Canons of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325), 1–6

Canon 1

If anyone, in sickness, has undergone surgical excision at the hands of physicians, or has been made a eunuch by barbarians, let such a one remain in the clergy. But if anyone, while in sound health, has mutilated himself, such a one must cease to belong to the clergy, and none of such persons should henceforth be received into the clergy. In other respects, as is clearly seen, this is said concerning those who deliberately do such a deed and presume to mutilate themselves; but as regards those who have been made eunuchs by barbarians or by their masters, and are otherwise found worthy, the canon permits such to be received into the clergy.

(Ap. 21, 22, 23, 24; Protodeutera 8).

— This Nicene canon appeals to an already-existing canon (κανών) concerning eunuchs, namely Apostolic canon 21. In general this canon contains what Apostolic canons 21–24 ordain, and the commentaries on those canons serve also as the commentary on this one. In the view of Beveridge, otherwise historically well-founded, this canon was issued on the occasion of “Leontius, a presbyter of Antioch, who lived with a certain Eustolia, to whom he was not married; and since he did not wish to send this woman out of his house, yet wished to guard himself from every suspicion, he mutilated himself. On account of this, Eustathius of Antioch excommunicated this Leontius from the exercise of the priesthood”—and it is very probable that Eustathius, as president of the council, moved the council to renew the old canon concerning eunuchs, which the council then did by means of this canon. [1]

Canon 2

Since much has happened, whether from necessity or otherwise through the urging of men, contrary to the canon of the church, so that some men, who had only just passed over from pagan life to the faith and had been instructed in the faith for only a short time, were immediately brought to the divine bath, and immediately after baptism were appointed to the episcopate or the presbyterate, it has been found good to determine that in future nothing of this kind shall happen at all; for instruction in the faith requires time, and after baptism a longer testing is required. Moreover, the apostolic writing is clear, which says: not a novice, lest he be puffed up and fall into condemnation and the snare of the devil (1 Tim. 3:6). And if, in the course of time, some sin of the soul is observed in some person, and this is proven by two or three witnesses, let that person then cease to be in the clergy. Whoever acts contrary to this places his membership in the clergy at risk, for by doing so he presumes to oppose this great council.

(Ap. 61, 75, 80; I Ecum. 9; Neocaesarea 9, 10; Laodicea 3; Sardica 10; Protodeutera 17; Basil the Great 89; Gregory of Nyssa 1, 4).

— In issuing this canon of its own, the Council of Nicaea appeals to an already-existing canonical ordinance on the question addressed by this canon, and says that the overly hasty appointment as bishop and presbyter of men who had only just passed over from pagan life and been baptized is contrary to the canon of the church (παρὰ τὸν κανόνα τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικόν)—that is, Apostolic canon 80, which the Council of Nicaea now repeats in full and confirms. It does not mention only the case “if this should happen by the grace of God,” that someone only just baptized be immediately appointed bishop, of which that apostolic canon speaks; but it may well be thought that the council fully acknowledges that case as well—and the examples of Ambrose and Nectarius from the end of the 4th century bear the best witness to this, as we noted in the commentary on that apostolic canon.

