EWTYCHES, a Byzantine ecclesiastic of the 5th c., and a zealous but unskillful repre sentative of the dogmatic opinions of Cyril of Alexandria. In opposing the doctrines of Nestorius, he fell into the opposite extreme, and taught that after the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ, the human nature was absorbed in the divine; an opinion which spread extensively through the Alexandrian church. E. was in consequence summoned before a synod at Constantinople in the year 448, and deposed by Flavianus, patriarch of that city; but his cause was warmly espoused by the eunuch Chrysaphius, chief minister of the emperor Theodosius II., and Dioscurus, bishop of Alexandria, who were both opposed to Flavianus. Chrysaphius induced the emperor to call a general council at Ephesus in the following year, under the presidency of Dioscurus. Measures were taken beforehand to secure a triumph over the anti-Eutychians. Soldiers were admitted to the deliberations of the council, to overawe the party of Flavianus; while a crowd of fierce Egyptian monks, devotedly attached to whatever was popular in Alexandria, or had been countenanced by their old pupil Cyril, drowned by-their fanatical outcries the voices of those who ventured to speak against Eutyches. The
result was that the judgment of the previom council was reversed; Flavianus and his adherents were deposed, and the doctrine of E. affirmed to be orthodox, and in accord ance with the Nicene creed. His triumph, however, lasted only two years; in 451, Eutychianism was pronounced heresy at the council of Chalcedon, attended by 650 bishops; and in opposition to his views, it was declared that in Christ the two natures were united without confusion or conversion of substance. Nothing further is known concerning E., except that Leo wrote to the emperor Mantilla to banish him from the capital. The sect of Eutychians, however, under the name of Monophysites, continued to exist quietly fora century after his death, in the Armenian, Ethiopian, and Coptic churches, when it awoke to new life under the auspices of Jacob Baradams, who died bishop of Edessa, 588 A.D. His followers were called Jacobites, and have perpetuated the Monophysite doctrine in the Armenian and Coptic churches to the present day. See Neander, Kirchengeschichte, vol. iii., p. 1079, etc.