§ 111. The Administration of a Diocese When it is Widowed

After the death of the lawful bishop of a diocese, and until a new bishop is appointed, that diocese is called widowed (χηρεύουσα) or vacant (σχολάζουσα). A diocese may remain widowed, that is, without its bishop, for three months. This is ordained by canon 25 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, which threatens the competent metropolitan with the prescribed penalty should he fail to see to it that a new bishop is appointed within that time. A diocese may remain widowed for more than three months only in such a case where, for some important cause, it is not possible to appoint a new bishop, and the matter must be postponed.[1]

While the episcopal see is vacant, the diocese is administered by the clergy of that diocese, and the church property must be kept by the diocesan steward (economus).[2] This administration was also entrusted to a neighboring bishop, if the clergy of the diocese in question did not conduct that administration properly, and such a bishop was called a provisional administrator (μεσίτης)[3]; or else the administration of the diocese was undertaken by a bishop without his own see (ἐπίσκοπος σχολάζων), that is, one who, on account of some external circumstance, could not take possession of the see assigned to him.[4] These, however, were only exceptional cases; as a rule, the administration of a widowed diocese was conducted by the clergy of that diocese. Should there be no clergy fit for this at the cathedral church in question, then, by canon 35 of the Trullan Council, the competent metropolitan must take the administration into his own hands until a new bishop is appointed.[5]

By the ‘clergy’ mentioned in the canons as having to conduct the diocesan administration during a vacancy is meant that college of sacred persons which was called the presbyteral council attached to episcopal sees, and of which the chief dignitary was the steward (§ 113). This presbyteral council had to attend to all matters of diocesan administration, both those touching matters of faith and those of church economy, except, of course, those matters reserved to the bishop alone by the right conferred by consecration; nor could that same council, during that time, raise any new questions concerning the constitution or administration of the diocese, just as it was not empowered to pass resolutions on such questions concerning some new institution or arrangement in the diocese that the deceased bishop himself had raised.

The administrative authority of the clergy, or of the presbyteral council, ceases on the day the new bishop is enthroned, from which day he becomes the fully empowered head of his diocese. An elected and consecrated bishop may begin the administration of his diocese before his formal enthronement only in such a case where, as canon 37 of the Trullan Council says, he is prevented by some external cause from taking possession of his see, and is instead compelled to live in some other city outside the bounds of his diocese (§ 106).

II. THE CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANS OF THE DIOCESES