Sergius I

Patriarch of Orthodox Christian Church (610-638)

• Born: Unknown
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: December 9, 0638
• Place of death: Constantinople, Byzantine Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey)

As head of the Orthodox Christian Church, Sergius I made a major if unsuccessful effort to resolve the vexing Monophysite controversy by advancing the Monothelete doctrine. At the same time, he became the loyal and invaluable partner of Emperor Heraclius, helping him save the Byzantine Empire in a time of dire crisis.

Early Life

Virtually no information is available regarding the early life of Sergius. He is said to have been Syrian in origin. He is recorded as holding the office of dean of the clergy of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of Constantinople, and was also in charge of the church’s ministries of charity at the time of the death of the patriarch Thomas in 610. Sergius was chosen to succeed to the patriarchal chair himself at this point.

His elevation came in a period of upheaval, strain, and crisis, in both immediate and long-range terms. He was enthroned during the reign of the bloody usurper Emperor Phocas, against whom a revolt was brewing. More broadly, he assumed the status of ecumenical patriarch prelate of the Byzantine Empire’s capital and one of the five great ecclesiastical leaders recognized as partners in the rule of the larger Christian community during a time when the Christian world was torn by continuing doctrinal dissent. Various positions in the debate over the understanding of Christ’s nature as both a divine and a human being had become identified with divergent cultural traditions and political loyalties as well as spiritual commitments. Fiercely held dissident beliefs among the inhabitants of certain regions of the empire posed political as well as theological problems, threatening the loyalty of those regions. Whether, left to his own impulses, Sergius would have developed the doctrinal positions that he came to espouse cannot be known, but his career as patriarch was to force him to develop them.

Life’s Work

Sergius became patriarch of Constantinople while the tyrant Phocas was fighting to retain the throne he had won by rebellion and murder in 602. Sergius was barely installed when Heraclius, son of the exarch (viceroy) of Africa, sailed to Constantinople at the head of a fleet in the autumn of 610 to lead the uprising against Phocas. With the help of dissidents in the city, Phocas was overthrown and executed, and Heraclius was acclaimed as his successor, reigning until 641. On October 5, 610, Sergius presided over not only the coronation of Heraclius but also his marriage to Eudoxia.

The patriarch was soon drawn into a close understanding and partnership with the new emperor, a relationship that was not to be without its tensions and trials. After less than two years of marriage, Heraclius was shattered by the loss of Eudoxia, her weak health undermined further by bearing two children. In his bereavement, Heraclius was urged by his mother to take as his second wife the intelligent and devoted Martina. Several objections to such a union were immediately raised: Martina was ambitious, she was twenty-three years younger than Heraclius, and she was his niece the daughter of his own sister. This last fact prompted outrage and indignation on the part of populace and clergy alike. Sergius is reported to have attempted personally to dissuade the emperor from this plan, but Heraclius became determined to take Martina as his wife. Apparently judging it best not to destroy what must have become an important trust between prelate and sovereign, Sergius capitulated and performed the marriage a year or so later.

Trust and supportive understanding were needed between Sergius and Heraclius as the emperor had to deal with the mounting crises that faced the empire. While the Turkish Avars ravaged the Balkan provinces, the Persians to the east had begun a program of systematic conquest of imperial territories. In 611, they invaded Syria-Palestine, and their bloody conquest of Jerusalem in 614 was carried out as a calculated humiliation of the Christian faith. Between 616 and 620, the Persians went on to conquer Egypt, and their armies began to penetrate Asia Minor and threaten the approaches to the capital.

With shattered military forces and rapidly dwindling resources, Heraclius seemed paralyzed, despite his best efforts to cope, and must at times have felt despair. It is reported that, by 619, the emperor had decided to withdraw from Constantinople and to transfer his residence to the safer distance of Carthage, from which he might launch a counteroffensive. It is said that, in response, Sergius confronted the emperor on behalf of the panic-stricken citizens of the capital and compelled him to swear a public oath that he would not abandon Constantinople. Historically accurate or not, this story does seem to reflect an understanding reached between Sergius and Heraclius in a time of crisis. For his part, Sergius agreed that the impoverished state should be allowed to draw on the vast wealth of the Church, at least as a loan, to replenish its depleted coffers. With these new funds, Heraclius was able to finance the recruitment and training of a new and expanded military force to meet the Persian menace.

