MONOTHELITISM. – A Christological heresy of the 7th century, the last great attempt to restore unity with the Monophysites (v.) by means of partial concessions, admitting the two natures in Christ, but at the same time affirming the uniqueness of the operation (monenergism) and of the will (m., from the Greek μόνη θέλησις, ἐν θελήματι).
I. THE ORIGINS OF THE HERESY AND THE MONOENERGETIC PHASE
Already around 600, Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria (580–607) had defended the existence of two activities or energies (δύο ἐνέργειαι) and two wills (δύο θελήματα) in Christ (cf. O. Bardenhewer, Ungedruckte Exerpte aus einer Schrift des Patriarchen Eulogius von Alexandria über Trinität und Incarnation, in Theolog. Quartalschr., 78 [1896], pp. 353–401). The opponents of Eulogius, who are probably to be sought among the ranks of Theodosian or Severian Monophysitism, had already fully professed the Monothelite doctrine (“μὰν θέλησις γίγνον ἐν θελήματι μὲν χριστῷ δογματίζουσιν”). Eulogius called them “those new descendants of Apollinarius” (ibid., p. 372). Indeed, Severus of Antioch, while admitting two kinds of works in Christ, had taught that the operation in the incarnate Word is unique, since the agent is unique; likewise, the will is one, because the subject that wills is one. These formulas, though susceptible to a benign interpretation in Severus, had prepared the heresy that was to disturb almost the entire 7th century. Yet Monothelitism assumed a particular importance only when, under Emperor Heraclius (610–41), it seemed capable of promoting that religious union so desired by political power at a moment when the Byzantine Empire was threatened with collapse, first under Persian, then under Arab pressure. It seems that it was Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (610–38) who proposed to the Emperor the attempt to bring back the Monophysites of Syria and Egypt to the Church through the doctrine of monenergism (μὰν ἐνέργειαι, “one single operation”).The first attempts at agreement, initiated by Sergius in Egypt with George Arsas, head of the Monophysite sect of the Paulicians, and by the Emperor himself in Armenia with Paul the Blind, a prominent leader of the Severians, met with no lasting success. More significant were the contacts established by Heraclius in the year 626 with Cyrus, Metropolitan of Phasis (Sebastopolis). Cyrus sought and obtained further explanations from Sergius, to which the Patriarch of Constantinople added the letter that his predecessor, Mennas, had allegedly sent to Pope Vigilius in 536; this letter was later rejected as an approach by the papal legates at the Council of 680–81. Mennas there allegedly taught “ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἐνέργειαν.” The new formula also won over Bishop Theodore of Pharan in Arabia. For a time, however, the movement stalled.
In June 631, Heraclius appointed Cyrus of Phasis Patriarch of Alexandria, conferring upon him also civil and military authority over Egypt, with the explicit task of winning the Monophysites to the Church through the doctrine of monenergy. Cyrus indeed achieved union with the Theodosians (Severians or Phthartolatrae). The act of union, concluded on June 3, 633, consisted of nine anathematisms; in the 7th, the doctrine of the two natures was proposed with the utmost circumspection, while it explicitly affirmed “unum Christum et Filium operantem una Dei Verbi operatione et humana una operatione (μὰν θελήματα γίγνον ἐνέργειαι), secundum sanctum Dionysium” (Mansi, XI, col. 565). In the same year, 633, Heraclius was able to conclude union with the Armenian Church at the Council of Theodosiopolis (Erzerum). In Syria, the Emperor had already reached an understanding in 631 with Athanasius, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, during the conferences at Gerapoli (Mabbūg). The entire Empire thus seemed to have recovered religious unity through adherence (not in all cases sincere) to the Council of Chalcedon and to the doctrine of monergy (though the precise role of the latter in the union with the Armenians is not entirely clear).
It is not easy to determine with precision the thought of monenergism, given the imprecision of the term ἐνέργεια, which sometimes means energy, the active principle of operation, and at other times designates rather τὸ ἐνεργεῖν, the operation in act. According to Tixeront (Histoire des dogmes, III, Paris 1928, p. 163, note 3), in the controversy the term ἐνέργεια should be interpreted in this second sense; but this assertion has not remained uncontested (cf. Fr. Bauer, in Theol. Revue, 26 [1927], col. 273). It may be said that the monenergists conceived ἐνέργεια as the first motion that emanates from the person: “a principio quod actionis.” Monenergism (of the 7th century) admitted the activity and human operation in Christ, as well as the “principium quo” of this activity; but it refused to call this activity by the term ἐνέργεια and above all did not wish to count it in such a way that, by adding it to the divine, two operations (ἐνέργειαι) in Christ would result: “Non ut humanam tollamus, unam operationem dicimus, sed quod ea ratione qua distinguitur contra divinam operationem, passio dicetur” (Pyrrhus, in the Carthaginian disputation of 645: PG 91, 349). The monenergists so emphasized the unity of the agent subject that they attributed the operation solely to the hypostasis; since this in Christ is unique and theandric, they deduced that the operation is also unique and theandric. The uniqueness of operation was therefore affirmed on the level of the person, not of nature; hence they called this single operation of the Lord hypostatic, hegemonic, theandric, but in no way physical or a natural property. They interpreted in their own sense the celebrated Christological formula of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (at the end of the letter to the monk Gaius: PG 3, 1072), according to which Christ as God made man would have manifested to us “καινὴν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἐνέργειαν” (it should be noted that in the act of union of 633, instead of a “new” one, there is mention of “one” theandric operation).
