Monothelitism: The Failed Compromise That Condemned Popes and Divided the Maronites

The post traces the history of Monothelitism, a seventh-century attempt to reconcile Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christians by confessing two natures in Christ but only one will. Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople promoted the formula, first as Monoenergism (one operation) then as Monothelitism (one will). The imperial patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria negotiated a reunion with some non-Chalcedonian clergy in 633, but the Coptic patriarch Benjamin I refused to participate.

St. Sophronius of Jerusalem opposed the teaching, and St. Maximus the Confessor argued that a complete human nature requires a human will; without it, the Incarnation cannot heal the human will. Maximus was tortured, his hand and tongue removed, and exiled. Pope Martin I condemned Monothelitism at the Lateran Council of 649, was arrested by imperial authorities, brought to Constantinople, and exiled to Cherson, where he died in 655. Pope Honorius I had endorsed the one-will language in correspondence with Sergius; the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681) condemned Monothelitism and anathematized Honorius by name, a condemnation ratified by Pope Leo II.

The post also examines the Maronites, a Syriac monastic community historically Chalcedonian, who became associated with Monothelitism during the seventh and eighth centuries. Eleventh-century Maronite liturgical texts and the Kitab al-Huda explicitly confess one will in Christ, distinguishing them from the Melkites who confessed two wills.

Around 1182, William of Tyre reported that approximately 40,000 Maronites renounced Monothelitism and entered communion with Rome. The author uses these historical facts to challenge claims of papal supremacy and infallibility.