Monophysitism

A christological teaching that the person of Christ consisted of a single divine nature or a united divine and human nature in which the human was absorbed by the divine. The full humanity of Christ was not upheld. The term comes from the Greek monos, “one,” and physis, “nature.” The teaching is associated with Eutyches, who denied that Jesus' human nature existed without confusion together with the divine nature in Christ. Monophysitism was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which acknowledged that Christ's divine and human natures exist without confusion or division. Coptic and Ethiopian churches refused to subscribe to the Chalcedonian Definition and are still known as monophysite churches. Monophysite tendencies may refer to any devaluation of the human reality in the relationship of God and humanity. See Incarnation.