THE FAITH OF SAINT SOPHRONIUS
«The year was 634. For almost ten years a great pontiff, Honorius I, had reigned. A worthy emulator of Saint Gregory the Great, he successfully continued his administrative, disciplinary and missionary work. Unfortunately, however, a single act of weakness was soon to make his name the obloquy of the papacy. Here are the circumstances…»
Our Father went on to describe the Christian Orient weakened by various heresies, the latest of which, Monophysism, along with its successor Monothelism, were still wreaking havoc at the beginning of the 7th century. At Constantinople, the Emperor Heraclius for his part was troubled by the divisions within his empire, which risked being broken up under the double pressure of the rival Persians and the Arabs from the South. Following the advice of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, he undertook to rally the subjects of his immense empire around a “formula of union” which was sufficiently vague to satisfy all opposing parties, attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable, that is to say true doctrine with heresy. The vast majority of Catholics had already accepted this out of obedience to the Emperor and to their Patriarchs, when «a monk from Jerusalem called Sophronius rose up indignantly and pointed out the contradiction between the essentially political views of the Patriarchs Sergius and Cyrus and the imprescriptible requirements of the faith. Stirred by his courage, which dared defy the imperial supremacy, and disdaining the whimsical plans for reconciliation, the people of Jerusalem chose him for their Patriarch, and it was with this new authority that Sophronius solemnly denounced the offer of union as a veiled call to heresy, an execrable capitulation of the faith.»
THEOLOGIAN OF THE IMMACULATE
In a letter to Sergius of Constantinople, written at the close of the Synod of Jerusalem in 634, Saint Sophronius declared his faith in the mystery of the Incarnation, displaying an astonishingly advanced understanding of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and thus earning himself a place in the office of the feast composed by Pius IX in 1854:
«On the subject of the Incarnation, I believe that God the Word, the only Son of the Father, taking pity on our fallen nature, of His own free volition, through the will of God who begot him and with the divine agreement of the Spirit, humbled Himself to take on our lowly condition [...], and that, entering the radiant and virginally pure womb of Mary, the blessed, the glorious Virgin, full of divine wisdom and exempt from all stain of body, soul and spirit, He became incarnate, He who was incorporeal truly becoming man, He who is always with God wishing to become man in order to purify like through like, to save brother through brother [...]. That is why a holy Virgin was chosen; She was sanctified in Her soul and in Her body, and because She was pure, chaste and immaculate, She became the Cooperatrix in the Incarnation of the Creator.»
(Quoted by Martin Jugie, Saint Sophrone et l’Immaculée Conception, Revue augustinienne, 1910, p. 573)
The Patriarch of Constantinople wrote to Pope Honorius asking him to bring this turbulent monk in Jerusalem to his senses, this arrogant rebel who, by his outbursts and resistance, was compromising the work of union already well on its way to success. And the Pope, alas! took the side of the Patriarch: he wrote a letter to Sophronius to which he added this surprisingly modern directive: «We must be careful not to rekindle ancient quarrels.»
What? The defence of the dogma of Chalcedon, defining the union of two natures in the unique and perfect Person of the Son of God become man, nothing more than an «ancient quarrel»? For a theologian of the calibre of Sophronius, such an argument was worthless.
Our Father writes: «Honorius chose the party of the Politicians against that of the Theologian, failing thus in his supreme duty as guardian of the Word of God.» Sophronius rose up and accused the Pope not only of favouring heresy through his compromises, but of being a heretic himself. The fact that he allowed error to be freely propagated meant that he no longer adhered to orthodoxy, to correct doctrine…
The Pope, it seems, belatedly recovered a sense of his duties, but he died without repairing the immense damage he had caused the universal Church by his fluctuating opinions. Saint Sophronius, reduced to silence in Jerusalem which had fallen into the hands of the Arabs, died a short while later. For many years, the Emperor continued to impose his false «union» throughout the East. The persecution spread, in the name of the Pope, against the very best Christians, true Catholics, who were accused of rebellion, while, for their part, the fanatical Monophysites preferred to hand their cities over to the Arabs! With the help of the holy Abbot Maximus, Pope Martin I, who succeeded Pope Honorius, attempted to clear his predecessor of all responsibility and to interpret his writings in an orthodox manner. It was in vain. Exiled to Ukraine, they both died martyrs of the persecution.
A POPE DECLARED ANATHEMA
At last, Byzantium, weary of it useless schism and its sterile heresy, came to its senses, and it was immediately followed by the flock of Oriental bishops for whom the wishes of the Basileus were the supreme law. In 680, an ecumenical Council was held at Constantinople, under the pontificate of Pope Agathon, to proclaim the true faith, the faith of Saints Sophronius, Martin and Maximus, the faith of the martyrs and the Christian people. It anathematised those who, for various reasons, appeared to it responsible for the tragic interlude. It was only right that Honorius should be included in the condemnation, and he was. For almost a thousand years, in official Roman texts, popes had to prove their fidelity by renewing the anathema brought against their predecessor.