The monenergists (like later the proper Monothelites) wished to remain orthodox. It may be granted that their thought is less heretical than their formulas taken in themselves. But they altered the natural and traditional sense of the word ἐνέργεια (expressing thereby, as later with the term θέλησις, not the essential property of nature, such as operation and will, but what is proper to the person) and rendered themselves particularly dangerous by their silence regarding the physical operations (and physical wills) of the two natures. From silence to outright negation the distance was not great. Indeed, after the act of union concluded by Cyrus, the Monophysites rejoiced, saying that they had not adhered to the doctrine of Chalcedon, but rather that the Council had drawn near to them by admitting, with the affirmation of a single operation, also a single nature in Christ (Vita s. Maximi: PG 90, 77–80).
II. THE FIRST RESISTANCES AND THE TRANSITION TO THE MONOTHELITE FORMULA
The first opposition to the act of union of 633 came from the Palestinian monk St. Sophronius (v.), who at that time was in Egypt with his friend Maximus. When all attempts to bring Cyrus back to orthodoxy proved vain, Sophronius asked Sergius himself to remove from the articles of union the expression μὰν ἐνέργειαι. Sergius, not wishing to compromise the movement of conversion to orthodoxy, which he deemed very promising, ended by affirming that one should not speak of one or two operations in Christ, but rather that one must profess, with the tradition of the Holy Fathers and Councils, one single agent in the divine and human actions of the incarnate Word. He wrote to this effect to Cyrus, and Sophronius then promised not to raise the question again. These events are known fromAnother letter from SERGIUS to Pope HONORIUS I (625–38), written in 634, when he already knew of the elevation of SOPHRONIUS to the see of Jerusalem and sought to forestall the Pope against any moves by the highly learned monk who had become patriarch (the letter of SERGIUS in Mansi, XI, cols. 529–37; a critical analysis in Tixeront, loc. cit., pp. 167–69). While affirming that he did not wish to take a position on either of the two expressions (monenergism and dienergism), SERGIUS clearly excluded the latter, for in his view it would have led to the affirmation of two wills, opposed to one another; he also recalled, with evident sympathy, the letter of MENNA, a veritable collection of patristic testimonies on the single will of Christ. The letter marks the transition from monomergism to monotheletism proper (the ECTHESIS published in 638 by HERACLIUS is substantially identical to the so-called φύσις, the doctrinal decision of SERGIUS communicated to CYRUS and Pope HONORIUS). It is true that the formula “one will” (ἐν θελήματι) is not openly proposed therein, but it is adroitly insinuated. Pope HONORIUS, however, adopted it and made it his own.
The reply of HONORIUS (first letter to SERGIUS, preserved only in the Greek translation [Mansi, XI, cols. 537–44]) approves the prohibition against speaking of one or two energies in Christ; in these distinctions the Pope sees useless and dangerous refinements: “ad nos ista pertinere non debent, relinquentes ea grammaticis” (ibid., col. 542). But even earlier HONORIUS had energetically excluded the hypothesis of a human will in Christ that might oppose his divine will, and in this sense he attributed to him a single will: “... unam voluntatem fatemur domini nostri Jesu Christi” (ibid., col. 539). In Christ, a single person, there can be no dualism or antagonism in the will. Yet HONORIUS clearly intimated that this unity consists solely in the conformity of the human will with the divine. The Pope thus, without explicitly stating it, supposed in Christ the presence of an act of his human will (so the thought of HONORIUS has been most recently interpreted by Galtier; concerning the studies of MARIÈ on the question, V. Fr. Diekamp, in Theologische Revue, 32 [1933], cols. 445–48). This does not alter the fact that the Pope’s response, lacking in foresight, accepted the tactic of silence proposed by SERGIUS, while distrusting SOPHRONIUS, and by adopting the equivocal formula of the single will furnished weapons to the monothelite movement.
