A new look at the condemnations of Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia
A new look at the condemnations of Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia

Summary/Abstract: The author suggests a new analytical perspective by making a close connection between the condemnations of Origen and of Theodore of Mopsuestia at the Council of Constantinople (553). Since the second half of the 19th century church historians have traditionally been explaining the condemnation of them both on the basis of the balance between the Origenist and the Antiochian traditions that was intentionally sought for and, respectively, achieved by the state policy of the Emperor Justinian. According to the author, on the contrary, the main reason for the condemnation of these two teachers of the Church can be found in the similarity of their understandings of Salvation as an ethical and ascetic process. Such understanding goes against the common at that time ontological understanding of Salvation as a divinization of the human being and could explain the profoundly theological reasons for the two condemnations.

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