«A pope who favours heresy, a pope anathematised by an ecumenical council, the condemnation being recorded and approved by the sovereign pontificate, here indeed are historical facts which demand the fullest attention of theologians…», opines the Dictionary of Catholic Theology. (art. Honorius, vol. 7, p. 94).
Our Father adds: «… and also a serious reflection by the men constituted in dignity in the Church for the preservation of the faith. Let them ensure that they do not place their desire for unity above everything else, that they never rashly embrace the views of new political and social powers, that they give no ground to the demands of those from outside the Church and in the World, that they accept none of those murky agreements and spectacular rallyings which are proposed to them from all sides! Let them tremble lest, in a moment of weakness and error, they throw the Church and society as a whole into new convulsions and unending dissensions. Let them fear to see political powers seize upon their confused decrees in order to exterminate, in their Names, the only remaining true Catholics. And should such threats not suffice, should the fear of God’s judgements still mean so little to them, let them call to mind that far-off Vatican III, beyond a sea of misfortune, when, in the presence of a new Agathon, their definitive condemnation will be pronounced! Let them heed this threat inscribed in the principal texts of our faith, a text from the Sixth Ecumenical Council: “We agree to banish from the Holy Church of God and to anathematise along with the other heretics Honorius, formerly pope of ancient Rome, for we have found in the letters which he sent to Sergius that he followed the opinion of the latter and that he sanctioned his wicked teachings.” That was on 28 March 681. Despite some laudable efforts, no one had managed to exonerate him, and since then no one has dared to contest the sentence of the imperial edict posted at Saint Sophia, declaring him a “confirmer of heresy”. His letters were solemnly thrown on the fire along with the other writings of the heretics who had taken him as their reference.»
Admittedly, Honorius had not used his infallibility to propagate heresy, but «his error, explains our Father, was to have clung to this ambiguous language, which, without being totally erroneous, gave formidable support to error». He had failed to acquit himself of his duty as Sovereign Pontiff, supreme guardian of the faith, charged to confirm his brothers therein; he was therefore guilty, more so than all the rest, before God and before the Church.
One of his successors, Saint Leo II, would state this in explicit terms: «Honorius made no effort to make this apostolic Church illustrious through the teaching of the apostolic tradition, but, by an execrable betrayal, he allowed the spotless Church to be sullied. He did not, as befitted the apostolic authority, extinguish the nascent flames of heretical dogma, but by his negligence fanned them still higher.»
One single act of negligence therefore earned him expulsion from the Church. «What a prodigious mark of truth the Church of Rome thus gives by keeping one of her Pontiffs under anathema for heresy over the centuries, at the same time as serenely declaring herself infallible.» (French CRC no 69, p. 8) For heresy! Pope Hadrian II would write in 869: «It should be known that the reason for the anathema is this: Honorius had been accused of heresy, the only grounds on which it is licit for inferiors to resist their superiors and to reject their perverted opinions.» «We must meditate, he wrote in November 1964, on those truly dark hours of our Church, for once again we have been plunged into them.» For four centuries (4th-7th), the Church valiantly defended her faith in God made man. «Our era is drawing to a close on another great dispute: it is now a question of faith in man who makes himself God.» The means by which this ferment of apostasy has spread are identical:
«A powerful party within the Church demands peace through negotiation, reconciliation through dialogue. Leading individuals favour formulas of union on the basis of which it should be possible to reach a broad agreement with all humanists in the world, whether believers or unbelievers. All the Authority of the Church needs to do is to take a small step in this direction, and our enemies of yesterday will then see that our disarmament is sincere. Above all, those who refuse to make concessions on the faith at any price need to be reduced to total silence. Before such formidable pressure the body of bishops puts up a weak resistance, any courage it might display being totally dependent on that of the Popes…
«Let us suppose that they had all surrendered the faith out of obedience and a desire for unity. Let us suppose that Sophronius had submitted out of respect for Honorius and humility, that he had obeyed by standing aside in silence. Would not the return of the peoples to unity be worth this act of renunciation? Absit! No! let no one ever sink to this kind of reasoning in the Church! And first of all because we are here dealing with the divine Absolute! Never will any authority or the wishes of billions of men avid for the goods of this world be able to prevail over our Faith! Should the Credo of a single poor woman come to trouble the order of the world, her voice would still make itself heard, courageous and pure, for the honour of God. Sophronius acted well! Sophronius dictates our duty!
Brother Thomas of Our Lady of Perpetual Help