Member of a group of Christian heretics of the 5th7th centuries who taught that Jesus had one nature, in opposition to the orthodox doctrine (laid down at the Council of Chalcedon in 451) that he had two natures, the human and the divine. Monophysitism developed as a reaction to
Nestorianism and led to the formal secession of the Coptic and Armenian churches from the rest of the Christian church. Monophysites survive today in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt.
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