Feast Day: June 2nd
Emperor Heraclius was in a pickle. He was the emperor of the Byzantine, Eastern, Roman Empire, 610-641 A.D. Constantine, about 300 years before, had declared Constantinople, then called Byzantium, the capital of the entire Roman empire (East and West, which he had reunited after decades of each having their own emperor). In the 600s the empire was again split, so Heraclius was emperor in the East and under attack from Persia. He exhausted his empire trying to repulse that invasion, and then found himself beset by a human tsunami from Arabia. Islam had arisen, and the Byzantine empire was shredded by their attack. Heraclius lost Syria, Armenia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and the Muslim territories were stretching towards Constantinople itself. He needed his people to be unified, but at that time they were anything but.
The wide variety of peoples under his rule, though in name all Christian, were widely divided in their common faith in Christ. Quick overview: The Church had expended enormous effort in multiple ecumenical councils to clarify what it meant to believe that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Nicaea I, in 325, condemned Arianism and declared that Jesus was “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father” = Jesus is fully God. Constantinople I, in 381, condemned Apollinarianism and declared that Our Lord has a human body and soul = Jesus is fully human. The Council of Ephesus, in 431, condemned Nestorianism and declared that Jesus is one person, with both a divine nature and a human nature = Jesus is not multiple persons. Chalcedon, in 451, condemned the monophysites, and declared that Jesus’ divine and human natures were distinct, but united; not confused or blended together, but also not divided.
Heraclius’ problem was that he still had Nestorians in Syria and Mesopotamia believing that Jesus was two persons. And he also had Monophysites on the other extreme in Egypt and Armenia who believed that Jesus’ divinity entirely engulfed his humanity. The emperor wanted to come up with some middle-of-the-road doctrine that would bring everybody back together. He proposed something termed “monoenergism” (which argued that Jesus’ divine nature and human nature had a single energy), though eventually he would promulgate a refined version of this called “monophysitism” in 638, which stated that Jesus’ divine nature and human nature had one will. It allowed him to keep the Nestorians happy (who want to keep Jesus humanity and divinity strongly separated), and the Monophysites happy (who wanted to merge Jesus’ natures together).
The leading bishops of the world fell in behind him. They wanted unity just as much as the next guy and the theological problems raised by a Savior Who does not have a human will seemed small in comparison with the Persians and Muslims threatening everybody’s lives. Even Pope Honorius I weakly went along with Heraclius, avoiding conflict and agreeing that his vocabulary wasn’t absolutely a problem, failing to address the devastating theology underneath it.
And then Pope Severinus I was elected Bishop of Rome and refused to sign Heraclius’ statement. His successors, John IV, Theodore I, and then Martin I all held firm against immense pressure from Heraclius and his successors, Constantine III, Heraclonas, and then Constans II. That final emperor simply told the Pope to stop talking about how many wills Christ had. If he was quiet on the issue, all would be well. But Martin I would not back down. He convened a synod in 649 in Rome, and promulgated its canons as an encyclical, utterly rejecting Monothelitism. The gentle Holy Father was arrested, carried in chains to Constantinople, and the Emperor forced the clergy of Rome to elect as his successor Eugene I. (Martin, it should be said, did acquiesce to Eugene’s election so he was not an antipope. That staunch, exiled Bishop of Rome would die shortly thereafter, the final pope to have been martyred)
Constans had his man on the final, and highest, patriarchy of the Christian world, reputedly someone who would finally agree to his watered-down compromised Christology. The newly elected Pope received a letter from the patriarch of Constantinople which he was asked to sign off on. It was vague, obscure, muddying the theological waters just enough that if you squinted it wasn’t all that heretical. The holy, but wavering pontiff read it out before his clergy and laity at St. John Lateran, and the good people of God in Rome stood up before their Holy Father and said they weren’t going to let him leave until he absolutely rejected it. The common folk could smell the heresy mixed into the verbose document better than he, and they would have none of it. Eugene I faced byzantine delegates and sent them packing. They threatened to roast him alive just as soon as the emperor had things under control back home, though he was saved from this fate by the invasion of Crete by the Muslim armies. He was saved from a worse fate by those good, faithful people of Rome.
Fr. Dominic has found his faith strengthened countless times by good and staunch families and brother priests. Sometimes it is the devotion of someone while receiving Holy Communion that reaffirms my faith in the Eucharist, or when priest-friends have simply reminded me of Christ’s strength when I am trying to go through life under my own effort.