06 — Constantinople II (553) and III (680–681)

The Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils carried the Christological work of Chalcedon forward. Constantinople II (553), under Justinian, condemned the “Three Chapters” to interpret Chalcedon in a Cyrillian key and reject Nestorianism, and is associated with the condemnation of Origenism. Constantinople III (680–681) defined two natural wills and two energies in Christ against Monothelitism — the cause for which St. Maximus the Confessor suffered — and condemned, among the Monothelites, Pope Honorius of Rome.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

These two councils complete the Chalcedonian settlement by drawing out its implications: that the one Christ, in his full humanity, has a genuine human will and operation, freely conformed to the divine. This section treats the Three Chapters and the Origenist question at the Fifth Council, and the monothelite crisis, Maximus, and the condemnation of Honorius at the Sixth — the fact of Honorius’s condemnation stated as the conciliar acts give it, with the later Roman Catholic apologetic reading reported accurately in its own terms.

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constantinople-ii-the-three-chapters.md Justinian, the Three Chapters, the Cyrillian re-reading of Chalcedon, and the disputed Origenist anathemas.
constantinople-iii-monothelitism.md Monothelitism; Maximus the Confessor; the two-wills definition; the condemnation of Pope Honorius and its bearing on the papal claims.

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