17.

 The textbook places what seems an odd emphasis on what it views as a quarrel between two theological schools — the Alexandrian and the Antiochene. In fact, what occurred was that a balance between the two centers of Orthodox theology was achieved by placing certain questions before the whole Church catholic. The actual conflict existed between extremists of these two centers, and it appears incorrect to label them as two different schools. Give your own impression of the difference of emphasis of the Alexandrian center and the Antiochene center.

            As is well known, the conflict between Rome and Constantinople over the matter of Roman primacy resulted in two opposing ecclesiologies. However, as Bishop Auxentios of Photiki observes, the distinction between a quasi-Nestorian Antiochene school and an Orthodox Alexandrian school supposedly tainted by Apollinarianism is an artificial and overstated one [Cf. Christological Methods and Their Influence on Alexandrian and Antiochene Eucharistic Theology, p. 1].

            In the same scholarly study, Bishop Auxentios goes on to explain that concerning the Christological thought and Eucharistic thought of the Alexandrian and Antiochene patristic schools (and he does identify them as schools, as does Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky), this matter is neither artificial or overstated, but is of great importance. Two representative figures are given of these schools — St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, and the ecclesiastical writer Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had Nestorian leanings. As Henry Chadwick observes, the argument between St. Cyril and the Nestorians was not a political one, as some scholars have contended, but was an argument rooted in the profound question on the nature of Christ [“Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy,” Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 2, 1951, pp. 145-64.] Bishop Auxentios concurs, stating that the antithetical strands of these two figures and their radically divergent statements of Eucharist theology are two antipodes on a spectrum of belief about the nature of Christ.

            Theodore of Mopsuestia was condemned by the Universal Church for his Nestorian leanings. However, as Bishop Auxentios notes, one cannot overstate the importance of St. Cyril's Christological teachings. The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils drew extensively from his writings in formulating their Christological confessions.