The Monophysite Conviction in the East Versus Byzantium’S Political Convenience: a Historical Look to Monotheletism

ARAM, 15 (2003), 151-157 151

THE MONOPHYSITE CONVICTION IN THE EAST VERSUS BYZANTIUM’S POLITICAL CONVENIENCE: A HISTORICAL LOOK TO MONOTHELETISM

ROBERTO SÁNCHEZ VALENCIA

SOME POLITICAL BACKGROUND

During the first part of the Sixth Century, Emperor Justinian I started a policy devoted to restoring the orbis romanus. He fought against several barbar- ian towns, some of which were dominated and from others he was expelled. He thus reincorporated big land extensions into the Byzantine Empire. The Italian Peninsula, the Mediterranean Coast of Africa and the High Armenia are some of the most significant treasures acquired by Justinian I. He also established a system of fortifications in the Balkan borderlands to prevent slaves and Avars from attempting invasion. Such achievements resulted in the exhaustion of the Estate resources and that made it impossible to face the Persian armies, who were guided by Chos- roes I and entered the East Frontier in the Byzantine Empire. The invasions began in 545 when Justinian was over sixty. So, tired as he was, he preferred to negotiate peace with the Persians. The Treaty was revewed several times up to 562 when peace of 50 years was arranged. Those peace treaties benefited Persia because they stipulated Byzantium had to pay an annual tribute. After Justinian I's death in 565, Byzantine Emperors of the second half of the Sixth Century faced the difficult task of governing a State whose weak economy obstructed the development and undermined the stability of society. The Emperors had to choose between paying tribute to Persians or increasing taxes to their citizens in order to pay for a war that would free them of the con- tracted responsibilities with the Persian Empire. Justin II, Tiberius and Maurice, the three Emperors who followed Justinian I in the Byzantine Empire during the second half of the sixth century, chose the tributes moratorium to the Persian Empire. That ended the fifty-year Peace Treaty and renewed hostilities among both empires. The military success was a characteristic of the Byzantine armies, especially under Maurice’s government. He started a civil war in Persia in 590 between Chosroes II – the legitimate heir to the throne- and Baharam – one of the most distinguished gener- als. Such a conjunction was taken advantage of by Emperor Maurice who interchanged a Peace Treaty favorable to Byzantium as well as an adjustment to the borderlands. He was therefore able to end the Byzantine campaigns in the east in 591. 152 A HISTORICAL LOOK TO MONOTHELETISM

Maurice’s victory paid a high price: public funds ran out and there were no resources from which to pay the army. Maurice had to increase taxes to citizens and reduce the payment to his soldiers. Such measures transformed the image of the Emperor, who was no longer a hero to the community, but turned into a unpopular governor. As years went by, the army protested but the citizens did not support it, resulting in a Coup d’état, whose leader was Phocas. Maurice and his children were executed in 602. In order to make his power legitimate, Phocas reinforced the relationship with the Roman Church, which in turn pressed this illegitimate Emperor to oblige his eastern citizens to quit monophysism and adopt the dogma of the two natures in Jesus. The results of the repressive Phocas’ policy were very negative because provinces in Palestine, Egypt and Armenia where monophysite groups were big, were not just to be exploited, but segregated and anathematized too. Such a situation incited a revolt among citizens who prefered the Persian dominance to the Byzantine one.

