Monothelitism

Central to Christianity is the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and lived on earth as a human being. The orthodox interpretation of this belief is that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, having two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, distinct from, but very closely related to, each other.

Monothelitism is the heretical doctrine that Jesus had only one will. It conflicts with the orthodox position, which is that Jesus, having two natures, must also have two wills corresponding to his two natures, i.e., a divine will and a human will.

Monothelitism emerged in the seventh century in the Middle East and for a time was widely accepted in the eastern half of the Christian Church, where it was promoted, partly for political reasons, by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (c575-641, reigned 610-641). In the Byzantine Empire of Heraclius' day there were not only many orthodox Christians but also large numbers both of Monophysites, i.e., Christians who believed that Jesus had a single nature, and of Nestorians, i.e., Christians who believed that Jesus' two natures were only loosely related to each other (not closely related, as the orthodox claimed). Heraclius believed that these different and mutually antagonistic groups might all be willing to accept the Monothelite view that Jesus had a single will, and hoped that in this way a degree of unity between them might be achieved. However, Monothelitism, which had never been popular in the western half of the Church, was rejected in 649 by the Lateran Council, meeting in Rome under the aegis of Pope Martin I (reigned 649-653), and definitively condemned as heresy by the sixth ecumenical Council of bishops, which met in Constantinople in 680-681.

The noun 'Monothelitism' and the adjective 'Monothelite' come from the Greek words μόνος (monos, only or single) and θέλησις (thelesis, will).