Controversy of the Three Chapters

The Three-Chapter Controversy, a phase in the Chalcedonian controversy, was an attempt to reconcile the Non-Chalcedonian Christians of Syria (Syriac Orthodox Church) and Egypt (Coptic Orthodox Church) with the Great Church, following the failure of the Henotikon. The Three Chapters (τρία κεφάλαια, tría kephálaia) that Emperor Justinian I anathematized were:

At a very early stage of the controversy the incriminated writings themselves came to be spoken of as the Three Chapters. In consequence those who refused to anathematize these writings were said to defend the Three Chapters, and accused of professing Nestorianism; and, vice versa, those who did anathematize them, were said to condemn the Three Chapters as heretical.

At the end of 543 or the beginning of 544 the Emperor Justinian I issued an edict in which the three chapters were anathematized, in hope of encouraging the Oriental Orthodox to accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Pope Leo I, thus bringing religious harmony to the Byzantine Empire. However, Evagrius tells us that Theodorus Ascidas, the leader of the Origenists, had raised the question of the Three Chapters to divert Justinian from a persecution of his party. Liberatus adds that Ascidas wished to take revenge on the memory of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had written much against Origen. In his letter to Vigilius, Domitian, Bishop of Ancyra, reports the same story of intrigue.

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