SOME RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND

Besides reconquering territories during the first half of the Sixth Century, Justinian I stood out because of the impact his religious policy had in the Italian Peninsula. Rome was then one of the most important Episcopal Head- quarters in the Catholic Church. The Roman Bishop claimed primacy and leadership in Church. During the last years of the Sixth Century, a long, com- plex and pitiful conflict developed inside the Episcopal headquarters of Rome and Constantinople between Gregorius The Great and John the Faster. At the beginning of the Seventh Century, Phocas defeated Emperor Maurice because of the popular support of the army. Nonetheless he did not gain recognition from the Byzantine aristocracy. While governing, Phocas tried, on the one hand, to diminish the power of such an elite, and on the other, to legitimate his image as an emperor. In order to achieve the first aim he began a series of persecutions and massacres against the Byzantine nobility. To obtain the second he took part in the conflict of the Episcopal headquarters in his empire, helping the Roman Pope and limiting the powers of Constantinople’s Patriarch. Benefiting Rome meant that Phocas gained recognition and popularity in the Italian Peninsula, to the point that a triumphal column was built in the Roman Forum in his honor. Phocas had turned into a defender of “orthodoxy”, that is a Roman version of Christianity. Any theological divergence among the villages conforming his empire therefore became intolerable. Once again, in history, an antimonophysite campaign took place throughout the imperial terri- R. SANCHEZ VALENCIA 153 tory. The most affected communities were Palestine, Egypt and Armenia where significant sectors of the population were monophysite. The level of stress in such lands amounted to an insurrection. The deep sociopolitical crisis experienced by the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire was taken advantage of by the Persian Empire. History has a predeliction for irony and there, in the middle of the fight for hegemony in the Eastern Land we can find, once again, Chosroes II, the one who had previously received Maurice's assistance in containing insurrection in his Empire in order to recover his legitimate throne. Chosroes II took advantage of the vulnerability in the Middle East of Byzantium and in 610 invaded Syrian lands, going afterwards to Roman Armenia and Egypt. Such invasions were based upon incredible foundations: Chosroes II wanted Phocas to be corrected severely because he assassinated Maurice, the Persians benefactor. I cannot ignore two little details: the first one is that Maurice's assassination took place eight years previously, and during all that time Persians did not demonstrate any offence. The other little detail is that Chosroes II's revenge did not cease with Phoca's death in 610, but continued, when opportunity arose, for several more years. Phocas death was due to a conspiracy among the main sectors of the Byzan- tine society, aristocracy as well as army. Both elected a new leader called Her- aclius. The new Emperor was certificated in his high position by Sergius, Con- stantinople’s Patriarch.

FROM RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS TO POLITICAL ADVANTAGES: MONOTHELETISM

When historians of the Catholic Church explain the events that took place during the Seventh Century, they normally refer to Monotheletism or Mono- energysm as a heresy theologically related to Monophysitism. That is, no doubt, a theological conflict from their point of view, the last conflict based on christological controversies. The opinion of such historians is based on testimonies from those days: the writings of Maximus the Confessor as well as those of Anastasius of Sinai, the Papal correspondence and the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council celebrated in Constantinople City in the years 680 and 681. My point of view departs from tradition in that before considering Monotheletism as a heresy, I would consider it a political strategy of the State. The intention of the strategy was to unify all Byzantine territories, avoiding certain sectors of the population felt to be segregated because of their beliefs. That is why Monotheletism used an ambiguous theological language to hide, or apparently dissolve, the very deep theological divergences between the Catholic and the Monophysite doctrine. 154 A HISTORICAL LOOK TO MONOTHELETISM

My point of view is based both on the testimony of religious sources of the Seventh Century mentioned above and Sebeo’s History, the work of an Armenian Bishop of the Seventh Century. About this last document I con- sulted the Russian translation done in the nineteenth century by the notorious Armenist Patkantean. On the other hand I have used some references of the documents that appeared later on, like Photius’ Bibliotheca written in the second half of the Ninth Century. All these documents complement each other in an outstanding way. What it is omitted in one of them is detailed in another, enabling a better focus on the historic scenario, namely the strategies used by the Byzantine and Persian Empires in order to obtain hegemony in the Middle East. Both the origins and the end of the Monothelite Movement are closely related to events of foreign affairs, such as the invasions of the villages of var- ious ethnic backgrounds as well as the disagreements between the Roman Church and the Byzantine State. The Monothelite conflict lasted for most of the Seventh Century, approximately from 620 to 681. Five Byzantine Em- perors was involved: Heraclius, Constantine III, Constans II, Constantine II and Constantine IV. There were also four Patriarchs of Constantinople during the conflict: Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus II and George. Ten Popes lived during that time, and among them the most significant because of their participation in the Monothelite conflict were Honorious, Martin I and Agatho. My point of view is supported by a case history, the famous book History of the Byzantine State, written in the middle of the Twentieth Century by the notorious Byzantinist George Ostrogorsky. According to him: “Developments in the East necessitate a reorientation of Byzantine ecclesiastical policy. With Byzantine reverses in the East, the provinces which had fallen to the Arabs had no longer to be reckoned with, and any further maintenance of Monotheletism was therefore pointless. As a means of reconciling the eastern Christians this ecclesiastical policy had proved useless, and it had only brought about disastrous complications between Byzantium itself and the West”.

