DIOSCORUS

Dioscorus: translation

1.(d. 454 or 458 AD)

Patriarch of Alexandria. He was possibly born in Alexandria and became archdeacon to the patriarch Cyril, with whom he attended the council of Ephesus in 431 and whom he succeeded in 444. Dioscorus soon came into conflict with the pope in Rome when he headed the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 over the issue of Monophysitism. Here his opponent, the patriarch of Constantinople. Flavian, was deposed and died soon after as a result of ill treatment by Egyptian monks in the entourage of Dioscorus. The orthodox view was reaffirmed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and Dioscorus was deposed and exiled to Gangra in Paphlagonia. The decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and the deposition of the Alexandrian patriarch increased the tension between the Coptic population of Egypt, who supported their patriarch and the imperial power in Constantinople, which led to continued dissension in Egypt.

See also Athanasius; Benjamin; Coptic Church; Cyril; Cyrus; Theophilus.

2.(c.520–585 AD)

Egyptian landholder, lawyer, and poet. He was the son of Apollos, village headman of Aphrodito in Middle Egypt, modern Kom Ishgaw, and later founder and monk of the monastery of Apa Apollos. He received a good classical education, probably at Alexandria, and pursued a legal career during which he visited Constantinople. Many of his papers, which include both documentary and literary texts of his own composition written in Greek and Coptic, were discovered from 1901–1907 and are now divided among several museum collections.