hat
Nestorianism would die out, and that Sergius I., Patriarch of
Constantinople (610-38), would be able to win back the Monophysites to
the unity of the Church. But this happy result was {84} prevented by
the spread of the Muhammadan conquest, beginning even before the death
of the Prophet in 632, and by the rise of a new heresy--the
Monothelitism which gave to the two Natures of our Lord but a single
will. As the Mussulman arms spread the faith of Islam, the Jacobite
Church of Syria seemed almost to welcome it as a refuge from the
dominance of orthodoxy. In Egypt the Coptic (Monophysite) patriarch
entered Alexandria in triumph with the Muslim force when the Orthodox
patriarch fled with the imperial troops. The Melkite (Orthodox) body
was, however, not wholly unprotected by the conquerors, and at
Jerusalem it was allowed to remain in possession, though at Antioch
there was for long no Orthodox patriarch at all. Of the Monothelite
heresy--condemned at the Sixth General Council, 681--we may for the
moment defer to speak, except to note that in the political
disturbances that swept over the Lebanon the heresy took root there,
under one John Maron, and founded the division, religious and
political, of the Maronites, which still endures.

[Sidenote: Missionary work.]

But while the Church was thus suffering in various ways, the Byzantine
missionary energy was far from exhausted. Heraclius sought to convert
the barbarian tribes far and near, the Croats and Serbs, the Bulgarians
and Slavs, and the Church of Constantinople appointed an official to
inspect the districts on the frontiers and to examine candidates for
baptism. Equally he sought to reunite the Armenians to the Orthodox
Church; but after interviews and theological discussions the opponents
of the Greeks triumphed, and the catholicos Nerses {85} III. in 645
anathematised the Council of Chalcedon--a declaration which, after a
momentary reunion, was renewed early in the eighth century. The
Armenian Church thus remained formally Monophysite. While the orthodox
emperors were thus unsuccessful in reuniting the separated Churches,
the patriarchate of Constantinople was winning a strength within which
she had lost without; the area of her confined jurisdiction was
straitly ruled, and 356 bishoprics towards the end of the seventh
century acknowledged the patriarchal throne. The emperors and the
Church alike recognised no supremacy of Rome--a fact which was
emph