But SOPHRONIUS had already acted; in 634, upon his election as patriarch of Jerusalem, he employed the letter of enthronement to be sent to the Pope and his fellow patriarchs (Epistola Synodica, in Mansi, XI, cols. 461–509; PG 87, 3148–3200), to set forth in detail the doctrine of the divine and human energy of Christ; faithful to his pact with SERGIUS, he never explicitly speaks of two operations of Christ, but he distinguishes with absolute clarity the operation of each nature as a necessary consequence of dyophisitism: “utriusque naturae utramque novimus operationem (ἐξ ατέραν ἐνέργειαν), essentialem dico, naturalem et congruam, indivise de unaquaque procedentem essentia et natura” (loc. cit.; PG 87, 3169). Operation follows nature, and thus it cannot be hypostatic or personal, but essential, natural, congruous motion of each nature from which it proceeds. The formula of Pseudo-Dionysius (v. supra), employed by the monomergites in a subjective sense, as if it were intended to safeguard the unity of the acting subject and the single operation of this subject, was interpreted by SOPHRONIUS (and later by St. MAXIMUS) in an objective sense: the “theandric operation” must be understood as that “intermediate class” of operations of Christ (between those operations emanating solely from the divine nature, ἐνέργειαν θεωρητική, and those in which only the human nature operates, ἐνέργειαν ἀνθρωποποιητική) in which the two natures collaborate, operating—without separation and without confusion—what is proper to each; yet inasmuch as they collaborate toward a single and identical effect, this operation is theandric, divine-human: “Quod cum Dei et hominum mediator sit, necesse sit proprie servare naturalem necessitudinem, cum his, inter quae medius intercedit” (Ep., XII: PG 91, 468).
IV. END OF THE CONTROVERSY
In 647 Pope THEODORE I excommunicated the patriarch PAUL of Constantinople after the latter refused to abjure monotheletism. The imperial court, unwilling to risk a complete rupture with Rome, sought to resolve the embarrassing religious situation with a new edict: the TYPOS (τύπος τῆς πίστεως, rule of faith), issued by Emperor CONSTANS II in 647, which forbade “in any way to discuss one will or one operation, two operations or two wills” (Mansi, X, cols. 1029–32). MARTIN I, who succeeded THEODORE (d. 13 May 649), resolved to put an end to the matter; he convened a council in the Basilica of the Lateran with quasi-ecumenical character: monotheletism was condemned, along with the TYPOS, which attempted to leave in abeyance a question of fundamental dogmatic importance (the acts in Mansi, X, cols. 863–1170). The reprisals against the Pope (v. MARTIN I) and against MAXIMUS, the principal collaborator of the Lateran Synod, were severe. The breach between Rome and Constantinople lasted until, in the year 678, Emperor CONSTANTINE IV POGONATUS sought reconciliation from the Pope (for the final condemnation V. CONSTANTINE, Third Council of Constantinople, vol. IV, cols. 748 ff.).MONREALE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. — Portal of the Cathedral, with bronze doors by BONANNO PISANO (12th c.) — Monreale.
The abbey of M. arose at the wish of King William II of Sicily in the years 1174–76. According to an ancient tradition, a monastery founded by St. GREGORY THE GREAT already existed on the site, and its ruins were later used for the new construction. The first abbot was TEOBALDO, and the monastery was populated by numerous monks from the abbey of Cava de’ Tirreni. Exempt from the archbishop of Palermo by a privilege of Alexander III from the very year of its foundation, in 1183 (2 May) M. was raised to metropolitan status by Pope Lucius III, with Catania as its suffragan, to which Syracuse was added in 1188. Thus the abbot became archbishop and metropolitan, and the monks formed the cathedral chapter. Subsequently, all the privileges obtained for the new monastery were confirmed, and the monks were granted the use of pontifical insignia throughout the diocese. The epidemic that struck all Sicily in 1362 left the abbey deserted for fourteen years, so that Pope Gregory XI was compelled to gather a certain number of monks from various monasteries in Sicily to restore the chapter.
On 3 July 1483 Sixtus IV approved the statutes of the new Benedictine Congregation of Sicily, to which M. also adhered, but a few years later, in 1506, by order of Julius II it became part of the Cassinese Congregation. Meanwhile, another suffragan see had joined the archdiocese during the 15th century, namely Augusta. The union with that of Palermo, effected on 7 July 1775, proved short-lived. Reconstituted anew, it had as suffragans the dioceses of Catania, Syracuse, Piazza and Caltagirone. The monks were expelled from the abbey following the suppression laws of the last century. At present its suffragans are the dioceses of Caltanissetta and Agrigento. The cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin under the title of S. Maria Nuova.
Among its archbishops are remembered: Cardinal Giovanni Procamazza (1278); Cardinal Aussio Despugli de Podio (1458); Cardinal Pompeo Colonna (1531); Alessandro Farnese (1536);