An ecumenical council anathematized a pope, and a later pope, Pope St. Leo II, confirmed the sentence. For many Orthodox and Protestants, Pope Honorius I ends the debate over papal infallibility. Read the record closely, and it points the other way.
Short answer: Pope Honorius I wrote letters to Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (around 634) that spoke of "one Will" in Christ, and the Third Council of Constantinople (680–681) condemned him, with Pope St. Leo II confirming the sentence. Catholics accept that. But the Catholic Church has never taught that every papal letter is infallible. Vatican I defined infallibility only for a pope who "defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church," and Honorius defined nothing. In his letters explaining the sentence, Pope St. Leo II describes a pope who failed to guard the faith and let heresy spread, not one who bound the Church to heresy. And the same council that condemned Honorius received Rome's teaching from Pope St. Agatho and acclaimed it: "Peter spoke through Agatho."
Key verses on Peter's faith and Christ's two wills
- "but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:32)
- "And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
- "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 16:19)
- "Feed my sheep." (John 21:17)
- "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)
- "because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me." (John 6:38)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What the Orthodox Believe
The Orthodox case rests on real history. In the seventh century, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople promoted a compromise: Christ has two natures but only one operation, and then, in its later form, only one will. This is Monothelitism. Around 634 Sergius wrote to Pope Honorius I, and Honorius answered. In the translation given by the Catholic Encyclopedia, his letter says: "Wherefore we acknowledge one Will of our Lord Jesus Christ" ("Pope Honorius I").
The Third Council of Constantinople, the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which Catholics and Orthodox both receive, condemned Monothelitism and named Honorius among its promoters. Its sentence at the thirteenth session, as quoted in the same article, reads: "we decide that Honorius also, who was pope of elder Rome, be with them cast out of the holy Church of God, and be anathematized with them, because we have found by his letter to Sergius that he followed his opinion in all things, and confirmed his wicked dogmas" ("Pope Honorius I"). At the sixteenth session the bishops cried out, "Anathema to the heretic Sergius, to the heretic Cyrus, to the heretic Honorius" (NPNF2-14, Excursus on the Condemnation of Pope Honorius).
The Orthodox conclusion was stated officially in the Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895, the reply of Constantinople to Pope Leo XIII: "Honorius, having fallen into the Monothelite heresy, was condemned in the seventh century by the sixth Ecumenical Council as a heretic, and the popes who succeeded him acknowledged and accepted his condemnation." The same encyclical teaches that every bishop is "subject only to the synodical ordinances and decisions of the Church universal as being alone infallible, the Bishop of Rome being in no wise excepted from this rule," and that the Orthodox Church, "with the exception of the Son and Word of God, who was ineffably made man, knows no one infallible upon earth" (Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895, §§ XIV, XVIII).
The argument: a pope taught heresy and a council judged him, so councils, not popes, are the final judge of faith.
What Catholics Actually Teach
Vatican I (1870) teaches "that when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals" (Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4, 9; Latin text, vatican.va).
The conditions matter: he must act as teacher of all Christians and define a doctrine to be held by the whole Church. The gift guards, it does not invent: "the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles" (Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4, 6). The Catechism agrees: the pope "enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office" when "he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals" (CCC 891).
Now test Honorius against that definition. The Catholic Encyclopedia puts it plainly: "As the letter does not define or condemn, and does not bind the Church to accept its teaching, it is of course impossible to regard it as an ex cathedra utterance" ("Pope Honorius I").
What Catholics do not teach:
- That popes cannot sin. Infallibility is not impeccability. Honorius could fail, and he did.
- That every papal letter, homily or opinion is infallible. Only a definitive act binding the whole Church is (CCC 891).
- That Honorius was innocent. The Catholic Church received the Sixth Council, and Pope St. Leo II confirmed its sentence on him.
- That councils are useless. Infallibility is also present in the bishops "when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," "above all in an Ecumenical Council" (CCC 891).
We say this as brothers: the Orthodox have true sacraments. Yet "it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816), and the gifts the Orthodox hold "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819).
It all points to Christ. The papacy is not a rival to Jesus. The pope's authority over the whole Church is his "by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ" (CCC 882), and the charism exists so that the Church keeps the truth about Christ Himself. The Honorius controversy was about whether the Son of God took a complete human nature, human will included, and in the end Rome guarded the full humanity of Jesus.
The Biblical Case
1. Christ prayed for Peter's faith, not Peter's perfection
"Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31–32). Satan sifts "all of you" (a Greek plural, per the NABRE note), but Jesus prays for Simon's faith and charges him to strengthen the others. Then He predicts Peter's denial (Luke 22:34). The promise was never that Peter would not fail personally, but that the faith he must hand on would not fail. Honorius fits that pattern: personal failure, no failure in what Rome bound on the Church.
2. The rock and the keys
"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:18–19). Heaven ratifies what Peter binds. Honorius bound nothing: his letters imposed no doctrine on the universal Church.
3. The shepherd's charge
Three times the risen Lord asked, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" and three times He gave the charge: "Feed my lambs," "Tend my sheep," "Feed my sheep" (John 21:15–17). A shepherd can neglect his flock, and negligence is the charge Pope St. Leo II spelled out in his letter to the Spanish bishops. Negligence is a sin; it is not a false definition laid on the whole flock.
