LATERAN SYNOD

LATERAN SYNOD. This was a local council of the Church of Rome held in 649 and reputedly presided over by Pope Martin I, assisted by Maximus the Confessor (qq.v.), which issued the first formal condemnation of the doctrine of monotheletism (q.v.). Monotheletism, belief in one will in Christ, was promulgated by the Emperor Constans II, successor to Heraclius. Both the pope and the monk would pay for their resistance, expressed through the Lateran Synod, with torture and exile. The Orthodox stance on the Synod was confirmed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (q.v.) in 681.