The revolt of 481–484, led by Vahan Mamikonian, Vardan’s nephew, secured religious and political freedom for Armenia in return for military aid to Persia, and with the appointment of Vahan as marzpān the Armenians were again largely the arbiters of their own affairs. Their independence was further asserted in 554, when the second Council of Dvin rejected the dyophysite formula of the Council of Chalcedon (451), a decisive step that cut them off from the West as surely as they were already ideologically severed from the East. (According to the dyophysite formula, Christ, the Son of God, consists of two natures, “without confusion, without change, without separation, without division
