council · 649 · Rome
Pope Martin I, with Maximus the Confessor at his side, held the Lateran council of 649 against the imperial Typos that forbade all talk of Christ's wills. Its canons confessed two wills in the one Christ. The emperor's answer was arrest: Martin died in Crimean exile, Maximus lost tongue and hand — and the sixth council vindicated them both within a generation.
The Lateran Council of 649 was a synod held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran to condemn Monothelitism, a Christology espoused by many Eastern Christians, and Pope Honorius. The Council did not achieve ecumenical status in either East or West, but represented the first attempt of a pope to convene an ecumenical council independent of the Roman emperor.
The Typos' imposed silence on Christ's wills — may the truth be forbidden?
Two wills confessed, monotheletism condemned in defiance of the emperor; Martin I dragged east to die in exile, Maximus mutilated — the West's costliest stand for Chalcedon.