Abstract: St Maximus the Confessor is one of the giants of Christian theology. His doctrine of two wills gave the final shape to ancient Christology and was ratified by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in ad 681. This study throws new light upon one of the most interesting periods of historical and systematic theology. Its historical focus is the 7th century, the century that saw the rapid expansion of Islam and the Empire’s failed attempt to retain many of its south-eastern provinces by inventing and promoting the heresy of Monothelitism (only one will in Christ) as a bridge between the Byzantine Church and the anti-Chalcedonian Churches that prevailed in some of these areas.From the point of view of theology, the book examines, inter alia, the meaning of the terms person/hypostasis, nature/essence, and will in the context of Christology after the Council of Chalcedon (ad 451), with special reference to St Maximus. It also explores the monothelite and dyothelite Christologies of the 7th century, the complex question of the relation of the human will of Jesus Christ to his person, natures, and divine will, as well as his human obedience to God the Father and its soteriological significance. Moreover, The Byzantine Christ enhances our understanding of the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church and of some of the reasons that distinguish it from the theology of both Western Christianity and the so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Keywords: Apollinarism, Christology, dyothelitism, Gethsemane prayer, monothelitism, neo-Chalcedonism, Nestorianism, will, inter alia, hypostasis