§ 140. Provincial Councils

We have already spoken of provincial councils in examining the administrative arrangements under the metropolitans (§. 89) and under the patriarchs (§. 90) of the older period, and we have also spoken of the scope of these councils in the present-day autocephalous local churches (§. 91). The legislative power of provincial councils extends to all matters on which there is no express provision in the general church legislation, and in respect of which the need for a special law is evident.[1] But in order that this legislative power may act properly and have canonical significance, its enactments must be founded upon the laws of the ecumenical Church and must themselves express her principles and spirit, whereby that power itself must have a canonical basis—that is, it must be exercised by such persons as are called to it by their highest sacerdotal rank.[2]

As regards the legislative activity of provincial councils, the canons prescribe that strict care must be taken that the laws of these councils not only do not violate the ecumenical foundation of the Church’s constitution and are not contrary to the true spirit of Christ’s Church—namely, the spirit of Orthodoxy, of sanctity, of moral purity and of hierarchical rights—but also that they may touch only particular aspects of the canons, not their general content; only their outward application, not their inner force; only the form of church administration, not its substance. Accordingly, the legislation of the local churches at their respective provincial councils can in no way touch matters of the inner life of the Church—dogmatic, liturgical and spiritual-moral matters. In respect of these matters, the ecumenical Church has always strictly watched that they be preserved in the local churches in every particular exactly as they were established at the ecumenical councils, and has exposed and corrected every, even the smallest, deviation therein that it observed in one or another local church.[3]

The local churches themselves, in their legislative activity at their provincial councils, are bound to take particular care that the laws they issue proceed directly from the general canonical prescriptions, and that these laws are not prompted by passion, ignorance, or any external, non-ecclesiastical influence. For this reason, should a provincial council chance to issue some law lacking a strictly canonical basis, it must, as soon as this is perceived, take steps on its own initiative to revoke the law issued and to proclaim another in its place on a canonical basis. Such examples have occurred in the history of church legislation,[4] and these examples must serve as a lesson for all time.