desert east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea) turned out to be combustible material for the most part. They did not live in a coenobitic way, but for the most part freely, wandering and changing places of residence. The efforts of St. Euthymius [42] to organize them and gather them into unions were not particularly successful. This made the mass of monasticism quite anarchic and difficult to recognize church authority. But even in the organized city monasteries, the opposition to the Council of Chalcedon found support.

In Jerusalem there lived the widow of the emperor Theodosius II, Eudocia, although very educated, but in pagan literature, and hardly prepared to comprehend theological questions. Chalcedon was for her the cathedral of Pulcheria. This was enough for her antipathy to this council. Although Evdokia broke up with her husband, now it has faded into the background. Eudocia was joined by Gerontius, the abbot of the Latin convent on the Mount of Olives, the successor of Melania. A number of respected abbas joined the movement: Gerasimos of Rome, Peter of Iberia, and the presbyter Hesychius.