In repeating, then, Apostolic canon 80, the Council of Nicaea draws attention to the fact that much had happened in the course of time in that regard contrary to the canon of the church, and this either from necessity or otherwise through the urging of men (ὑπὸ ἀνάγκης ἢ ἄλλως ἐπειγομένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων). It happened, as Archimandrite Ioann rightly observes in his commentary on this canon, that in the early centuries it was necessary, according to circumstances, to permit people to be baptized quickly and then immediately appointed to sacred degrees, and these circumstances were brought about by the fact that many thousands of people were embracing Christianity all at once, and there was neither time nor possibility for lengthy instruction in the Christian truths for so great a multitude of people amid the ceaseless persecutions on the part of the pagans.[2] In these persecutions it was chiefly against sacred persons that they were directed, and multitudes of them perished at the place of execution, so that necessity itself (ἡ ἀνάγκη) truly required that new persons be appointed as soon as possible in place of those who had perished. Among such newly-appointed sacred persons, naturally not all could be such as they ought, according to the canons, to have been. There were such as, having become presbyters, and especially bishops, all at once, served only to the harm of the Church, and carried over into the sacred hierarchy that spirit of pride with which they had been imbued in paganism; and it is on account of these that the Council of Nicaea cites in its canon the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy (1 Tim. 3:6), that such men, not yet tested and not yet established in the faith, should not become puffed up and fall into condemnation and the snare of the devil, and so bring harm upon the Church. As for those who had already found themselves in the clergy, the canon permits them to remain in the clergy, but immediately adds the ordinance that in future nothing of this kind is to happen (τοῦ λοιποῦ μηδὲν τοιοῦτο γίνεσθαι), for, it says, time is needed both for instruction in the faith before baptism, and, after baptism, a longer examination of the faith and abilities of the persons concerned is needed, and only once it is seen and there is assurance obtained that they are worthy can they then be received into the clergy, and even be appointed to the episcopate. As to this last point—namely, when a given person may be deemed worthy of the episcopate—we shall see, among other things, in the commentary on canon 10 of the Council of Sardica, how it is prescribed that a longer period of time must be spent on each hierarchical degree by everyone who is considered capable of assuming the episcopate, and only once it has been proven that he was distinguished in the lower hierarchical degrees could he then, as Aristenus says in his commentary on this 2nd Nicene canon, be deemed worthy of the greatest honor (τῆς μεγίστης τιμῆς).[3]

Meanwhile, even for those whom this canon permits to remain in the clergy, and who from among the newly-baptized became presbyters or bishops, the canon requires that care be taken that there be no “sin of the soul” (ψυχικόν τι ἁμάρτημα) found in them, and if such a sin is observed and proven, the canon ordains that they be excluded from the clergy. As to what these “sins of the soul” mentioned here are, and why only these sins are spoken of, and not bodily ones as well, each commentator on the canons expresses a different opinion. To us the opinion of Balsamon on this seems the most natural, who says that every sin that harms the soul is called a sin of the soul, whether it arises from a bodily or a spiritual impulse; and for this reason the Church calls every sin a fall of the soul, and for this reason this Nicene canon mentions only sins of the soul, under which it also comprehends bodily ones (τὰ σαρκικά).

Canon 3

The Great Council altogether forbids that a bishop, presbyter, deacon, or anyone else of the clergy keep in his house a subintroduced woman, except perhaps his mother, or sister, or aunt, or such persons only as are free from every suspicion.

— In the commentary on Canon 1 of this Council we saw that the Council had occasion to concern itself with women who lived in the house together with individual clergy but who were not their lawful wives, on account of that presbyter Leontius, who kept in his house a certain Eustolia, on whose account he afterward castrated himself. In connection with this the Council found it necessary to concern itself in general with the married life of clergy, and to determine in this regard what accorded with the prescriptions of the already-existing ecclesiastical legislation and with the dignity of the priestly order.[4] — We find this expressed first in the history of this Council, and specifically in the church historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Gelasius,[5] and thereafter in this canon.

With the intention of protecting from reproach those clergy who did not have lawful wives of their own, and, on the other hand, of putting a stop to reproaches concerning the married life of clergy itself—reproaches which were often justified—some among the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, according to the account of the aforementioned historians, proposed that a decree be issued by which it should be forbidden to all clergy from the subdeacon upward to live in married life. The Council did not adopt this proposal; and one of the fathers of the Council, Paphnutius, bishop of the Thebaid, expressed the opinion of the majority thus: “One ought not to impose upon clerics and priests this heavy yoke, for marriage is honorable and the marriage bed undefiled, and excessive strictness will bring more harm to the Church; moreover, not everyone can submit to the law of such strict continence, and it may easily happen that the chastity of many a woman will thereby be endangered. The union of a husband with his lawful wife—that is true chastity. It suffices, then, that, in accordance with the ancient tradition of the Church, those who have already entered the clergy unmarried should not be permitted to marry, but by no means should a man be separated from her whom he took as wife while still a layman.”[6] This declaration of Paphnutius is the more significant in that he himself had never had relations with women, and was renowned as a great ascetic, having spent his whole youth in a monastery. And the Council received this declaration of Paphnutius with approval, thenceforth leaving it to the will of every cleric whether he would remain unmarried or live in married life.[7] This decision of the Council of Nicaea corresponds in full measure with the practice of the Church of the first centuries, as the Apostolic Constitutions show us (VI, 17), and as we have already mentioned in the commentaries on Apostolic Canons 5 and 26, and chiefly in the commentary on that second Apostolic canon.[8]

