§ 114. Diocesan Consistories

The significance of the consistory is determined by the very position of the bishop in the diocese entrusted to him. “The bishop is the vicar of Christ in his diocese,” says one symbolical book of the Orthodox Church,[1] while another acknowledges to him supreme right in everything concerning the church entrusted to him, and lays upon his conscience the spiritual judgment over everything and everyone in his church, for he alone is answerable before God’s judgment for all that occurs in that church.[2] The canons of the Orthodox Church say the same.[3] As the supreme head, therefore, of his own church, and as the one who alone is answerable for it before God, he is himself both the supreme administrator and the supreme spiritual judge in his diocese, nor can there be any legal body in that diocese which would have the right to administer or to judge independently of the bishop or against his will. Accordingly, the diocesan consistory is nothing other than a council composed of learned and experienced members, chosen by the bishop himself, who assist him with their opinions, with their acquired experience and acquired knowledge of the matters concerned, so that he may more easily conduct diocesan affairs and judge rightly. Given such a character, the consistory is not some independent legal body which could as such oppose its own bishop, or adopt any resolution against the bishop’s will; consequently, the members of the consistory do not have, nor can they have, a decisive vote in matters within the consistory’s competence if their vote conflicts with the opinion of the diocesan bishop, but they have only a consultative vote, for which reason they are called counselors (σύμβουλοι) of the bishop and assessors in the consistory. In view of this, in the statutes of today’s properly organized consistories we read the definition of the consistory as a council standing in full and immediate dependence on the bishop,[4] and likewise we read the legally established right of the bishop to nominate to the competent authority persons in whom he has confidence, who will be conscientious and wise counselors to him and whom he, as such, may recognize as members of his consistory.[5]

The president of the consistory is the diocesan bishop in question.[6] The number of members composing the consistories is determined according to the extent of the dioceses and the volume of business of diocesan administration and spiritual judicature,[7] and members are either regular or honorary, and all are clergymen.[8]

Within the competence of the diocesan consistory fall all those matters concerning which the diocesan bishop requires the assistance and opinion of his consistory. As in the older regulations concerning the competence of the diocesan council,[9] so also in the newer consistorial statutes, the matters upon which the consistory deliberates are these: 1) the preservation and maintenance of the Orthodox faith, 2) divine worship, 3) good order in the churches and monasteries, 4) the building and repair of churches and monasteries, 5) the assessment of the qualities of candidates for the priesthood, 6) good order in the performance of duty by the clergy, 7) spiritual judicature, 8) matrimonial suits, and 9) oversight of how the property of churches and monasteries is administered.[10]

Footnotes

[5] For example, art. 12 of the law of 1852 in Greece, art. 280 of the statutes of the Russian ecclesiastical consistories, art. 21 of the law on the Orthodox Church in Romania. — The only exception to the general canonical norm is formed by the consistories (episcopal ecclesiastical courts) in the kingdom of Serbia. Only in these consistories are resolutions and judgments, which are not subject to the review of other competent authorities, executive of themselves, without the need for eparchial bishops to approve those resolutions and judgments (arts. 108 and 113 of the law of 1890). That this is an exception justified by nothing is clear from what we said in the text. A few years ago, the members of a consistory in Greece had asserted the significance of their voting in the consistory and wished that their votes, when they were in the majority, must be decisive in deciding consistorial matters, even if the bishop did not agree with that. On this occasion, the synod of bishops in Athens issued on July 5, 1860 (no. 10,946) a special encyclical to all the bishops, in which, on the basis of canon 4 of Antioch and canons 12 and 20 of the Council of Carthage, it demonstrates that the bishop alone is the supreme judge in his own eparchy, and adds: “The provision of art. 9 of the law on the organization of the synod, which article says that the bishop shall judge together with four members of the consistory, this provision does not at all intend to equalize the votes of those members (τούτους ἰσοψήφους) with the vote of the bishop, for this would evidently be contrary to the canons (διότι αὕτη ἤθελεν ἀντιμάχεσθαι προδήλως πρὸς τοὺς κανόνας), but by it the law only wishes to give them a consultative vote, and by no means that this vote must be also binding for the bishop (ὅτι οὗτοι ἔχουσι ψῆφον συμβουλευτικὴν καὶ οὐχὶ ὑποχρεωτικὴν διὰ τὸν ἐπίσκοπον)… From this it clearly follows that the resolutions of the episcopal consistory must be drawn up in such a way that the provision expressing the resolution states the opinion of the bishop on the matter in question, without any regard to whether the other members were or were not of the same opinion (ἀδιαφόρως ἂν τὰ ἄλλα μέλη ἐγένοντο ἢ οὐ σύμψηφοι αὐτῷ).” See Christopoulos’s Collection, p. 29, note 2. With regard to this very question, the last clause of art. 330 of the consistorial statute of 1883 in Russia prescribes: “Архіерей, въ случаѣ несогласія съ мнѣніемъ консисторіи, полагаетъ собственное рѣшеніе, которое и приводится въ исполненіе.” So it is, and so canonically it must be in every properly organized consistory. Accordingly, it is quite wrong to cast the blame on the consistory for some perhaps unfounded resolution that comes out with the official consistorial number. The opinions of the members of the consistory, if by chance they do not agree with the opinion of the bishop, have, as we have seen, no significance with regard to the resolution of the matter in question; but the members of the consistory have by law the right that their opinion be included in the relevant documents for this reason, that in cases of appeal (ἐν περιπτώσει ἐφέσεως) of the parties to the higher church authority, to the synod, this higher church authority may be able to become more fully acquainted with the matter and pronounce a proper judgment. And the eparchial bishop, for the administration and jurisdiction in his eparchy, is as much accountable before God and his own conscience as he is equally accountable before the synod, which has the right to judge even over him.

[7] In the consistories of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate there are three regular members (art. 13 of the kanonismos of 1860); of the Greek kingdom, eight (synodical orders of Jan. 29, 1853, May 18, 1856, and Sept. 26, 1869); in the Russian ones, from three to five (arts. 278, 279 of the consistorial statute of 1883); of the kingdom of Romania, at least three (art. 21 of the law of 1872); of the Bulgarian exarchate, at least four (§ 50 of the statute of 1883); of the Serbian kingdom, from five to ten (art. 98 of the law of 1900); of the Karlovci metropolitanate, four, apart from the fiscal (§ 2 of sect. IV of the rescript of 1868); of the Sibiu metropolitanate, apart from the marriage defender, at least four (§ 115 of the organic statute of 1869); in the Bukovina consistory, six (§§ 3 and 24 of the consistorial statute of 1869); in the Zadar consistory, three (§ 3 of the consistorial statute of 1894); in the Sarajevo consistory, four (§ 3 of the consistorial statute of 1884).

§ 114. Diocesan Consistories

§ 114. Епархијске консисторије