Like Ostrogorsky, I consider Monotheletism as a political strategy of the Byzan- tine Empire. In the following sentences I will try to explain my point of view. It is important to remember three basic premises: the first one is the Italian Peninsula had been attached to the Byzantine Empire in the Sixth Century; the second one is the Roman Bishop, the Pope, had obtained leadership in Church and that established him as the highest theological authority. The third premise is that not all Christian communities accepted the dogma of Jesus Christ having two natures. Such a dogma was elaborated during the Chalcedonian Council in 451. Christians who denied it were called monophysites and their communities had significant supporters in the Armenian, Palestinian and Egyptian territories. In this context Heraclius was crowned Emperor of Byzantium in 610, after the assassination of Emperor Phocas. The State he ruled was falling into pieces R. SANCHEZ VALENCIA 155 at lightning speed: in Constantinople, the Empire’s capital, the economical crisis turned into a high cost of living and starvation and that also meant social instability. It was the Heraclian Dynasty founder who faced, stopped and rein- vested Byzantium's crisis. It got worse when the Persians conquered Egypt in 617, putting obstacles in the way of the grain supply in the Byzantine Empire. In such hard moments Heraclius received the total support of Sergius, Con- stantinople’s Patriarch. Such support was not just moral but economical as long as the patriarch offered the Emperor the Church’s treasures so he could equip his army to defend the borderlands and regain the lost territories. The first eleven years of Heraclius' government were devoted to achieving social stability in what was left of the Empire. During that time, Persians aimed to consolidate their dominance in the recently attached territories. That is why Chosroes II adopted a religious attitude that made him popular among his new Christian citizens. Based on Sebeos’ chronicle, Emperor Chosroes II showed tolerance to the different Christian groups at the beginning: “Xosrov ordered that ‘each indi- vidual should adhere to his own faith and no one should dare harass the Arme- nians’”. Later on, Chosroes II supported the Monophysite Christian tendency which had a large number of followers in those lands and had been segregated by the Byzantine policy. According to Sebeos: “At this king Xosrov ordered that ‘all Christians under my authority should hold the faith of the Armeni- ans’”. This religious policy, in addition to the expelling of Jews in Palestine, boosted the image of the Persian Emperor among the Armenian, Syrian and Egyptian Christians, who were supported by the State for the very first time and were no longer persecuted or segregated. By the time Emperor Heraclius was able to consolidate enough strength to counterattack the Persians and recover his eastern provinces, it was already too late. Chosroes II's religious policy had turned him into a very popular governor in those lands. Once again Emperor Heraclius was in charge of a difficult task: fight against a population who was no more identified with the political orientation of the Byzantine governors, that is, they were little attracted by a government that supported Catholicism and segregated and anathematized the rest of the Christian trends. Once again Heraclius had the brave support of Patriarch Sergius who was not just the foreman of young Constantine III while Heraclius started his reconquering campaign in the East in 622 and 628, but thought of a theological formula to apparently reconcile the Catholic and the Monophysite Doctrines. Evidently, the expelling of Persians in Armenian, Palestinian and Egyptian lands was not enough to warrant peace in those territories. It was necessary to have a religious agreement similar to that of Chosroes II. The problem was to favour neither Catholics nor Monophysites, so that both parties felt respected and members of the Empire. It was at that point that 156 A HISTORICAL LOOK TO MONOTHELETISM

