Irenæus

Irenaeus of Tyre (Irenaeus the Count) was a prominent layman of comital rank who attended the Council of Ephesus (431) as a partisan of Nestorius and a close ally of the Antiochene party. After the council he was sent into exile for his support of Nestorius, but later returned and was consecrated bishop of Tyre, only to be deposed at the Second Council of Ephesus (the 'Robber Synod') in 449 for his earlier marriages and pro-Nestorian sympathies. He corresponds with Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who counted him among the sympathetic figures of the Antiochene theological circle; Irenaeus also compiled the 'Tragoedia,' a dossier of documents defending Nestorius. He is securely attested in the conciliar acts and the letters of Theodoret, placing him firmly in the Christological controversies of the Roman East in the 430s-440s.