4. Scripture shows two wills in Christ
In Gethsemane Jesus prays, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). And He says, "I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me" (John 6:38). A human will freely submitting to the divine will: that is what the Sixth Council defined, and it is what Pope St. Agatho taught in the letter he sent to the council.
Objections Answered
(a) "An ecumenical council condemned a pope as a heretic. That settles it."
At its strongest: The council's Exposition of Faith says "the contriver of evil" had "found instruments suited to his own purpose," and it names among them "Honorius, who was pope of elder Rome," alongside Sergius and Cyrus (Constantinople III, Exposition of Faith). The bishops called him "the heretic Honorius." The 1895 Patriarchal Encyclical calls this proof that only councils are infallible.
Answer: Catholics concede the record: Honorius was condemned. But what was condemned was letters to one patriarch that defined nothing for the Church, which Vatican I never claimed are protected. And notice how the matter ended. The council's acts "were sent to Pope Leo II, who had succeeded Agatho, and he, when he had approved them, ordered them to be translated into Latin and to be signed by all the bishops of the west" (Constantinople III, Introduction). The case that is supposed to disprove Rome's authority ends with Rome confirming the council.
(b) "Leo II's own Latin says Honorius tried to subvert the faith, not merely that he was negligent."
At its strongest: Philip Schaff quotes Leo II's Latin: Honorius "profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est," he attempted to subvert the spotless faith by profane treachery (NPNF2-14, Excursus; see Schaff, History, vol. 4, §112). That sounds like active heresy, not a pastoral lapse.
Answer: The charge is grave, and we do not soften it. The letter survives in two forms. The Catholic Encyclopedia translates the Greek as saying Honorius "did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted"; the Latin Schaff quotes says he attempted to subvert the spotless faith. The Catholic Encyclopedia argues that the Latin "is just as likely to be original," and notes that in that form "Honorius is certainly not exculpated, yet the pope declares that he did not actually succeed in polluting the immaculate Roman Church." Either way, Leo II explained his own meaning in other letters. To King Erwig he wrote of Honorius, "who allowed the unspotted rule of Apostolic tradition, which he received from his predecessors, to be tarnished." To the Spanish bishops: Honorius "did not, as became the Apostolic authority, extinguish the flame of heretical teaching in its first beginning, but fostered it by his negligence" ("Pope Honorius I"). The pope who confirmed the anathema tells us the charge: a grave failure to use his authority, not an ex cathedra definition of heresy.
(c) "Honorius wrote as pope to a patriarch about doctrine. If that isn't ex cathedra, the term is unfalsifiable."
At its strongest: One Catholic scholar, Pennacchi, the NPNF editor notes, held that Honorius's letters "were strictly speaking Papal decrees, set forth auctoritate apostolica" (NPNF2-14, Excursus); Pennacchi himself held the letters orthodox and the council mistaken about them. If every embarrassing papal act is reclassified as "private," infallibility can never be tested.
Answer: The test is public and was fixed in 1870: a definition of faith or morals "to be held by the whole church." One papal act defining a heresy and binding all Christians to it would refute the claim. Honorius's letters, addressed to Sergius, do neither. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, his fault was precisely "that he had not issued a definition ex cathedra." Contrast Pope St. Agatho, who did teach with full authority, and whose letter the council received as the voice of Peter.
(d) "Peter himself was wrong at Antioch. Luke 22:32 cannot mean infallibility."
At its strongest: St. Paul writes, "And when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong" (Galatians 2:11). Peter "began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised" (Galatians 2:12). Many Protestants see Honorius as Antioch again: proof that Peter's office can err.
Answer: What was wrong was Peter's conduct, not his doctrine: they "were not on the right road in line with the truth of the gospel" (Galatians 2:14). Peter's doctrine on the Gentiles was sound; at the Jerusalem council he taught that they are saved by grace without the yoke of the law (Acts 15:7–11). Antioch was a failure of courage, like Honorius's failure to act. Neither is a definition, and Christ predicted Peter's denial in the same breath as His prayer for Peter's faith (Luke 22:32–34).
(e) "The council examined Agatho's letter before accepting it. It judged the pope."
At its strongest: The introductory note to the acts, citing Bossuet, says, "All the fathers spoke one by one, and only after examination were the letters of St. Agatho and the whole Western Council approved" (Constantinople III, Introductory Note). Schaff adds that the council, in accepting Agatho's letter, "had no idea of endorsing his claim to papal infallibility" (Schaff, History, vol. 4, §112).
Answer: Bishops at a council judge the faith together with Peter's successor; examining his letter was right. The question is what they concluded: that Rome's letter was the faith of the Apostles: "we acknowledge that this letter was divinely written (perscriptas) as by the Chief of the Apostles" (Letter of the Council to St. Agatho). They wrote to the pope "as to the bishop of the first see of the Universal Church," even while reporting in the same letter that they had condemned Honorius with the others: "we slew them with anathema." And they told the emperor, "Peter spoke through Agatho" (The Prosphoneticus to the Emperor). The council did not use the vocabulary of 1870, but it plainly found the faith of Peter in Rome's teaching.
