Alexander Schmemann

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

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 37

Its success was only apparent; neither the Monophysites nor the Orthodox accepted it. Although Cyrus of Alexandria, one of the chief participants in this attempt, wrote, “Alexandria and all Egypt are delighted,” only the leaders recognized it. Most of the Copts did not follow the conciliatory hierarchs, and the same was true in Armenia, Heraclius’ main target in view of its strategic position between Byzantium and Persia. But since it was outwardly successful, the document remained the official doctrine of the empire, and Patriarch Sergius began to carry it out within the Church.

At this point there was a reaction from the Orthodox side. The act of union had been couched in extremely cautious terms, yet it was still obviously a compromise. Its defenders insisted that they were not departing from the Tome of Leo the Great but were merely restating his faith. Yet “single action” meant much more than only a “single person.” The difficulty was that by “divine energy” or the total subordination of the human nature in Christ to the divine (since God is the source of all Christ’s human actions), the Monothelites, like the Severians, meant the passivity of His human energy. They compared the operation of the divinity in Christ’s humanity with the operation of the soul in the human body. This customary analogy became dangerous in the present instance, for it did not point out the most important point: the human freedom within this divine energy, whereas the body is not free in its subordination to the soul.

The human element was presented too naturalistically and its unique feature was not pointed out with sufficient force, precisely because it was not perceived. The Monothelites were afraid to recognize the “natural” vital capacity of the human in Christ, “confusing it with independence; therefore the human aspect seemed to them inevitably passive.”[13] In brief, Monothelitism again cut away the completeness of Christ’s humanity, although very subtly, and deprived Him of that aspect without which man remains an empty form: human operation and human will.

The scholarly Palestinian monk Sophronius raised the alarm, urging Sergius and Cyrus to repudiate the expression “one operation” as unorthodox. Sergius sensed the danger when Sophronius became patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. Anticipating the latter’s written confession of faith by which each newly-elected patriarch informed his fellows of his election, Sergius wrote to Pope Honorius in Rome endeavoring to bring him over to his side. Aware of Rome’s sensitiveness to its position in the Church, he set out his nets very cleverly, and Pope Honorius immediately fell into them by accepting Monothelitism as a genuine expression of the orthodox doctrine of Christ. But while Sophronius lived, Sergius had difficulty in implementing his agreement with Rome. In 637 the patriarch of Jerusalem died, and the next year Emperor Heraclius issued his own Exposition of Faith (Ecthesis), which was openly Monothelite, to be accepted by the whole Church. Shortly afterward both Patriarch Sergius and Pope Honorius died.

In Constantinople Monothelitism was accepted for a long time, but in the West it immediately provoked an uproar of protests. The real struggle against the heresy was begun during the reign of the grandson of Heraclius, Constantine — or Constas, the diminutive by which he has been known in history. The chief defender of Orthodoxy during these years was the abbot of one of the monasteries of Constantinople, St. Maximus the Confessor. In Africa in 645 he entered into a public dispute against a former patriarch of Constantinople, the Monothelite Pyrrhus, and the transcription of this dispute is a major source of information for us about the controversy. Subsequently a number of synods in Africa condemned the heresy, and the Church’s opposition to the state’s confession of faith became increasingly obvious.

In 648, a new theological edict, the Typos, in which the emperor attempted to impose the status quo upon the Church, forbade any discussion of one or two wills. In response Pope Martin convoked a great council of 105 bishops in the Lateran basilica, where Monothelitism was solemnly condemned, and this condemnation was accepted by the whole Western Church. Now the problem shifted once more from discussion to persecution; in July 653 Pope Martin was arrested, and after lengthy torture brought to Constantinople where a prolonged martyrdom awaited him. After a disgraceful trial in the Senate during which he was charged with absurd political crimes — after beatings, mockery, and imprisonment — he was exiled to the Chersonesus (Crimea), where he died in September 655.

Soon St. Maximus the Confessor followed him along the same glorious and painful road. Again there were the same trial in the Senate and the same political accusations. Maximus answered in simple terms, but each of his answers hit the mark. According to tradition, in response to the judges’ assertion that even Roman clergy had taken communion with the patriarch, Maximus answered, “Even if the whole world takes communion, I shall not.” Maximus was sentenced to exile in Thrace. His sufferings lasted another seven years. He was summoned back to Constantinople, browbeaten, tortured, and mutilated. Maximus remained adamant to the end and died during his last exile in the Caucasus in 662.

 

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