Religious controversies between the Egyptian Church and the Byzantine Empire

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Religious controversies between the Egyptian Church and the Byzantine Empire sparked over the nature of Jesus , more specifically , whether he had two natures , human and divine , or merely one .
Called for by Constantine I , the First Council of Nicaea was held in Nicaea (in Bithynia) in 325 AD and resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine , called the 'Nicene Creed' which aimed at resolving debates within the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus so as to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom . While St . Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the position that Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father , the popular presbyter Arius took the position that Jesus was merely of similar substance – and the council's decision was against the latter .
Since the Council of Nicaea failed to clarify the divinity of Jesus , in 381 , Theodosius I called for the First Council of Constantinople . Being held in the Church of Hagia Irene from May to July 381 , the council tackled numerous questions: it denounced Arianism and expanded the third article of the creed (which dealt with the Holy Spirit) in the so-called ' the Nicene Creed of 381' . Significantly , it was set that Jesus is of the same being (Ousia) as God the Father .
It is worth noting that because Pope Damasus I was not called into the council (or rather refused to be present) , this council is sometimes named the 'Unecumenical Council' , nevertheless , it was considered ecumenical at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 .
The Council of Chalcedon is considered to be the Fourth Ecumenical Council held from 8 October to 1 November . It condemned the idea that the nature of Jesus amounted to nothing , disregarding the findings of 449 . As a consequence , the Chalcedonian Creed provided a description of the "full humanity and full divinity" of Jesus .
Although the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches (then one church) recognize this council as faultless in its doctrinal definitions , it arose a major schism . That is , those who abstained from accepting its teachings (who are now known as Oriental Orthodoxy) were accused of Monophysitism (believing that Jesus has two natures in one nature called , the "Incarnate Logos of God") . However , the stream of the Monophysite thought continued to take both Egypt and Syria as its center and the opposition of the Orthodox perception was orderly repressed in the 570s .