Having acknowledged the lawfulness of clerical marriage, and at the same time having left it to the will of the clergy in question whether they should be unmarried if they so wished, the Council issues this its canon with regard to these latter—namely, with regard to those who have no wife—and permits them to keep in the house only a mother, sister, aunt, or such a woman as is free from every suspicion (ἢ μόνα πρόσωπα πᾶσαν ὑποψίαν διαπέφευγεν—vel eas solas personas quae omnem suspicionem effugiunt), while altogether forbidding them to keep a stranger, a subintroduced woman (συνείσακτον, introductam mulierem).

In the early centuries of the Church a custom arose whereby certain clergy, and also some laymen who wished to lead an unmarried life, entered with unmarried women into a kind of spiritual marriage: they lived together with these women in one house, and claimed that they had with them only a spiritual bond, that they roused one another to Christian virtues, but had no bodily relations with them whatsoever. Such women were called first spiritual sisters (ἀδελφαί) and beloved ones (ἀγαπηταί, dilectae), and afterward subintroduced women (συνείσακτοι). These bonds between unmarried men and unmarried women were, among many, without doubt chaste, and aimed at mutual spiritual perfection; but among the great majority these bonds ended in fornication, and the more dangerous and shameful in that it was concealed under the cloak of piety. And the sharp manner of speech in which the fathers and teachers of the Church express themselves about such bonds bears witness to this.

Gregory the Nazianzen mentions the agapetae kept by various unmarried priests, and even some monks in their solitary places, and calls this a diabolical cunning; and since such a name (ἀγαπητήν, beloved, dilectam) was given by the Apostle Paul to the wife of Philemon (Epistle to Philemon, v. 2), Gregory observes that now the most shameful thing is called by the most honorable name.[9] And blessed Jerome, with that force of expression which always distinguished him, writes thus of these so-called spiritual sisters of unmarried priests: “Unde in ecclesias agapetarum pestis introiit? unde sine nuptiis aliud nomen uxorum? Plus inferam: unde meretrices? …. Unde meretrices univirae? Eadem domo, uno cubiculo, uno saepe tenentur et lectulo; et speciosos nos vocant, si aliquid existimemus.”[10] John Chrysostom, in his treatise πρὸς τοὺς συνεισάκτους ἔχοντας, lamenting deeply that many clergy who have no lawful wives live with subintroduced women in their houses, to the scandal of all, says: “To our forefathers only two reasons were known why women should live with men: one is ancient, lawful, and reasonable, namely marriage, which was instituted by God the Lawgiver; the other is more recent, unlawful and illegitimate, namely fornication, introduced by the malice of the devil…. But in our time a third, new and unusual manner has been discovered, whose cause is hard to fathom: for there are some who take unmarried maidens, keep them shut up continually in the house even to deep old age, and deny that they have anything to do with them, and that they do not keep them for the sake of marriage and intercourse, for begetting children, or in general for bodily pleasure, but say that they keep them pure and unharmed.” And continuing to refute the various excuses such men offer, he adds: “You see them living together with the maidens, bound to them in full delight, so that they would rather lose their soul than lose their companion, and would sooner be ready to suffer and do anything than be separated from the beloved one.” And finally, despite all the justifications such men offer, he says that in all this he sees nothing but “a base desire for pleasures and shameless bodily enjoyment…. And though you say that you do all this for God’s sake, you do, on the contrary, exactly what the enemies of God do.”[11]

