and respected by his own people. He had accompanied
his predecessor to the third Ecumenical Council and was
quite aware of what had transpired there and of the
attitudes of some of the churches towards the Church of
Alexandria. Because of the influence of the court, and the
prominence of Abba Kyrillos, those attitudes seemed to
have subsided. In fact they had only been held in
abeyance, and were to resurge in full strength as the
events in the life of Abba Dioscorus were to prove.
As described by one of the great church historians,
Dioscorus was “a man of excellent disposition and much
beloved for his humility and also for his fiery zeal for the
faith, his great courage, and his presence of mind,”^1
virtues which stood him in good stead during the times of
tribulation he was destined to face.
- The specific event which started the series of
actions and reactions that involved Dioscorus and finally
led to the rupture between the Churches of Africa and
Asia and their sister churches in the West, was the
appearance of a new heresy promulgated by a man called
Eutyches. This Eutyches was an ascetic who had spent
several decades in strict monastic training, and was
superior of a monastery in Constantinople. He opposed
Nestorianism vehemently, and in his ardent wish to
eradicate it, expressed a counter view about Christ that
erred from the Orthodox view established by Nicea and
the two subsequent ecumenical Councils. He denied the
physical body of the Christ altogether, and said that He
had passed through the womb of the Virgin in an ethereal
fashion.
The erroneous view of Eutyches was reported to
Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople, who wrote to him
immediately point out where he erred and asked him to