The Monophysite Doctrine [Armenian Apostolic Church]

The Armenian Church belongs to a small group of the ancient churches known as “Monophysite churches.” It is important for us to determine the exact orthodox meaning of this  awkward term before the Armenians are labeled as “heretics,” who  supposedly because of it, have “separated” themselves from the  universal church, having rejected the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. The term “monophysite” refers to the “One Person” of  Christ after the Incarnation, in the exact way St. Cyril of  Alexandria had taught at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The two natures of Our Lord, the divine and the human, were confessed at  Ephesus as united natures in One Person. This was final and was accepted as the orthodox dogma concerning Christ and his Person within the unity of his double natures. 

The Council of Chalcedon, which followed the Council of  Ephesus, changed the situation, confessing in Christ each nature keeping its own characteristics and operating accordingly. Chalcedon pursued the belief, and in fact made it a dogmatic issue, that each nature remained individual “persons,” as against the One Person with united natures, distancing itself from ascribing "all activities” of Jesus Christ to his “united Person.” In accepting the Ephesian orthodoxy of Cyril, and in rejecting Chalcedon for the unnecessary complications regarding the Person of Christ, the Armenian Church confessed the original orthodox teaching reached at Ephesus, namely, the doctrine of the "One Person after the Incarnation of the Word,” and remained faithful to it up to this day.

What happened at Chalcedon? The Fourth Council of 451 advocated the operation of double natures individually, as if the divine was expressed only when Jesus performed miracles and  delivered his sermons, while the human nature experienced fatigue at times, and went through hunger, thirst, and finally sufferings before the Crucifixion. This was a deviation from the orthodox monophysite view that taught the Unity of the Person of Christ, who performed divine acts, and the self same experienced all human requirements, not as fitting to one or to the other nature, but in unison, to the Person of Jesus Christ. The Armenian Church interpreted Monophysitism this way: Christ did not act according to his one nature first, and then the other nature; he did not act “divinely” at one point, and “humanly” at another. He lived, preached, ate, and felt all things as One Person (mia physis ), and never separately and individually.

— Catechism of the Western Armenian Apostolic Diocese