Kashchuk O. Monothelitism in Byzantium of the Seventh Century: Doctrine, Politics and Ideology of Power.

The Byzantine Empire of the 7th century was an organism in which the state and the Church were closely intertwined. Religious processes strongly influenced the processes in the state. Monothelitic controversy was not an exception – a unique religious and political movement that became widespread in the 7th century. Monothelitism is a doctrine according to which Jesus Christ has one will common for his human and divine natures. Monothelitism evolved from a former Christological doctrine known as Monenergism which declared that Christ performed both human and divine deeds through one divine-human operation. Emperor Heraclius (610–641) searched for the compromise which would provide the unity of the Christians. The acceptance of a common Christological doctrine – Monenergism – was planned as an expected result of the compromise. However, the most explicable reaction to Monenergism came from the Chalcedonian circle. This caused controversy which became a clash of ideas about doctrinal authority in Christianity. The difference of ideas stemmed from the fidelity to the different principles – oikonomia and akribeia. The first preferred the unity of the Church for the sake of the Empire and sacrificed the precision of the formulations. The second claimed that in order that faith was rightly believed, there should be a precision in its expression. The Dyothelites cherished the principle of akribeia and the Monothelites acted according to the rules of oikonomia. Because of the fact that the principle of oikonomia involved imperial politics, the polemic was rooted also in the political ideology in regard to the role of the Emperor in the Church. Accordingly, the dispute over phrases led to the clash of the ideologies of power in the Christianity. Ultimately the crisis led to the collision of Christian identities. The ecclesial Christian identity prevailed. It rested on the purity of the faith and the acknowledgement of the supreme doctrinal authority of the five Patriarchs (Pentarchy).