Was war die Lateransynode von 649? Was sollte sie sein?

Abstract

The radical nature of the Lateran Synod of 649 – which anathematized three patriarchs from Constantinople, one from Alexandria, two imperial laws, and one bishop identified as the heresiarch – was unprecedented in the history of the church. Hence the Synod represents the high point of the Monothelete controversy. This article analyzes its acts in order to identify the kind of synod which the Lateran gathering understood itself to be, thereby demonstrating that this papal synod, the most important of the early middle ages, constituted itself as a court of justice and pretended to go through a so-called synodal accusatory legal process. Patterning their proceedings after the example of the fifth-century lawsuit against Eutyches, Nestorius and Dioscorus, the gathering claimed to be following, in a canonically faithful manner, the standing synodal legal procedure according to the church’s statues. However, the examination of the actual trial reveals serious breaches of legal procedure. The mandatory summons of the accused was omitted, thereby taking away any possibility of their defense. Moreover, the absolute separation of prosecutor and judge was undermined and, because they were written beforehand, not only the record of the process but also its judgement were a farce. Relying on a theology of Roman primacy, the synod posited a Roman competence which challenged the actual authority of an ecumenical council convened by the emperor. In this respect, here is the first early medieval attempt to replace the institution of the ecumenical council with a papally led Concilium universale. Conceptionally organized by Maximus the Confessor with Popes Theodorus I and Martin I, and staged as a literary product by him and his students, the Lateran Synod was, according to canonical and imperial law, an illegal event which rendered any agreement in the theological controversy impossible.