After such sharp speech from the fathers and teachers of the Church against women who live outside marriage with clergy, it is clear whom Balsamon had in mind when, in his commentary on this canon, he says that some have claimed that the woman of whom this canon of Nicaea speaks “is a subintroduced woman in place of a lawful wife, and one who lives with someone in fornication (καὶ συνοικοῦσάν τινα φαύλως).”[12]

Such women, then, and such as live in this manner together with clergy, this canon of Nicaea understands by subintroduced women (συνείσακτοι), and it strictly forbids all clergy to keep such women in their house. This decree of the Council of Nicaea concerns, as is evident, unmarried clergy or widowers, and in any case such as might be suspected of possibly having bodily intercourse with women. But this same decree retained its full force even when the clergyman in question was entirely free of any suspicion that he might have relations with the woman. Basil the Great, in his letter (canon 88) to the presbyter Gregory, who kept in his house a certain woman, and of whom it might with certainty be assumed that, on account of his age, he had no bodily relations with her, but whom he nevertheless did not wish to dismiss, writes thus: “We are not the first, nor the only ones, O Gregory, who established that women should not live together with men; but read the canon which our holy fathers issued at Nicaea, and which expressly forbids the keeping of subintroduced women (συνεισάκτους). For the dignity of celibacy consists precisely in this, that one live separated from women; and whoever declares in word that he does not do so, but in fact does the same as those who live with women, clearly wishes only in name to preserve the dignity of virginity, while in fact not willing to give up shameful pleasure. And you ought all the more to have satisfied our demand, since you yourself say that you are free from every bodily passion. For I do not think that a man of seventy years can live passionately with a woman, nor have we ordained what we have ordained as though for some notorious shameful deed. But since we have learned from the Apostle that one ought not to place before a brother a stumbling block or occasion of scandal (Rom. 14:13), and since we know that things which are most pure for some become for others an occasion of sin, we have therefore ordained, following the institution of the holy fathers, that you separate from that woman. Why then do you accuse the chorepiscopus and recall old enmities? Why do you complain about us, as though we readily listen to slanders, and not complain of yourself, that you cannot give up the habit of that woman? Drive her, then, from your house and place her in a monastery. Let her be with the virgins, and let men serve you, so that the name of God not be blasphemed on your account (Rom. 2:24). And until you do this, ten thousand things which you might cite in your letters will not help you at all, but you will die as an idler, and before the Lord you will answer for your idleness. And if you do not amend and dare to perform priestly service, you will be anathema to all the people, and even those who receive you will be excluded from the whole Church.”

This decree of the Nicene canon was also adopted by the civil Greco-Roman legislation, so that the Emperor Justinian issued a special Novel, that clergy who refuse to separate from such women, after a first and second warning, are to be suspended from priestly ministry, while bishops, if they dare to do this, are to be deposed from the episcopal dignity as unworthy.[13] In the Kormchaia this is written of thus: “Всѣмъ въ причетъ вочтеннымъ и не имущимъ женъ, по правиломъ отрицаемъ во своемъ дому чужую жену имѣти, кромѣ токмо матере и дщере, и сестры, и инѣхъ лицъ, яже всякого зазора убѣгаютъ. Аще же кто презрѣвъ сію заповѣдь, жену въ своемъ дому начнетъ имѣти, яже можетъ нань зазоръ навести, и единою и дващи воспоминяненъ и поученъ бывъ или отъ своего єпископа или отъ своихъ причетниковъ наказанъ бывъ о томъ, яко съ таковою женою не жити и изгнати отъ своего дому не восхощетъ, или клеветнику явльшуся, показанъ будетъ нечисто с таковою женою житіе живый, тогда єпископъ его по церковнымъ правиломъ отъ причта да извержетъ, и совѣту градскому єгоже причетникъ бяше да преданъ будетъ, рекше, въ простыя люди дань даяти вочтенъ будетъ. Єпископу же ни единыя отнюдь жены имѣти въ дому не прощаемъ; аще же явится сего никакоже сохранивъ, изъ єпископства да извержется.”[14]

Canon 4

A bishop ought properly to be appointed by all the bishops in the province; but if this is difficult, either because of some urgent necessity or because of the length of the journey, let at least three come together in one place, the absent ones also giving their consent through letters, and then let the ordination take place; but the confirmation of what has been done is in every province to belong to the metropolitan.

