“ With the accession of Constantine Pogonatus in 668 the controversy once more revived, and the new emperor resolved to summon a general council. It met at Constantinople in 680, having been preceded in 679 by a brilliant synod under Pope Agatho at Rome, where it had been agreed to depart in nothing from the decrees of the Lateran synod. The will, Agatho said, is a property of the nature, so that as there are two natures there are two wills; but the human will determines itself ever conformably to the divine and almighty will. ”

“ Their effort, as defined by Dormer, was “an attempt to effect some kind of solution of the vital unity of Christ's person, which had been so seriously proposed by monophysitism, on the basis of the now firmly-established doctrine of the two natures.” The controversy had its origin in the efforts of the emperor Heraclius to win back for the church and the empire the excommunicated and persecuted Monophysites or Eutychians of Egypt and Syria. In Egypt especially the monophysite movement had assumed a nationalistic, patriotic character. ”

“ So well did he profit by the teaching he received in this quarter that, in 630 or 631, Cyrus was appointed to the vacant patriarchate of Alexandria, and in 633 succeeded in reconciling the Severians of his province on the basis of μία θεανδρικὴ ἐνέργεια (one divine-human energy) , He was, however, opposed by Sophronius, a monk from Palestine, who, after vainly appealing to Cyrus, actually went to Constantinople to remonstrate with Sergius himself. ”