June AD 431

Council of Ephesus

First session of the Council of Ephesus deposes Nestorius

The decisive session opened without a major episcopal delegation and without Rome’s legates — and ended with the bishop of the imperial capital deposed in absentia.

Monday, 22 June 431

On Monday 22 June 431, bishops supporting Cyril of Alexandria assembled in Ephesus, in the church named for Mary, for the council’s first official session.

They proceeded despite the absence of John of Antioch and his eastern bishops, and over the objection of the imperial representative, Count Candidian.

Cyril moved when continued delay, illness and expense at Ephesus made his party unwilling to wait any longer — the session opened sixteen days beyond the originally appointed date.

Two letters tested against a creed

After Nestorius declined the council’s summonses, the bishops examined the Nicene Creed, Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, Nestorius’s reply and extracts from his sermons.

The session judged Cyril’s letter consonant with the Nicene faith, rejected Nestorius’s position and decreed his removal from the episcopate and priestly communion.

What it condemned was not the bare proposition that Christ has distinct human and divine natures — the dispute concerned how those realities were united in one acting subject.

Torches, then a rival synod

News of the sentence produced public celebration in Ephesus; a historical account based on the conciliar material describes residents illuminating the city and escorting the bishops with torches.

Administratively, nothing was settled. Within days John of Antioch arrived and convened a rival synod that purported to depose Cyril and Memnon, leaving Theodosius II facing competing sentences.

The decree forbidding a rival faith to the one established at Nicaea is recorded under 22 July, and Rome’s legates arrived only that month, confirming the sentence afterwards.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 0431-06-22.

What the sources leave uncertain

The opening date and deposition on 22 June are well attested. Attendance totals vary because bishops arrived at different times and because rival assemblies operated in Ephesus; the article should not attach a single approximate total to the opening without defining whom it counts.
The extant record dated 22 July containing the decree on the sufficiency of the Nicene Creed has a more complicated documentary status than the securely attested first session; modern editors describe it as a purported later session.
Whether Nestorius himself held everything later labeled 'Nestorianism' remains debated. The event can securely be described as the council's condemnation of his recorded language and teaching, not as proof that every later caricature accurately represents his theology.