Trullan Councils, The

Trullan Councils, The were held in a room of the imperial palace at Constantinople, which had a dome (τροῦλλος), whence the name.

I. The first Trullan council was called in 680 by the emperor Constantinus Pogonatus, and held eighteen sittings. The legates of pope Agatho were accorded the highest rank, then followed in order the patriarch George of Constantinople, the legate of the patriarch of Alexandria, Macarius of Antioch, the legate of the patriarch of Jerusalem, three delegates from the Western Church, delegates from Ravenna, and finally the bishops and abbots present. In the very first session the papal legates accused the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch of heresy. Macarius defended himself against this accusation, and referred to the canons of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and of the fifth Constantinopolitan council. In the eighth sitting George of Constantinople went over to the Roman doctrine. In the sixteenth sitting pope Honorius I was anathematized for his monothelitic views, and the anathema was repeated at the eighteenth session. Pope Agatho's confession of two wills in Christ, in his Epistola ad Imperatores, was declared the doctrine of the council, and all monothelites were anathematized. The patriarch Macarius was deposed at a later time.

II. The second Trullan council, called together by Justinian in 692, is known as the Concilium Quinisextumn, for which see the art. QUINISEXTUM CONCILIUM. See, besides, the Church histories of Schrbckh and Gieseler; Pichler, Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen Orient und Occident (Munich, 1864), 1:87 sq.; Hergenrother, Photius, Patriarch von Constantinope (Ratisbon, 1867), 1:208-526; Plitt- Herzog, Real Encyklop. s.v. (B.P.)