A few months back I came across a
thread with these two intriguing posts:
After this he then was able to ascend into the papacy, where he could finally teach the monophysite heresy with full authority. Amazingly, the moment he became the actual
That does not sound chronologically correct. It seems to conflate the history of this man, merging two different occasions of his presence in Constantinople into one. Further, condemnation of the Three Chapters is not a support of Monophysitism, support of the Three chapters is usually taken (correctly or not, hard to say) as leaning toward Nestorianism. It is complicated to be sure, but I feel the previous writer had not recorded the facts straight.
If this is an attempt to support infallibility, it is a poor one.
(I have also read some Roman Catholics actually claim (I regard as an urban legend/apocryphal folklore) that Pope John Paul I [Albino Luciani] was taken from us by God just before he could pronounce a heresy, thus preserving the church under the concept of Papal infallibility. Rubbish.)
Vigilius was crowned a bishop of Rome in Rome (537AD), and had jurisdiction there for many years before he went to Constantinople, he was there at the time of the Council (553AD) but did not attend. He died on the return journey, at Syracuse as reported above, but after what looks like 18 years as Pope.
His issue was flip-flopping on the Three Chapters, which appear to lean Nestorian, or support that perspective.
Some commentary on the crises of this Pope’s day …
“In reprisal, at the seventh session of the council (26 May) he [Justinian] humiliated Vigilius by revealing his secret correspondence condemning or promising to condemn them [the three chapters]. He then ordered the pope’s name to be struck from the diptychs, making it clear, however, that he was severing communion with him personally, not with the holy see”.
J.N.D. Kelly-
Oxford Dictionary of Popes; 1986, Oxford University Press pg. 62
“Pope Vigilius (537-555), who had very little backbone in conflict situations, first gave way and condemned the three chapters in his Iudicatum of 548. Faced with a storm of protest in the West, where the pope was accused of betraying Chalcedon, he made an about-face and retracted his condemnation (Constitutum, 553). The emperor in turn called a council at Constantinople (the Second Council of Constantinople, 553) made up only of opponents of the three chapters. It not only condemned those three chapters but even excommunicated the pope. This was a unique case of an ecumenical council setting itself clearly against the pope and yet not suffering the fate of Ephesus II. Instead, over time it was accepted and even recognized as valid by the pope. The council got around the papal opposition by referring to Matthew 18:20 (“Where two or three are gathered in my name…”): no individual council could therefore forestall the decision of the universal Church. This kind of argument was invalid, of course, because the pope was not alone; the entire West was behind him, and yet it was not represented at the council. Broken in spirit, Vigilius capitulated after the end of the council and assented to its condemnation of the three chapters. The result was a schism in the West, where the pope was accused of having surrendered Chalcedon. A North African synod of bishops excommunicated the pope, and the ecclesial provinces of Milan and Aquileia broke communion with Rome….The Spanish Church did not separate from Rome, but throughout the Middle Ages it refused to recognize this Council. The authority of the papacy in the West had suffered a severe blow with regard to dogma as well”
Klaus Schatz SJ -
Papal Primacy. From Its Origins to the Present pg. 53
[Der päpstliche Primat. Seine Geschichte von den Ursprüngen bis zur Gegenwart]
At last the Pope Vigilius resigned himself to the advice of the Council, and six months afterwards wrote a letter to the Patriarch Eutychius, wherein he confesses that he has been wanting in charity in dividing from his brethren. He adds, that one ought not to be ashamed to retract, when one recognizes the truth, and brings forward the example of Augustine. He says, that, after having better examined the matter of the Three Chapters, he finds them worthy of condemnation. “We recognize for our brethren and colleagues all those who have condemned them, and annul by this writing all that has been done by us or by others for the defense of the three chapters.”
Fleury. Hist. Eccl., Liv. xxxiii. 52 CCEL
