"The Copts are Monophysites. They deny that Jesus is truly human." You may have heard that in a debate. Is it true?
Short answer: Not in the sense the Church condemned. Eutyches taught that Christ's humanity was swallowed up by His divinity, and the Coptic Orthodox Church condemns him too. Coptic miaphysitism follows St. Cyril: one incarnate nature of God the Word, from divinity and humanity united without mixture or change. Catholics keep Chalcedon's "two natures" as dogma, binding and unrevised, yet in 1973 Pope St. Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III confessed the same faith in Christ. The test is Scripture's Christ: one Person, truly God, truly and permanently man.
Key verses on Christ, one Person, true God and true man
- "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14)
- "For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily" (Colossians 2:9)
- "he had to become like his brothers in every way" (Hebrews 2:17)
- "Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have." (Luke 24:39)
- "the church of God that he acquired with his own blood" (Acts 20:28)
- "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
Catholics confess with the Council of Chalcedon (451) that Christ "is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation" (CCC 467). He is not "a confused mixture of the divine and the human" (CCC 464).
Notice how the Catechism defines the heresy Chalcedon opposed: "The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it" (CCC 467). So the test is not whether someone says "one." It is whether he denies that Christ's humanity is real and remains.
Now hear the Coptic view from Pope Shenouda III's The Nature of Christ: "His Divine nature is one with his human nature yet without mingling, confusion or alteration; a complete Hypostatic Union." From that union, he writes, "one nature was formed out of both: 'The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos' as St. Cyril called it." And he rejects Eutyches by name: "Eutyches said that the human nature was absorbed and dissolved in the Divine nature as a drop of vinegar in the ocean. In this way, he denied the human nature of Christ."
So monophysitism, in the condemned sense, says Christ's humanity was absorbed. Miaphysitism, from St. Cyril's mia physis, says one united nature was formed from divinity and humanity, each remaining what it is.
What Catholics do not teach:
- That every use of "one nature" is heretical. The Second Council of Constantinople (553) condemned using "the one nature made flesh of [God the Word]" to "introduce one nature or substance [made by a mixture]," not using it as "the holy Fathers have taught."
- That Chalcedon is optional. It remains dogma for Catholics, and its "in two natures" is not up for renegotiation.
- That agreement on Christ means full communion. Other questions remain (see What Are the Oriental Orthodox Churches?).
The Biblical Case
1. One Person, truly God
John does not say the Word joined a man. He says "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). St. Thomas, touching the risen body, confesses, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). St. Paul tells one story about one subject: He "was in the form of God," "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave," and "humbled himself, becoming obedient to death" (Philippians 2:6–8). In Him "dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily" (Colossians 2:9). Both Churches agree that Christ's humanity "has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God" (CCC 466).
2. Truly man, and His humanity is not absorbed
Christ "had to become like his brothers in every way" (Hebrews 2:17), "tested in every way, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). "Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man" (Luke 2:52). Risen, He still says, "Touch me and see" (Luke 24:39). A humanity dissolved like vinegar in the ocean could not do this, which is why both Churches reject Eutyches: "human nature was assumed, not absorbed" (CCC 470).
3. God shed His own blood
St. Paul speaks of "the church of God that he acquired with his own blood" (Acts 20:28) and of rulers who "crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). So everything in Christ's humanity is attributed to the divine Person, "not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death" (CCC 468). St. Cyril defended this against Nestorius, and both Churches confess it.
4. Same faith, different vocabulary
The dispute turned on the word "nature" (physis). For St. Cyril it could name the one concrete Christ. At Chalcedon it named what Christ is as God and as man. The council's records show the exact point: "Dioscorus acknowledged that he accepted the expression of two natures, but not that there were two natures." He would say from two natures, not in two natures after the union. Copts heard Nestorius in "two natures"; Chalcedonians heard Eutyches in "one nature." Yet St. Cyril himself taught that the natures remain distinct in the union (see below), and the Copts confess that reality. Chalcedon, for its part, never set itself against St. Cyril: when Pope St. Leo the Great's Tome was read, the bishops cried, "Piously and truly did Leo teach, so taught Cyril" (Session II).
5. The agreement of 1973
On May 10, 1973, Pope St. Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III confessed that Christ "is perfect God with respect to His divinity, perfect man with respect to His humanity. In Him His divinity is united with His humanity in a real, perfect union without mingling, without commixtion, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without separation." They added: "In Him are preserved all the properties of the divinity and all the properties of the humanity" (Common Declaration, 1973).
That answers our question. The heresy in CCC 467 says the humanity ceased to exist; the Coptic Pope signed that all its properties "are preserved." A brief Catholic–Coptic formula (February 12, 1988) anathematized "the Doctrines of both Nestorius and Eutyches." In 2023, Pope Francis said the 1973 meeting "marked the end of a theological dispute dating back to the Council of Chalcedon" (Address to Tawadros II).
Objections Answered
(a) "Chalcedon is dogma, so anyone who rejects it is a heretic."
At its strongest: Chalcedon defined that Christ "must be confessed to be in two natures" and forbade anyone "to bring forward a different faith" (Definition of Faith). The Copts do not receive Chalcedon as ecumenical and reject Pope St. Leo's Tome. How is that not heresy?
