Pope Saint Agapetus I: What Ten Months Can Do
POPE HONORIUS I, HERETIC?
Photo By: Flicr/János Korom Dr
Poor Pope Honorius has been condemned, anathematized, pointed out as fallible and partly excused. He has remained on the list of valid popes, somehow. Who is this man and how did he get into this position?
Honorius was born in Campania around 585. He apparently was brought up well to do, being the son of the consul, Petronius.
Although this is the sum total of our knowledge of Honorius before his ascending to the throne of St Peter, he was most likely a well-known cleric in his young years, since he became pope when he was still in his early 40s, October 27, 625.
Honorius was very active, and apparently very community oriented. One must remember that there was no well-established governmental agency in Italy at that time. The popes had been given lands by nobles to support the poor during the famines of the 400s and 500s. The Church now was the premier landowner in central Italy, and, as such, morally responsible for the care of the people. Honorius rescued ancient Roman structures from ruin and sponsored a restoration program of important Christian edifices. He also had the aqueduct of Trajan repaired, so the city could have fresh water.
Honorius was also very interested in missionary work. Modeling his papacy after that of Gregory the Great, he encouraged, with his writings and his bishops, the evangelization of England, especially Wessex, in the south. To this end, negotiations were held with the Irish clergy to make Easter celebrated on the same day throughout the Church. The Church had finally converted the Spanish Visigoths and he took it upon himself to reorganize the Church there. It is said that the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross was established in his reign.
Several points of heresy became so large that Honorius could not control them. He became aware of the rise of Islam in the last years of his pontificate. He compared it to Arianism. Little did he know….
The major heretical problem he dealt with began with the Monothelites. Their teaching was that Christ has only one “energy” and one will. This is contrary to the Church teaching of two wills, divine and human. In an attempt to evangelize the Monothelites back into the Church, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople tried to support the one will theory. In private letters, Honorius tried to support the Chalcedon “Profession of Faith” defining Christ’s nature of God and of man to be indivisible, hence, one. Then he called for silence on the topic.
On his death, in 638, Honorius was a respected and honored man. In 690, things changed. At the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and the Seventh and the Eighth, he was condemned. For heresy, for not teaching the full truth, for not wording his phrases correctly, depending on who you talk to. The controversy over his potential heresy continues to this day.
For more information on this phase of Catholic history, read “The Condemnation of Pope Honorius” by Dom John Chapman, published by the Catholic Truth Society in 1907. It can be most easily found here.
From Honorius’ letter to Sergius: “the Scriptures demonstrate clearly that Jesus Christ is the same Who operates in things divine and in things human.”
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About the Author
Debra Booton McCoy is a cradle Catholic and is a native of central New York. She works in the health care field and spends her spare time writing and enjoying her family, two grown children, and husband Bob. Growing up through the Vatican II era, she remembers the traditional teaching of the Church and was witness to the changes. For many years Debra was a Catholic on the sidelines, going to Mass every week, but not living the Faith. When she decided to homeschool her son, she found that she had to teach herself what she had forgotten or never learned. That is when she realized her role.
Debra is a published author, having written a column for a women’s monthly newspaper in the mid-1990s. Debra started a Catholic publishing company in 2013, Lanternarius Press. With that, she published her first book in 2014, an edited version of a French book from the 1800s, “A Catholic Mother Speaks to Her Children” by Marie, Countess de Flavigny. This is an advice book for children. She has also edited and published an advice book for young men, "Conferences for Boys" by Fr. Reynauld Kuenhel. For those who like stories of popes, Debra is writing a series, using many of the articles on this site. The first book is History of the Popes, 34AD - 499AD.
You can visit her website at http://lanternariuspress.net or visit Lanternarius Press on Facebook.
