§ 101. Candidates for the Episcopacy

Candidates for the Episcopacy.

Given the exalted position of the bishop in the Church—as high priest, supreme teacher, and supreme administrator—and further given that he must serve for all as an example of Christian piety and of every Christian virtue, the Church, in installing bishops, has always paid the greatest attention to the personal qualities of the candidate for the episcopacy, subjecting to penalties those who, without a diligent examination of the qualities in question, would deem someone worthy of episcopal dignity.

All the qualities which we have mentioned (§§67–71) as required of everyone who wishes to enter the hierarchy must not only be possessed by the candidate for the episcopacy, but he must possess these same qualities to a higher degree, and constantly and unchangeably. In particular, the following is required of a candidate for the episcopacy:

1. Fully mature age. We have seen (§68) that in the earliest times of the Church only one who was 50 years old could be made bishop. Afterward, on the basis of a Novel of Justinian, it was permitted to make bishop also one who had completed his 30th year. This Novel is carried into the Nomokanon of the XIV titles, and Balsamon, in the scholion thereto, writes that according to this Novel a candidate for the episcopacy must be more than 30 years old (ὑπὲρ τὸ λ΄. ἔτος εἶναι), and that this Novel deprived of force an earlier Novel of the same emperor, according to which only one who had completed his 35th year could become bishop.[1] In today’s church legislation it is generally stated that a candidate for the episcopacy must be of fully mature age, and only in some regional churches is it specifically laid down that he must be 40 years old.[2]

2. A candidate for the episcopacy must for many years be known as a man of strictly Orthodox belief and irreproachable conduct. This is prescribed by canon 12 of the Council of Laodicea; and this must be attested conciliarly at the canonical examination.[3]

3. A candidate for the episcopacy must have complete knowledge of Christian doctrine and of the canons. Of this speaks canon 2 of the VII Ecumenical Council.[4]

4. A candidate for the episcopacy, if he is not a monk, must be tonsured a monk before his ordination. That a bishop may not have a wife, we have already stated (§71). That bishops have been drawn from monasticism since the most ancient times, history attests. In the 9th century, canon 2 of the Tenth Local Council forbade a bishop to enter monasticism, and [ordained] that whoever did so ceased to be bishop. According to this, monasticism and the episcopacy would seem unable to be united in one person. But this canon, according to Balsamon’s interpretation, concerns only the case where a bishop should wish to receive the great schema (μέγα σχῆμα), for then, by reason of the vows of the great schema concerning unconditional and perpetual obedience (ὑποταγῆς λόγον), it is not possible for the person concerned to remain in the episcopal rank.[5] And at this same council it was also established that before ordination every candidate for the episcopacy must be a monk: Εἴ τις μὴ μοναχὸς ἐγένετο, οὐ γίνεται ἐπίσκοπος [If one has not become a monk, he does not become a bishop]—so it is written in the acts of that council.[6] In the 15th century Symeon of Thessalonica states that the hitherto-prevailing custom, that everyone must be a monk before being ordained, had become general law.[7]

5. More recent civil legislation requires of the candidate for the episcopacy that he be a subject of the state in which he is to serve as bishop. This provision of civil legislation the Church accepts and recognizes, since it arises from the relation between state and Church and from the position of the bishop as spiritual head of a territory; and this holds good today in all states.[8]