My mother Veronika Feder peacefully passed away this night. May her memory be eternal! St. Hilarius Pope of Rome passed away on this day in 468. If we think that the present time in the life of the Church is intense, with Orthodox branding each other heretics and defrocking clergy from Africa to Russia, then it means we did not live in the fifth century. St. Emperor Constantine extended the notion of Pontifex Maximus, the supreme protector of religion, to the Christian Church. Thus, theological debates became a problem for emperors, who had to be as theologically trained as much as bishops to follow the arguments of all the parties involved in a controversy. If one asked members of his or her Orthodox congregation who Christ is theologically, I doubt many congregants would be able to say: He has one person (hypostasis) of the Son of God (Logos), which is composed of the two natures: divine and human (“truly God and truly man”, using the words from the 451 Council of Chalcedon). This definition was forged in the flames of fierce theological debates. Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431, preached that two persons existed in Christ. He denied that the Most Holy Mother of God was the God-bearer (Theotokos), but rather the “Christ-bearer” (Christokos). The Third Ecumenical Council, assembled in 431 at Ephesus (modern day Selçuk, Turkey), condemned Nestorios and his teaching. In 449, the Second Council of Ephesus was convened by the same Emperor, Theodosius II. The Alexandrian Archbishop Dioscorus presided at the council. In his opposition to Nestorianism, Dioscorus, along with the Great Ecumenical Teacher St. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria (d. 444), taught that in Christ there is “one nature of God the Word Incarnate" (mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene). This use of the terms “nature” and “person” as interchangeable has become ambiguous since the time when St. Cyrill used it. At the Council of Ephesus, classified by the Roman Church as a literal “Robber Council” (Latrocinium), Hilarius, as the legate of the Bishop of Rome opposed the deposition of St. Flavian Archbishop of Constantinople by Dioscorus on behalf of St. Leo, Pope of Rome (r. 440–461). St. Flavian died soon afterward as a result of injuries that he suffered at this council at the hands of the monks led by Archimandrite Barsumas. As a pope, St. Hilarius (r. 461–468) continued to defend doctrinal orthodoxy along the lines of his predecessor St. Leo I, who in his letter Archbishop Flavian confessed that Christ has two natures. This letter became known as Tome of Leo at the Council of Chalcedon (Fourth Ecumenical Council of 451). St. Hilarius received from the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III a special rescript defending the superior rights of the bishop of Rome. St. Hilarius also obtained another imperial verdict prohibiting any schismatic activity in the Eternal City. | 
