Replies

The Sixth Ecumenical Council, held in the East and comprised almost in its entirety of Eastern bishops, addressed Agatho as the "bishop of the first see of the Universal Church" and received his letter—and thus its claims—as "divinely written as by the chief of the apostles" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 349-350).

In his letter to the Emperor that was read to the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Pope Agatho (678— 681), asserted the infallibility of the apostolic see and stated that he and all of his predecessors, thus inclusive of Honorius, "have never ceased to exhort and warn them (i.e. the monothelites) with many prayers, that they should, at least by silence, desist from the heretical error of the depraved dogma" (Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 328—339). This included Honorius and since both Agatho and the council (by accepting the word of this letter) affirmed the orthodoxy of Honorius who was condemned for failing to teach, to be a good shepherd as he a bishop, was supposed to be

Honorius resisted the heresy insofar as he urged "silence" with regard to the expression "one operation," which he rightly considered Eutychian. This is not good enough for a bishop who has the duty to mind his flock and prevent it from going into heresy, and hence he was condemned for failing in this