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Roman
Catholic
Introduction
Pope
Honorius, who was pope from 625 - 638, was anathematized for the heresy of
Monothelitism (Jesus only has one will) by both the 6th and the 8th
Ecumenical Councils. Both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church
recognize the 6th council, but only the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the
8th council. Pope Honorius was also declared to be a heretic in the oath
that popes had to take from the 8th to the 11th centuries upon being
enthroned to the papacy.
The
obvious question is, why would two ecumenical councils and the papal oath
declare Honorius to be a heretic, if the church always considered the Roman
Catholic Pope to be infallible?
Pope
Honorius
Third Council of
Constantinople : 680-681 A. D.
This pious and
orthodox creed of the divine favour was enough for a complete knowledge of
the orthodox faith and a complete assurance therein. But since from the
first, the contriver of evil did not rest, finding an accomplice in the
serpent and through him bringing upon human nature the poisoned dart of
death, so too now he has found instruments suited to his own purpose--namely
Theodore, who was bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul
and Peter, who were bishops of this imperial city, and further
Honorius, who was pope of elder Rome,
Cyrus, who held the see of Alexandria, and Macarius, who was
recently bishop of Antioch, and his disciple Stephen -- and has not
been idle in raising through them obstacles of error against the full body
of the church sowing with novel speech among the orthodox people the
heresy of a single will and a single principle of action in the two
natures of the one member of the holy Trinity Christ our true God, a heresy
in harmony with the evil belief, ruinous to the mind, of the impious
Apollinarius, Severus and Themistius, and one intent on removing the
perfection of the becoming man of the same one lord Jesus Christ our God,
through a certain guileful device, leading from there to the blasphemous
conclusion that his rationally animate flesh is without a will and a
principle of action.
Fourth Council of
Constantinople : 869-870
Further, we accept the sixth, holy and universal synod {6
Constantinople III}, which shares the same beliefs and is in
harmony with the previously mentioned synods in that it wisely laid down
that in the two natures of the one Christ there are, as a consequence, two
principles of action and the same number of wills. So, we anathematize
Theodore who was bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, the
unholy prelates of the church of Constantinople, and with these,
Honorius of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria as well as Macarius of Antioch and
his disciple Stephen, who followed the false teachings of the unholy
heresiarchs Apollinarius, Eutyches and Severus and
proclaimed that the flesh of God, while being animated by a rational and
intellectual soul, was without a principle of action and without a will,
they themselves being impaired in their senses and truly without reason. For
if the one and same Christ and God exists as perfect God and perfect man, it
is most certain that none of the natures which belong to him can exist
partially without a will or without a principle of action, but that he
carried out the mystery of his stewardship when willing and acting in
accordance with each substance; this is how the chorus of all God's
spokesmen, having knowledge of it from the apostles
down to our own time, have constructed a colourful representation of that
human form, assigning to each part of the one Christ natural properties
distinct from each other, by which the meanings and conceptions of his
divine nature and of his human nature are believed beyond all doubt to
remain without confusion.
Liber Diurnus
According to the
Catholic Encyclopedia
the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum is:
"A miscellaneous collection of
ecclesiastical
formularies used in the
papal
chancery until the eleventh century. It
contains models of the important official documents usually prepared by the
chancery; particularly of letters and
official documents in connexion with the death, the
election, and the
consecration
of the
pope;
the
installation of newly
elected
bishops,
especially of the
suburbicarian
bishops;
also models for the profession of
faith,
the conferring of the
pallium
on
archbishops,
for the granting of
privileges and
dispensations,
the founding of
monasteries,
the
confirmation of
acts by which the
Church
acquired
property,
the establishment of private
chapels,
and in general for all the many
decrees called for by the extensive
papal
administration."
The Catholic Encyclopedia says this about
Formula 84 of the Liber Diurnus:
"Lucas
Holstenius was the first who undertook to
edit the
Liber
Diurnus. He had found one
manuscript
of it in the
monastery
of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at
Rome,
and obtained another from the
Jesuit
Collège de
Clermont at
Paris;
but as
Holstenius
died in the meantime and his notes could not be found, this edition printed
at
Rome
in 1650 was withheld from publication, by advice of the
ecclesiastical
censors, and the copies put away in a room at
the
Vatican. The reason for so doing was
apparently formula lxxxiv, which contained the profession of
faith
of the newly
elected
pope,
in which the latter recognized the
Sixth General Council
and its
anathemas
against
Pope Honorius for his (alleged)
Monothelism."
The relevant paragraph of Formula 84, as
translated by a friend of mine, says the following:
The authors were in actuality defending the
new heretical doctrines of Sergius, Phyrrhus, Paulus, and Petrus of
Constantinople, and were in agreement with Honorius, who expanded his
perverse fix for the problem.
In listing Pope Honorius in with other
heretics that newly elected Popes had to denounce upon their elevation to
the throne of St. Peter, the Liber Diurnus shows that the Roman Catholic
Church, at least until the 11th century, did not see its Popes as
infallible.
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