Maximus the Confessor 580 AD – 662 AD

Maximus the Confessor was a seventh-century Greek Christian monk and theologian and one of the great architects of Eastern patristic thought. After service in the imperial court at Constantinople, he entered the monastic life and traveled to North Africa and Rome, where he led the opposition to the imperially backed monothelite Christology. For this opposition he was tried at Constantinople, his tongue and right hand were cut off, and he was exiled to the Caucasus, where he died. His writings, including the Ambigua and the Mystagogia, develop a synthesis of Cappadocian theology, Pseudo-Dionysian mysticism, and Christology that has shaped Eastern Orthodox thought down to the present.