I am in the midst of a series of articles on the seven ecumenical councils of the early church. These councils commenced with the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and concluded with the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Between these two events were five more, each of which attempted to understand and establish a unified Christian theology.
In this series we are taking a brief look at each of the seven councils. For each one we are considering the setting and purpose, the major characters, the nature of the conflict, and then the results and lasting significance. We continue today with the sixth council: the Third Council of Constantinople.
SETTING & PURPOSE
The Third Council of Constantinople was convened by Emperor Constantine IV in an attempt to settle further differences between the Eastern and Western church in the way they understood the nature of Christ’s will and power. The council began on Nov 7, 680 in the Trullus, a great domed room in the imperial palace at Constantinople. Only 43 bishops were present, marking this as the smallest of the seven ecumenical councils.
MAJOR CHARACTERS & CONFLICT
Constantine IV opened the council and presided over the first 11 of the 18 sessions (which would go on for 10 months). But unlike the councils before and after it, the Third Council of Constantinople did not have one or two men who dominated the proceedings.
The primary conflict in the council was regarding the two doctrines of monoenergism and monothelitism. Monoenergism arose not long after the Second Council of Constantinople as another attempt to reconcile the churches of the East and West. It was the belief that, though Christ may have had two distinct natures, there was but one energy operative in his person: the divine energy. Leo Davis describes the position like this: “Whatever was done by the Incarnate Word was done by Him as Creator and God, and that therefore all the things that were said of Him either as God or in a human way were the action of the divinity of the Word.”
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