The see had remained vacant since, but Cosmas was appointed with the consent of both the Umayyad Caliph and the Byzantine Emperor.[1][2] The chronicler Theophanes the Confessor reports that in 742/3, he abjured Monotheletism, the dominant doctrine among Alexandrian Melkites since it had been promulgated by Emperor Heraclius. As Cosmas himself was most likely not a Monothelete, this has been interpreted by modern scholarship as a garbled reference to Alexandria's recognition by the other Chalcedonian patriarchates.[1]