CHALCEDON, k5.1-se'don, a city of an cient Bithynia, opposite Byzantium, at the en trance of the Euxine, about two miles south of the present site of Scutari. Chalcedon is said to have been founded before Byzantium, about 677 s.c. by a colony from Megara. It flourished in trade and finally joined the Athenian League when the Greek cities freed themselves from Persian rule. The Spartans won it during the Peloponnesian War. It was a flourishing town when it came into possession of the Romans, under the testament of Nicomedes 74 s.c., as included in the kingdom of Bithynia. In the war against Mithridates the Romans had fled to Chalcedon to escape Mithridates, who fol lowed them, destroyed the protection of the port, burned four ships and captured the re mainder. It was captured by Chosro8s II of Persia in 616 A.D. after which it was finally destroyed by the Turks, by whom it was taken about 1075.
At Chalcedon in 451, Marcian, the Emperor of the East, held the fourth general council for the purpose of destroying the ascendancy of the Monophysite doctrines obtained in 449 by the influence of the Alexandrian patriarch Dioscu ros at the (so-called) robber-synod at Ephe sus; and define the Christian faith so as to guard its orthodoxy against the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies. The council opened on 8
Nov. 451 under the guidance of Paschasinus, the bishop deputed by Leo I. About 600 bishops, mostly from the East, were present. It deposed Dioscuros, and after violent debates the articles of faith settled by them declared, in opposition to the Monophysites, the belief of two natures in Christ, existing without mixture or change, without division or separation, so that by the union of the two natures in one person and sub stance their distinction is not destroyed, but the characteristics of each are retained. Besides this creed the council promulgated 30 canons against clerical abuses, of which canons the 28th conceded to the See of Constantinople second rights and privileges to the Roman, but Pope Leo I refused to confirm it. Rebellions in Palestine and Egypt were the immediate con sequences of the decrees of the council of Chalcedon against Dioscuros and the Mono physites; and not till after a long period of ecclesiastical contests did the Chalcedon formula of faith obtain the undisputed authority which it now has in the Catholic, Greek and many Protestant churches.