16.

 This heresy taught falsely concerning what aspect of Christ's nature?

            The word Monophysitism is etymologically derived from the Greek words mono (one) and physis (nature). Although Orthodoxy has more in common with the Monophysites than with any other group of separated Christians, still there are great dogmatic differences and an ecclesiastical chasm inasmuch as the Monophysites reject fully half of the Ecumenical Councils. Monophysitism maintained that if Christ were one Person, He could not have two natures, but only one. The Monophysites did not deny Christ's divine nature, but they did deny His unity of personality. This way of thinking endangered the fullness of Christ's manhood, which became completely swallowed up in His Divinity. In overemphasizing Christ's Divinity at the expense of His human nature, this heresy did away with the possibility of salvation. As one of the Greek Fathers on Mount Athos writes concerning this false teaching: “If... the eternal Hypostasis of God the Word is not also the Hypostasis of the assumed flesh, the deification of the compound makeup of man is not possible, in which case the salvation of man through partaking of the Deified and Life-giving Flesh of the Lord is also impossible.” [Hieromonk Luke of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregory, Mount Athos, 1994].

            The Fourth Ecumenical Council, that of Chalcedon, was called in 451 over Monophysitism, and this heresy was rejected at that Council. As Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky explains, the Fourth Council “precisely formulated the manner of the union of the two natures in the one Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledging the very essence of this union to be mystical and inexplicable.” [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 182].