Answer: Heresy is "the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith" (CCC 2089). The truth Chalcedon guards is the reality of both natures, unconfused and undivided, in one Person, and the Copts confess that content in their own words. Constantinople II accepts St. Cyril's "one nature made flesh" when understood as the Fathers taught. And "one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities" (CCC 818). None of this makes Chalcedon negotiable. Christ gave His Church power to bind (Matthew 18:18), and the apostles in council could say, "It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us" (Acts 15:28). Chalcedon's words are that kind of decision: a fence around the biblical Christ. What remains open is the Copts' reception of the council, not the truth of what it defined, and not the faith in Christ we now confess together.
(b) "'Two natures' divides Christ into two persons."
At its strongest: Pope Shenouda wrote that "the Nestorian roots extended to influence the council of Chalcedon," and that St. Leo's Tome "was rejected by the Coptic Church." If each nature acts, aren't there two subjects?
Answer: Scripture names one subject for both the divine and the human: "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14); the rulers "crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). Chalcedon says the same: Christ is "not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word" (Definition of Faith). St. Leo writes in the very Tome the Copts reject: "For He who is true God is also true man," and "one and the same is truly Son of God and truly son of man" (Letter 28, ch. 4). The Catechism rejects Nestorius (CCC 466) and attributes even Christ's death to the divine Person (CCC 468). Pope Shenouda's own analogy fits: a man is soul and body, yet "we never say that He is two, but one person." Catholics say the same of Christ. "Two natures" counts what He is, never who He is.
The Early Church Agrees
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Ephesians 7, c. AD 107–110, approximate), honored by Copts and Catholics alike: "There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God" (newadvent.org).
- St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Letter 101, to Cledonius, c. AD 382, approximate), against those who denied Christ a full human mind: "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved" (newadvent.org).
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (Second Letter to Nestorius, read at Ephesus, 431): "the two natures being brought together in a true union, there is of both one Christ and one Son; for the difference of the natures is not taken away by the union".
- St. Cyril's letter to John of Antioch (433, the Formula of Reunion): "for there became a union of two natures. Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord."
- Second Council of Constantinople (553), canon 8: "we do not mean to say that there was made a mutual confusion of natures, but rather each [nature] remaining what it was, we understand that the Word was united to the flesh."
Conclusion
Miaphysitism, as the Coptic Church teaches it, is not the Monophysite heresy the Catechism describes. It is St. Cyril's faith in St. Cyril's vocabulary. Catholics keep Chalcedon's "in two natures," Copts keep St. Cyril's "One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos," and both confess one Lord, perfect God and perfect man. Chalcedon did not betray St. Cyril; it guarded him, and its definition stands.
If you are Coptic Orthodox, we honor your fidelity and your martyrs. In 2023, Pope Francis announced that the 21 Coptic martyrs killed in Libya in 2015 would be included in the Roman Martyrology "as a sign of the spiritual communion uniting our two Churches." Agreement on Christ is a great gift, but it is not yet full communion. We pray that our shared confession becomes, one day, a shared altar.
Come home. The faith in the one incarnate Word that St. Cyril taught and Chalcedon guarded is professed whole in the Catholic Church. You already possess true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith, in "a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (CCC 838). Those gifts draw their power "from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church" and "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Church's unity, yet your true Eucharist is celebrated apart from the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ built His Church (Matthew 16:18). We invite you into full communion with St. Peter's successor, the bishop of Rome, in the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass or Divine Liturgy at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask to speak with the priest about entering full communion with the Catholic Church. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Is miaphysite the same as monophysite? No. Condemned monophysitism says Christ's humanity ceased to exist (CCC 467). Coptic miaphysitism confesses that His humanity remains real and complete.
Do Copts believe Jesus was fully human? Yes. In 1973 Pope Shenouda III confessed Christ "perfect man with respect to His humanity."
Are Catholics and Copts in full communion now? No. Questions about councils, the papacy and other matters remain. Catholics normally receive Communion only at a Catholic Mass.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Matthew 16:18; Matthew 18:18; Luke 2:52; Luke 24:39; John 1:14; John 20:28; Acts 15:28; Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 2:8; Philippians 2:6–8; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 4:15.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 464, 466, 467, 468, 470; 818, 819, 838; 2089.
Church documents (vatican.va): St. Paul VI and Shenouda III, Common Declaration (May 10, 1973); Francis, Address to Tawadros II (May 11, 2023).
Church Fathers and councils (newadvent.org unless noted): Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 7; Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter 101; Leo the Great, Letter 28 (Tome); Council of Ephesus (431), Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius; Council of Chalcedon (451): definition, acts, and Cyril's letter to John of Antioch; Council of Chalcedon, Definition of Faith (NPNF2 vol. 14, ccel.org); Second Council of Constantinople (553), canon 8.
Coptic Orthodox sources (St-Takla.org): Pope Shenouda III, The Nature of Christ: "The Orthodox Concept"; "One Nature and the Two Natures"; "The Heresy of Eutyches"; "The Council of Chalcedon"; Agreed Statement on Christology with the Catholic Church, 1988 (Arabic edition, ch. 21).
Dialogue history: Centro Pro Unione, International Joint Commission between the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church (date of the brief formula on Christology, February 12, 1988).