Third Council of Constantinople
- When
- 680–681 AD
- Where
- Constantinople
- Kind
- Council
Defined that Christ has two wills, human and divine, against the compromise that he has only one.
Monothelitism — one will in Christ — had been advanced as a formula that might reconcile the miaphysite churches without reopening Chalcedon. The council rejected it, holding that a nature without a will is not a nature, so that a Christ fully human must will humanly, his human will freely consenting to the divine. Maximus the Confessor, who had argued this at the cost of his tongue and his right hand and died in exile, was vindicated. The council also anathematised Pope Honorius for having endorsed the one-will formula, which is why the definition of papal infallibility in 1870 had to be framed so carefully.
Bodies it bears on
Party to it
Who stands here
- Maximus the Confessor
c. 580–662
Vindicated by it, nineteen years after he died in exile for the position it adopted
Either side of it
The whole timeline, from the apostolic communities to the present.