§ 20. General Survey

Having reviewed the general significance of all the sources of church law and their application, let us now see in particular what these sources are, from which the science of church law draws its content.

For a clearer overview, we shall divide all the sources into two groups: 1) general sources, which concern the whole Church, and 2) particular sources, which, alongside the general ones, concern the individual autocephalous churches now in existence. These latter, particular sources we shall examine in the order in which the churches concerned arose; the former we shall examine according to their degree of importance, namely: a) the fundamental sources, which are, first of all, Holy Scripture and Tradition, and then the canons; b) the supplementary sources, that is, the decrees of councils and the canonical epistles of Orthodox pastors that were issued after the closing of the fundamental canonical collection and that serve to supplement the fundamental sources; c) the auxiliary sources, namely, the canonistic opinions, treatises, and interpretations of the more eminent canonists recognized by the Church, which have always been held in esteem within the Church and have served as a reliable aid in church-legal practice. To these sources of a general character must further be added d) the old church-civil laws, that is, those laws which the Greco-Roman emperors issued, either on their own or together with church authority, in favor of the Church, so that her progress and good order within her might be maintained. These laws supplemented Orthodox church law and always served it as an auxiliary source; and inasmuch as these laws were incorporated into the general canonical collections and set alongside the canons of the Church for the purposes of general church administration, and inasmuch as, further, on many questions of church life the Orthodox Church still has recourse to these laws today, they have the significance of a general source of church law.

I. THE GENERAL SOURCES OF CHURCH LAW.

a) The Fundamental Sources.