§ 106. The Effects of Episcopal Consecration

The effects of episcopal consecration.

Every bishop is consecrated for a definite territorial church, and the canonical prescription that no sacred person may be ordained without designation of a place of service (ἀπολελυμένως, libere) applies in the first place to the bishop.[1] The church for which the bishop in question has been consecrated is regarded as his bride, to whom he is bound for the whole of his life, so that after his death that church is regarded as a widow (ἡ χηρεύουσα ἐκκλησία).[2]

Having received consecration in accordance with the canonical prescriptions, the bishop may not thereafter renounce the government of the church entrusted to him. The 36th apostolic canon lays down that a bishop who does not undertake the service and care of the people entrusted to him shall be excommunicated (τοῦτον ἀφωρισμένον τυγχάνειν), until he takes up the service and the care of the people entrusted to him.[3] The canons impose no penalty on a bishop only in the case where he fails to take possession of his see through no fault of his own. It can happen that in a given diocese the clergy and people refuse to receive the bishop appointed by the council of bishops; in such a case the canons subject the disobedient clergy to punishment, while the bishop must nevertheless remain in his authority and right over the diocese in question.[4] A bishop likewise retains his rank and authority even when, for reasons of a political nature, he cannot take possession of the see assigned to him; and for such a case the canons provide that such a bishop may reside even outside the bounds of his diocese, but retains the right to ordain sacred persons for his diocese and to perform every high-priestly office as though he were on his own see, and in the assembly of the other bishops to enjoy the right of precedence (τῆς προεδρίας αὐθεντία) according to his own place of service.[5]

Once a bishop has taken possession of his see, he may not seek to be transferred to another.[6] Only the council of bishops could resolve that some bishop should pass from one see to another; though instances of such transfers are on the whole quite rare, and the council of bishops has ordained a transfer (μετάθεσις) only when absolute necessity required it.[7] The more recent ecclesiastical legislation for the most part forbids the transfer of bishops.[8] In connection with this prohibition, and for the same reasons, the canons also forbid bishops to tender resignations from sees to which they have been lawfully appointed.[9]

By consecration the bishop receives in the Church all that authority which every apostle possessed, for the bishops are the successors of the apostles and the Holy Spirit has appointed them bishops, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God.[10] What authority the bishop possesses in the universal Church we have already said (§§ 51, 83); likewise what authority is his within the ecclesiastical territory assigned to him (§ 60). With regard to this latter, the bishop is, within his own diocese, wholly and in the strict sense autonomous, and governs it by his own proper right, nor may anyone hinder him in the exercise of it so far as he exercises that right within the canonically fixed bounds; still less may anyone enter into the internal affairs of the diocesan administration, or interfere either mediately or immediately with episcopal rights;[11] to him belongs authority in the exclusive sense within his own diocese, for which reason two bishops may not reside in one city (ἐν τῇ πόλει),[12] and the canons strictly punish every bishop who presumes to interfere in the affairs of an ecclesiastical territory belonging to another bishop.[13] This is forbidden even to the autocephalous archbishop himself with regard to the dioceses within the territorial church concerned that have their own canonically appointed bishops,[14] save in the one case where the bishop in question refuses to appoint the clergy or church-servers prescribed for the diocesan service.[15]

A bishop who has properly received consecration cannot be deprived of his episcopal dignity and reduced to the rank of presbyter. Canon 29 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council designates such an act as sacrilege (ἱεροσυλία, svetogrđe): if a bishop—the same canon says—must for some justified cause be removed from the episcopal service (ἀπὸ τῆς πράξεως τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς), in such a case he cannot occupy even the place of a presbyter (πρεσβυτέρου τόπον). This canon expounds the dogmatic side of the priesthood itself, for if one is unworthy, on account of some transgression, to perform the holy mysteries, he is unworthy of this at whatever hierarchical degree he stands, whether episcopal or presbyteral, and is therefore deprived of the priesthood altogether. If a bishop has committed some transgression that deprives him of the right to perform the divine service as bishop, that same transgression deprives him also of the right to perform that service as presbyter, for it is one and the same eucharistic mystery that both bishop and presbyter perform, and he must then be deprived of the priesthood altogether.[16]