Venerable Maximus the Confessor

Life

Maximus was a native of Constantinople and at first a high courtier at the court of Emperor Heraclius, and afterward a monk and abbot of a monastery not far from the capital. The greatest defender of Orthodoxy against the so-called monothelite heresy, which hatched from the heresy of Eutyches. Namely: just as Eutyches asserted that in Christ there is one nature, so the monothelites asserted that in Christ there is one will. Maximus opposed this assertion and found himself as an opponent of both emperor and patriarch. But he did not become afraid, but persevered to the end in proving that in the Lord there were two wills as well as two natures. Through his efforts one council was held in Carthage and another in Rome, and both these councils anathematized the teaching of the monothelites. The suffering of Maximus for Orthodoxy cannot be described: tortured by princes, deceived by prelates, spat upon by the masses of people, beaten by soldiers, persecuted, imprisoned, until finally, with his tongue and hand cut off, he was sentenced to lifelong exile in the Scythian land, where he spent three years in prison, and gave his soul to God, in the year 666.

From the Hymn of Praise

The abyss of space burst forth on all sides:Earth like a trunk of stellar cities,But like a black trunk with golden fruit—Thus the black earth with the starry vault.