Meanwhile, Sergius had already been working to assist the emperor in other ways. The demoralizing speed with which the Persians had been conquering Syria-Palestine and Egypt pointed out the added urgency of a problem that had long undermined the stability and loyalty of those regions under the empire: the large popular adherence there to the Christological heresy known as Monophysitism the doctrine of the single (divine) nature of Christ which had been condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 but still remained attractive to many. As patriarch, Sergius was pledged to uphold the Chalcedonian doctrine of the two natures of Christ. Though past attempts at bridging the gap between the two positions had failed, Sergius recognized the desperate need to try again if the empire’s population was to be restored to unity. Moreover, if the report is true that his own parents had been Monophysites of the Syrian Jacobite church, he must have been able to understand the heretical position well.

Sergius therefore drew on some earlier theological arguments to propose a compromise: a doctrine that bypassed the issue of one or two natures and stressed the concept of a single motivating energy (energeia), “one activity and one will,” in Christ. Apparently, the emperor approved this doctrine of “monoenergism” as one with which both Monophysites and dyophysite Chalcedonians might agree. From about 618, Sergius began a round of contacts with prelates and theologians around the empire, finding much support and encouragement from them. This theological olive branch, as a basis for sectarian pacification and reunion among dissident populations, was as important as the Church’s financial support for Heraclius’s struggle to save the empire.

On April 4, 622, all was ready, and Sergius presided with the emperor over a solemn ceremony of public consecration to the new enterprise one that later generations in Western Europe would hail as a veritable crusade on behalf of the Christian faith, as much as a political and territorial counteroffensive. Crossing to Asia Minor, Heraclius began his initial campaigns with great success. His route took him into the areas of the Caucasus and Armenia, where Monophysite doctrine was strong, so that discussions of the monoenergist doctrine were important components of the emperor’s efforts to win allies and recruits for his military operations.

In the midst of the emperor’s campaigns, the Persians persuaded the Avars to attack Constantinople as a countermeasure to distract Heraclius. Though repeatedly bribed by tributes to keep the peace, the greedy Avars were only too glad to mount a ferocious and determined siege of the capital, beginning on June 29, 626. Heraclius had entrusted the command of the city in his absence to able civil and military officials, under the general supervision of Sergius himself, and the emperor’s confidence in them was not tested as he boldly decided not to end his campaigning to return to the besieged city, as the Persians had hoped. To Sergius in particular fell the task of keeping up the spirit of resistance during this trial. In this he succeeded: The Avars were repulsed and abandoned the attack by August 8, amid stories that the Virgin Mary herself had intervened miraculously to drive off the pagan attackers. Sergius led celebrations of joy and thanksgiving, and this deliverance of Constantinople is still commemorated in one of the most famous hymns of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, the great Akathistos hymn. Indeed, it was once thought that the entire hymn dated from this event, perhaps being a composition of Sergius himself; it is now known that the bulk of it was the work of Romanos the Melode of a century earlier, but the prologue, with its explicit reference to the Virgin’s intervention against the Avars to save her city, was apparently an addition dating from this episode of 626.

Vindicated by the deliverance of Constantinople, Heraclius renewed his campaigning, and, within the next two years, brought the Persian kingdom to its knees. In September, 628, Heraclius was welcomed back to the capital as a victorious hero, and at some time thereafter he ceremonially restored to Jerusalem the True Cross that had been carried off by the Persians. As part of his restoration of imperial government in the recovered territories, Heraclius continued to promote the doctrinal compromise developed by Sergius. It met with mixed receptions. Among its most determined opponents were the aged and dogmatic Palestinian monk Sophronius and the brilliant young theologian Maximos (later to become known as “the Confessor”). Sergius strove to convince them by theological arguments, and, in his correspondence with the bishop of Rome, he was able to win qualified acceptance from Pope Honorius I. In the process, the wording of the compromise doctrine began to shift to the concept of Christ having a single will (thelĪma) rather than a single energy: hence the doctrine’s eventual label of Monothelism.

