ABSTRACT
The Council of Chalcedon (cf. p. 164) in 451 was a turning-point in the development of Christianity. For those who would come to be known as Orthodox it provided the basic dogma of the nature of Jesus Christ as both God and Man, united ‘unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably’. It also marked the decisive victory of the imperial capital Constantinople in its struggle for supremacy in church affairs over its chief rival in the East, Alexandria. Constantinople was to be henceforth the centre of both Church and Empire, the symbol of their unity and the focus of the Christian universe.
