CHALCEDON, more correctly CALCHEDON (mod. _Kadikeui_), an ancient
maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, almost directly opposite
Byzantium, south of Scutari. It was a Megarian colony founded on a site
so obviously inferior to that which was within view on the opposite
shore, that it received from the oracle the name of "the City of the
Blind." In its early history it shared the fortunes of Byzantium, was
taken by the satrap Otanes, vacillated long between the Lacedaemonian
and the Athenian interests, and was at last bequeathed to the Romans by
Attalus III. of Pergamum (133 B.C.). It was partly destroyed by
Mithradates, but recovered during the Empire, and in A.D. 451 was the
seat of the Fourth General Council. It fell under the repeated attacks
of the barbarian hordes who crossed over after having ravaged Byzantium,
and furnished an encampment to the Persians under Chosroes, c. 616-626.
The Turks used it as a quarry for building materials for Constantinople.
The site is now occupied by the village of Kadikeui ("Village of the
Judge"), which forms the tenth "cercle" of the municipality of
Constantinople. Pop. about 33,000, of whom 8000 are Moslems. There is a
large British colony with a church, and also Greek and Armenian churches
and schools, and a training college for Roman Catholic Armenians. To the
S. are the ruins of Panteichion (mod. _Pendik_), where Belisarius is
said to have lived in retirement.

See J. von Hammer, _Constantinopolis_ (Pesth, 1822); Murray's
_Handbook for Constantinople_ (London, 1900).

CHALCEDON, COUNCIL OF, the fourth ecumenical council of the Catholic
Church, was held in 451, its occasion being the Eutychian heresy and the
notorious "Robber Synod" (see EUTYCHES and EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF), which
called forth vigorous protests both in the East and in the West, and a
loud demand for a new general council, a demand that was ignored by the
Eutychian Theodosius II., but speedily granted by his successor,
Marcian, a "Flavianist." In response to the imperial summons, five to
six hundred bishops, all Eastern, except the Roman legates and two
Africans, assembled in Chalcedon on the 8th of October 451. The bishop
of Rome claimed for his legates the right to preside, and insisted that
any act that failed to receive their approval would be invalid. The
first session was tumultuous; party feeling ran high, and scurrilous and
vulgar epithets were bandied to and fro. The acts of the Robb