Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 36

Last Efforts: Monothelitism.

On the plane of the state and politics, therefore, the last imperial attempt to restore the religious unity of the empire by bringing the Monophysites back into the fold of the Orthodox Church was ineffective and too late. This was “Monothelitism,” a dispute over the will of Christ, which the Emperor Heraclius had raised and which was a source of new disagreements and violence. It finally resulted in a new victory for Orthodoxy — the final step in the Christological dialectic. Although it was brought up for political reasons, the controversy essentially concerned comprehension of the Chalcedonian doctrine of Christ’s God-Manhood. It may seem more than ever that this was a dispute over words and formulas, but again we must conclude that behind the words was revealed a difference in realization or understanding of Christ. It seemed to many Orthodox that the divergence between them and the moderate Monophysites, followers of Severus of Antioch, was in appearance only.
The Monophysites rejected Chalcedon because they still thought that in the Chalcedonian concept of “two natures” Christ was divided and the unity of His Person, work, and sacrifice denied.

Monothelitism was an attempt to interpret Chalcedon in a way acceptable to the Monophysites. It was not a rejection of it but an explanation and adaptation. From the metaphysical sphere the question was shifted to psychology; in Christ there were two natures but a single action, one will. In other words, the two natures were not “expressed” in any way existentially, and the unity for the sake of which the Monophysites had split off was saved. All previous attempts to overcome Monophysitism had been excessively mechanical; they were directed toward enticing the Monophysites back into orthodoxy by concealing the real difference of view on both sides.
This new attempt promised not to be mechanical. Its supporters did not cloak the meaning of orthodox doctrine, but really intended to clarify it and demonstrate that there were not two natures in the Chalcedonian doctrine, which would be equivalent to two hypostases or personalities.[12]

In all likelihood the initiator of this view was the patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius. He had suggested it to Emperor Heraclius as a possible basis for religious unification with the Monophysites just at the moment when Heraclius was mobilizing all the forces of the empire to liberate the Eastern provinces from the Persians. In 622 the emperor met the head of the Severian Monophysites, Paul the One-Eyed, in Karin (Erzerum), and in a theological discussion there used for the first time the expression “one action”; hence the first stage of the dispute is usually called Mono-energism.

The emperor again assumed the initiative in this theological solution; the unfortunate lessons of the past could not entirely cure this fundamental flaw of Roman theocracy. After a first attempt to feel out the ground, events began to develop, and the result in 632 was a unia signed in the form of nine anathemas and enforced by state edict.

 

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