The Monophysite and Monothelite doctrines in North Africa during the sixth and seventh centuries ADs

Abstract

The Catholic Christians of North Africa believed that nearly a century of oppression and religious persecution endured under the Vandal rule had finally come to an end with the campaign of the Byzantine general Belisarius in 533 CE. This belief was strengthened when the new rulers restored their privileges and status to those of the Catholic Church, which King Huneric and his successors had stripped away, and when they reinstated the dominance and religious authority of Catholicism over the region. However, it soon became apparent to them that the one they had regarded as a saviour and protector was, in truth, another form of religious despot, who, much like the preceding Arian Vandals, sought to impose his own doctrinal creed upon them for political ends. The theological controversy that had flared and intensified in the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire quickly cast its shadow over the western provinces, portending a grave religious conflict, particularly in North Africa, whose inhabitants were renowned at the time for the depth of their faith, their firm adherence to the Catholic doctrine, and their pride in it.