The Early Church Agrees
Long before Honorius, and at the very council that condemned him, the Church looked to Rome for the apostolic faith.
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Romans, greeting and ch. 3, c. AD 107) greets the Church of Rome as the Church "which presides over love," and tells her, "You have never envied any one; you have taught others" (newadvent.org).
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 3.3.2, c. AD 180) refutes heretics by pointing to "that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul," and adds: "For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority [potiorem principalitatem]" (newadvent.org).
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistle 54 [59 in some editions], to Pope St. Cornelius, ch. 14, c. AD 252) complains that schismatics dare "to bear letters from schismatic and profane persons to the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source; and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access" (newadvent.org).
- Pope St. Agatho (Letter to the Emperors, read at Constantinople III, AD 680) grounds Rome's teaching in Luke 22: the Lord "promised that Peter's faith should not fail and exhorted him to strengthen his brethren," and so "this Apostolic Church of his has never turned away from the path of truth." In his letter to the council he confesses Christ's "two natural wills and two natural operations" (newadvent.org).
- The Third Council of Constantinople (AD 680–681) "faithfully accepts and welcomes with open hands the report of Agatho, most holy and most blessed pope of elder Rome," and defines "two natural wills" in Christ, "not in opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his divine and all powerful will" (Exposition of Faith). Its address to the emperor: "Peter spoke through Agatho" (ccel.org).
What did Honorius mean? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Maximus the Confessor defended Honorius on the testimony of the abbot John Symponus: the pope meant only to deny that Christ had two contrary human wills, as in our fallen nature, not that He lacked a human will. The article judges: "No doubt Honorius did not really intend to deny that there is in Christ a human will, the higher faculty; but he used words which could be interpreted in the sense of that heresy." Either way, his words served heretics, and the council was right to condemn them. None of that touches an ex cathedra definition. (See Was the Pope's Primacy Recognized in the First Millennium? and Is the Papacy in the Bible?)
Conclusion
Honorius is the strongest historical case against papal infallibility, and it fails. A pope was condemned for letters that defined nothing for the universal Church, and Pope St. Leo II, who confirmed the sentence, explained the fault as negligence that let heresy spread. The council that condemned him received Pope St. Agatho's teaching as the faith of Peter, wrote to him as "the bishop of the first see of the Universal Church," and sent its acts to Rome, where Pope St. Leo II approved them and ordered them signed by the bishops of the West. Christ's prayer in Luke 22:32 held: Peter's successor failed personally, and Peter's faith still strengthened his brothers.
If you are Orthodox, you honor this council as ecumenical. Its fathers said that Peter spoke through Agatho, the bishop of Rome. That is the heart of the Catholic claim. See also What Does Papal Infallibility Actually Mean?
Come home. The council you venerate heard Peter speak through Pope St. Agatho, bishop of Rome, and that same see of Peter still teaches in the Catholic Church. You already possess true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith, in "a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (CCC 838). Those gifts draw their power "from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church" and "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Church's unity, yet your true Eucharist is celebrated apart from the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ built His Church (Matthew 16:18). We invite you into full communion with St. Peter's successor, the bishop of Rome, in the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass or Divine Liturgy at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask to speak with the priest about entering full communion with the Catholic Church. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Was Pope Honorius a heretic? He was condemned as one by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and the Catholic Church accepts that council. Whether he personally held Monothelitism is debated: his letter spoke of "one Will," and some, following St. Maximus the Confessor, read him as denying only that Christ had two contrary human wills, as fallen man does. Pope St. Leo II stressed his negligence. Either way, his words aided heresy.
Has any pope ever defined a heresy ex cathedra? No. Critics cite Honorius, Liberius and others, but none of these cases involves a pope defining a doctrine "to be held by the whole church" (Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4). See What Does Papal Infallibility Actually Mean?
What was Monothelitism? The seventh-century teaching that Christ, though having two natures, has only one will. The Third Council of Constantinople rejected it and defined two natural wills in Christ, His human will "subject to his divine and all powerful will," as Jesus showed in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39).
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Matthew 16:18–19; Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:31–34 and notes; John 6:38; John 21:15–17; Acts 15:7–11; Galatians 2:11–14.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816, 819, 838; 882, 891.
Church documents: First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus, ch. 4 (English, papalencyclicals.net); Pastor Aeternus (Latin, vatican.va); Third Council of Constantinople, Introduction and Exposition of Faith (papalencyclicals.net); Constantinople III, The Prosphoneticus to the Emperor (NPNF2-14); Constantinople III, Letter of the Council to St. Agatho (NPNF2-14); Excursus on the Condemnation of Pope Honorius (NPNF2-14); Constantinople III, Session I and the Letter of Pope Agatho (newadvent.org).
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, greeting and 3 (ANF vol. 1); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.2 (ANF vol. 1); Cyprian, Epistle 54.14 (ANF vol. 5).
History: John Chapman, "Pope Honorius I," Catholic Encyclopedia (1910); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 4, §112.
Orthodox sources: Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895, "A Reply to the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Reunion".