Sergius thought of a Monothelite or monoenergyst doctrine. According to such a doctrine: “Christ operated with but one will, although he had two natures”. That is the formula Sergius adopted to settle disputes between Catholics who accepted Jesus Christ had two natures, and the Monophysites who accepted just one. Such a proposal solved in a practical but superficial way the theological dif- ferences. But when talking about religion it was not the Patriarch in Constan- tinople nor the Byzantine Emperor who had the last word, but the Roman Bishop: the Pope. Some of the eastern Catholics, like the monks Sophronius and Maximus, did not accept the proposal in the Monothelite doctrine because of the theological consequences. They therefore had to turn to the Pope. Although Sophronius had been elected Jerusalem’s Patriarch, the Pope Hon- orius who was governing in those years (625 to 638) paid attention to the syn- odal letter sent by Sophronius and called for him in order to know more about the issue. Since the Middle Ages historians and theologians have considered the attitude taken by the Roman Pontiff toward the Monothelite issue to the negligent. The Byzantine Emperor and Patriarch Sergius took advantage of that approach, in order to design and proclaim the Ekthesis decree. It was an order to silence any discussion about the energy in Christ issue, and accept the existence of just one will in Him. In 638 the Patriarch Sergius and the Pope Honorius died. Shortly after, in 641 Emperor Heraclius died too. Under such circumstances the Monothelite Proposal had new horizons. Honorius' followers, especially the Popes John IV (640-642) and Martin I (649-653) and Agathon (678-681), checked the theological implications of Monotheletism, and based on their religious authority and that one of the syn- odals summoned by them, condemned the Monothelite proposal. The Byzan- tine government lead by Constans II (641-668) did not accept the negative interpretation given by Rome. After Heraclius’ death a dynastic conflict started between Constantine III (son of Heraclius first marriage with Heraclonas) and the son of Martina (Her- aclius’ second wife). According to the Emperor’s testament his two sons had to govern at the same time. And so it was during 103 days until Constantine III died –he was probably poisoned-. Valentine Arsacidus, the army’s chief, took care of Heraclius’ two little children Constans and Theodosius. Valentine organized a Coup d’état claiming that Heraclonas and the Empress Martina had assassinated Constantine III. On his own, Pyrrhus, the new Patriarch in Constantinople tried to negotiate the issue, but his attempts were fruitless. Valentine ordered the crowning of Constans II as the new Emperor. He was then aged 11 years. Valentine Arsacidus and Paulus – the new Patriarch of Constantinople who substituted Pyrrhus when he left his position – became the new mayors during R. SANCHEZ VALENCIA 157

Constans II's childhood. Valentine had Armenian origins, and there the Chris- tian population was mostly monophysite. Paulus, the new Patriarch, was in favour of the Monothelite proposal. The influence of both mayors in the young Emperor’s education was great as years went by. Constans II did not just adopt and defend Monotheletism, but he attempted to overcome the religious authority of the Roman Pontiffs. As I have previously said, the highest religious authority among the Christ- ian Catholics is the Pope, and all the dogmatic issues depended on him. It is true the Pope Honorius was for the Monothelite Doctrine, but it is also true his followers cautiously checked it and found it heretical. That was why it was condemned. Pope Martin I acted energetically against Monotheletism and recommended Constans II to forbid such a Doctrine. It has heretical to the Pope and the Bishops of the Synod, but for the Byzantine government it was necessary to warrant the permanence of the eastern provinces in the Empire. The political importance of the Monothelite Doctrine was manifested when the Byzantine Emperor interfered in all the decisions taken by the Pope and his Bishops. Such interfering reached its highest altitude when the Pope Martin I was captured, prosecuted and executed. The death of that Pope coincided with the most relevant incursions of Arabs in Armenian territories. These were totally conquered in 660 during the caliphate of Muawija I. This was of great importance because the Armenian lands were the last Monophysite redoubt under Byzantium’s control. Palestine, Syria and Egypt had already been conquered by the Arabs. So, since Pope Martin I's death and the Arabian incursions, the religious negotiation between the imperial power and the papacy started. As long as there was no longer any majority of Monophysites in the lands that still per- tained Byzantium, there was no political reason to insist on a Monothelite Doctrine. During the following two decades the Roman Pontiffs were working together with Constantine IV up to the definite abolition of Monotheletism during the Sixth Ecumenical Council celebrated in Constantinople in 681 and 682.