[1] In the first session of the council, the Roman legates delivered an address in which they described four successive patriarchs of Constantinople and others as having "disturbed the peace of the world by new and unorthodox expressions", referring to the controversial doctrine of monothelitism.
In the third session, several documents which he claimed emanated from Mennas and Pope Vigilius were found to be forgeries, surreptitiously introduced into the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
In answer to questions put to him by the Emperor, he declared that he would rather be cut to pieces and thrown into the sea than admit the doctrine of dyothelitism, which states that Jesus Christ had two wills, the divine and human.
The papal legates seemed determined that monothelitism should be disposed of once and for all, so, when at the eleventh session the emperor inquired if there was any further business, they answered that there were some further writings presented by Macarius and one of his disciples still awaiting examination.
Their conduct in this respect is the more noteworthy because the Sixth General Council acted throughout on the assumption that the doctrinal definitions of the Roman Pontiff were irreformable.
The council had not met to deliberate but to bring about submission to the epistle of Pope Agatho — an uncompromising assertion of papal infallibility — addressed to it.