The quest for religious unity acquired new urgency as the areas of greatest sectarian dissent became the target of unexpected and sudden onslaughts of the Arabs, who between 634 and 636 effectively destroyed the empire’s capacity to control Syria-Palestine. Sophronius himself was elected patriarch of Jerusalem in 634, amid the scramble, and used his position to renew opposition to the Monothelete doctrine. Its failure to win back popular loyalty in Syria-Palestine and the apparent collaboration of the dissidents with the tolerant conquerors made the emperor and patriarch only more anxious to use it to save Egypt from the same fate, as well as to silence the opposition of Chalcedonian loyalists. With help from his advisers, Sergius drew up a doctrinal statement, or ekthesis, formally propounding the dogma of the One Will of Christ and forbidding further debate over the one or two natures. It was finally approved by Heraclius and issued about October, 638. This ekthesis was Sergius’s last service to his emperor. In early December of that year, the old patriarch died, leaving the struggle to his heirs.

Significance

The year of Sergius’s death witnessed the deaths of several other central figures in the religious controversy. In March, 638, shortly after negotiating the capitulation of Jerusalem to the Arabs, the adamant Sophronius had died. Pope Honorius I died in October, about the time the ekthesis was promulgated. Despite the ruthless Monothelete policies of Cyrus, the patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt remained unreconciled, and it soon submitted to the Arab invasion of 639-641. Broken and disillusioned, the aged Heraclius died in February, 641. Sergius’s Monothelete doctrine was subsequently repudiated by Rome and, after decades of bitter ecclesiastical strife, it was abandoned by the imperial government at the sixth ecumenical council in 681, though some support for it survived in the provinces.

The failure of Monothelism should not, however, tarnish Sergius’s achievement. His formulation was the product of a sincere desire to end religious controversy, of a flexible and pragmatic theological learning, and of a noble spirit of service to his church and faith. It must be placed also in the context of Sergius’s service to sovereign and people, including his supreme moments of glory in supporting Heraclius and in leading the defense of Constantinople in 626. In a tradition in which the patriarch was often either the subordinate or the opponent of the emperor, Sergius was one of the few prelates to be a genuine partner to his sovereign and to make the theoretical harmony between Church and state in Byzantium actually work.

Bibliography

Bury, J. B. A History of the Later Roman Empire: From Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.). 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1889. Outdated in its coverage of the early seventh century, but includes a still-useful treatment of the ecclesiastical history of the period, including the career of Sergius.

Every, George. The Byzantine Patriarchate, 451-1204. 1962. Reprint. 2d ed. New York: AMS Press, 1980. This very general survey is useful for its broad perspective, even though it includes only a few pages on the epoch of Sergius.

Frend, W. H. C. The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Written by a leading historian of the early Christian church and its heretical movements, this is an excellent treatment of this particular sectarian controversy. The latter part of its final chapter gives an excellent account of the doctrinal efforts of Sergius.

Hussey, J. M. The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986. A volume in the Oxford History of the Christian Church series, this book covers the time span from the early seventh century through 1453. The treatment of Sergius’s era is brief but useful and set in good context.

Kaegi, Walter E. Heraclius: Emperor of Byzantium. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. A thorough overview of Heraclius’s life and times. Includes an extensive bibliography and an index.

Ostrogorsky, George. History of the Byzantine State. Translated by Joan Hussey. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1969. Though now showing its age, still the most comprehensive one-volume treatment of the Byzantine Empire’s history and institutions, from the early fourth through the mid-fifteenth century, with an excellent perspective on the sixth century era in general.

Stratos, Andreas N. Byzantium in the Seventh Century. 5 vols. Translated by Marc Ogilvie-Grant and Harry T. Hionides. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1968-1980. The opening volumes (of six in the original Greek version, five in the English translation) of a remarkably comprehensive study of seventh century Byzantium. These volumes cover the age of Heraclius, including the career of Sergius. Displays great admiration and sympathy for Sergius.

Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600-1025. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. A history of the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church. Maps, bibliography, and index.