Second Council of Constantinople

Second Council of Constantinople, (553), the fifth ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting under the presidency of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople. Pope Vigilius of Rome, who had been summoned to Constantinople, opposed the council and took sanctuary in a church from May to December, but he at last yielded and formally ratified the verdicts of the council on February 23, 554.

The 14 anathemas issued by the council rejected Nestorianism by insisting yet further upon the unity of the person of Christ in his two natures, divine and human. The only other important act of the council was to ratify an earlier condemnation of Origen.

The Western church, devoted as it was to the acts of the Council of Chalcedon (451), could not bring itself to accept the decrees of the council of 553, even though the pope had accepted them. In Africa, imperial troops were able to force acceptance. North Italian bishops refused their allegiance to the see of Rome and found support in France and Spain. The opposition hung on in northern Italy until the end of the 7th century. By then the coming of Islam into the eastern Mediterranean and Africa had voided possibilities of compromise.