4. Rising Opposition to the Doctrine

Sergius was succeeded by a patriarch of like views, Pyrrhus (638--641). In Italy the emperor's religious policy met with great disfavor. Severinus, who followed Honorius as pope (638), and his successor John IV. led the qpposition. The Ekthesis was condemned at a Ro- man synod (641; Mansi, x. 607). John asked the new emperors, the sons of Herachus, Constantine and Heraoleon, to withdraw the document, and wrote explaining and apologizing for Honorius' acceptance of the one-will theory (Mansi, Concilia, x, 682--686). Political changes led to the fall of Pyrrhus, who took refuge in North Africa. after- a celebrated disputation with Maximus the Confessor, the records of which are most important for this controversy--giving up his Monothelite views. The African churches warmly seconded the papal protest against Monothelitism, and appealed to the emperor to abandon the false teaching. Pyrrhus, now in Ravenna, was induced by court influence to return to the Monothelite position. The pope excommunicated him and declared his successor, Paul, patriarch of Constantinople, deposed. Paul attempted to settle the difficulty by abandoning the Ektheris and by inducing the emperor to publish a new religious document called the Typus (648), which forbade, under severe penalties, discussion of the question as to whether Christ had one or two wills (Mansi, x. 1029-32). The question came up in an acute form in a widely attended Roman synod held in 649 under Martin I. (Mansi, x. 8631188). It specially added to the Chalcedonian creed the doctrine of two natural wills and two natural energies, explaining as a deduction from Cyril's teaching on the incarnation that there is one nature of the God-Logos incarnated, and that the word "incarnated" indicates a full and undiminished human nature apart from sin. The unity of the closely united wills is made dependent on the operation of a nature willing man's salvation. Martin sent the decrees to Constantinople and took active steps in Gaul, North Africa, and even in the East to bring support to them. He was accused of treasonable relations with the exarch of Ravenna, was taken forcibly to Constantinople, and from there sent into exile where he died (655). His successor, Eugenius (654), was inclined to compromise on the basis of allowing the conception of two wills as well as of one will, the terms to be interpreted from different points of view. The hypostatic union constituted one, but the fact of the conjunction of the two natures made it allowable to speak of two. Maximus the Confessor, who has been already mentioned as taking a prominent part in the controversy from the first, was appealed to as an authority for this last declaration (MPG, xci. 229c), but he denied in several public letters that he had ever held such teaching and was active in raising public opinion in the West against it. But for a while communion between Rome and Constantinople was restored; Vitalian worked in harmony with the Em- peror Constans, who was loyally received in Rome in 663. While the Eastern Empire was resisting the attacks of the Avars, Bulgarians, and Saracens, dif ficulties again rose between the two sees. The un derstanding between Rome and Constantinople was interrupted, and Adeodatus (q.v.) declined the Synodikon of Constantine I. of Constantinople (Mansi, Concilia, xi. 576). The name of Pope Vitalian (657 672) was stricken from the diptychs in Constanti nople. The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus

(668-85) tried to arrange a reconciliation. Pope Agatho (678-681) took occasion to rally about him the support of the Western Church, and proclaimed himself the representative of orthodox teaching, declaring that the patriarchs of Constantinople had introduced heretical tendencies into the church. As the patriarch, Theodore (676-678), resisted the emperor's conciliatory policy, he was deposed and Georgius was appointed in his place, who carried out imperial directions to summon and consult the metropolitans and bishops of his patriarchate.

This gathering became the sixth Ecumenical Council, called Trullan because it met in the domed hall (troullos) of the imperial palate. It lasted from Nov. 7, 680, to Sept. 16, 681 (Mansi, Concilia,