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→Council of Chalcedon: - crosslink to OW entry
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By the time the [[Fourth Ecumenical Council|Council of Chalcedon]] was called, politics had already started to intermingle with Church affairs. When the Emperor Marcianus interfered with matters of faith in the Church, the response of [[Pope Saint Dioscorus I of Alexandria (Coptic POV)|Dioscorus of Alexandria]] (the Pope of Alexandria who was later to be exiled) to this interference was clear: "You have nothing to do with the Church." It was at Chalcedon that the emperor would take his revenge for the Pope's frankness.
The Council of Chalcedon abandoned Cyrillian terminology and declared that Christ was one hypostasis in two natures. However, the Council's finding were rejected by many of the Christians on the fringes of the Byzantine Empire: Egyptians, Syrians, Armenians, and others. From that point onward, Alexandria would have two patriarchs: the "[[Melkite]]" or Imperial Patriarch, now known as the Eastern Orthodox Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, and the non-Chalcedonian national Egyptian one, now known as the Coptic Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria. Almost the entire Egyptian population rejected the terms of the Council of Chalcedon and remained faithful to the national Egyptian Church (now known as the Coptic Church). Those who supported the Chalcedonian definition remained in [[full communion|communion]] with the other leading churches of the Roman Empire. The non-Chalcedonian party became what is today called the [[Oriental Orthodoxy|Oriental Orthodox Church]].
