Council of ephesus documents

Ecumenical council in Ephesus in 431, convened by Emperor Theodosius II

This article is about the ecumenical council held in 431. For the two later councils in the same city, see Council of Ephesus (disambiguation).

The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman EmperorTheodosius II.

This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom,^[2] confirmed the original Nicene Creed,^[3] and condemned the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who held that the Virgin Mary may be called the Christotokos, "Christ-bearer" but not the Theotokos, "God-bearer".

It met from 22 June to 31 July 431 at the Church of Mary in Ephesus in Anatolia.

Background

Nestorius' doctrine, Nestorianism, which emphasized the distinction between Christ's human and divine natures and argu