he council). The synod was utterly
subservient to the emperor. The "Three Chapters" were condemned, and
their authors, long dead, anathematized, without, however, derogating
from the authority of the council of Chalcedon, which had given them a
clean bill of orthodoxy. Vigilius was excommunicated, and his name
erased from the diptychs. The Orthodox faith was set forth in fourteen
anathemas. Opinion is divided as to whether Origen was condemned. His
name occurs in the eleventh anathema, but some consider it an
interpolation; Hefele defends the genuineness of the text, but finds no
evidence for a special session against Origen, as some have conjectured.

The council was confirmed by the emperor, and was generally received in
the East. Vigilius was soon coerced into submission, but the West
repudiated his pusillanimous surrender, and rejected the council. A
schism ensued which lasted half a century and was not fully healed until
the synod of Aquileia, about 700. But the ecumenicity of the council was
generally acknowledged by 680.

See Mansi ix. pp. 24-106, 149-658, 712-730; Hardouin iii. pp. 1-328,
331, 414, 524; Hefele, 2nd ed., ii. pp. 798-924 (English translation,
iv. pp. 229-365).

3. The sixth ecumenical council, 680-681, which was convened by the
emperor Constantine Pogonatus to terminate the Monothelitic controversy
(see Monothelites). All the patriarchates were represented,
Constantinople and Antioch by their bishops in person, the others by
legates. The number of bishops present varied from 150 to 300. The
council approved the first five ecumenical councils and reaffirmed the
Nicene and "Niceno-Constantinopolitan" creeds. Monothelitism was
unequivocally condemned; Christ was declared to have had "two natural
wills and two natural operations, without division, conversion,
separation or confusion." Prominent Monothelites, living or dead, were
anathematized, in particular Sergius and his successors in the see of
Constantinople, the former pope, Honorius, and Macarius, the patriarch
of Antioch. An imperial decree confirmed the council, and commanded the
acceptance of its doctrines under pain of severe punishment. The
Monothelites took fright and fled to Syria, where they gradually formed
the sect of the Maronites (q.v.).

The anathematizing of Honorius as heterodox has occasioned no slight
embarrassment to the supporters of the doctrine of papal infallibility.
It is not within the scope of this article t