Ap. 1; VII Ecum. 3; Antioch 19, 28; Laodicea 12; Sardica 6; Constantinople 1; Carthage 13, 49, 50.

— The occasion for the issuing of this canon was the disorders caused in the church of Alexandria by the Meletian schism. — This schism arose at the very beginning of the fourth century.[15] It took its name from Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis in the Thebaid. In the hierarchical order, within the province of the bishop of Alexandria, this Meletius held the first place after that bishop.[16] The bishop of Alexandria was Peter (†311). From the relevant records it is seen that Meletius envied Peter of Alexandria’s primacy of honor, and only waited for an opportunity to break the good relations with Peter. On the occasion of the position that ought to be taken toward Christians who had, in the time of the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximin, weakened in their faith, a bitter dispute broke out between Meletius and Peter. Peter, though strict in his rules concerning penance, was accused by Meletius of laxity. Peter accordingly convened a council of several bishops of the Alexandrian province, and at this council Peter’s innocence was recognized, and Meletius was condemned to deposition. Athanasius, in his Apology against the Arians, relates that “Meletius, after that condemnation, did not wish to have recourse to appeal before another council, nor did he seek to be vindicated, but created a schism in the Church, and the followers of Meletius are today no longer called Christians, but Meletians… who, especially after the death of the bishop and martyr Peter, are determined schismatics and enemies of the Church.”[17] Bound by no discipline, Meletius, taking advantage of the fact that Peter and many other Orthodox bishops languished in prison for their faith, began himself to ordain deacons, presbyters, and bishops—not only within his own province, of which, moreover, he had been canonically deprived, but which he nevertheless held by force—but also within the provinces of other bishops, and this against the express canonical prohibitions, so that in a short time he succeeded in founding several churches of his own followers, and by the time of the Council of Nicaea there were, in the Alexandrian ecclesiastical province, twenty-nine Meletian bishops.[18] So great a spread of the Meletian schism moved the fathers of the Council of Nicaea to deliberate upon it and to put an end to the disorders which this schism had caused in the Church. The Council issued a fairly mild ruling concerning this schism, hoping that by mildness it would more easily be able to root out the schism, and so it decreed that Meletius should remain a bishop in Lycopolis, but that he should have no right to ordain, nor to take part in the election of bishops, nor to travel to other places for that purpose, but should enjoy only the name of his dignity; and with regard to those persons whom Meletius had ordained, the Council ordained that a particular ecclesiastical rite with prayer should be performed over them, and then they should be allowed to serve in the clergy.[19] And so that in the future the thing which had chiefly constituted the Meletian schism should not recur—namely, that Meletius arbitrarily appointed even bishops, and that in others’ provinces—the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, after condemning the very author of the schism, issue this their canon, determining how bishops are to be appointed and to whom belongs the right to confirm them.

In Apostolic Canon 1 we have seen that to appoint one bishop three, or at least two, bishops are required. There the reference was to the ordination of a bishop, that is, to that sacred rite of the Church by which the person in question receives divine grace. But of who chooses the one whom these three or two bishops are to ordain as bishop, that Apostolic canon does not speak; whereas of this—namely, of the election of a bishop—this canon of Nicaea speaks. This canon determines that a bishop is to be appointed (καθίστασθαι) by the council of all the bishops who are in the province in question (ἐν τῇ ἐπαρχίᾳ);[20] if all cannot come to the council, let there be at least three, and let the rest give their consent in writing, and then let the ordination (χειροτονίαν) take place; the confirmation of all this belongs to the appropriate metropolitan. If by chance the bishops are not unanimous as to the candidate, then the vote of the majority decides—always, however, after confirmation by the metropolitan. — Canon 6 of this same Council supplements the provision of this (4th) canon. And the synodal letter addressed to all the churches of the world likewise supplements the provision of this canon, in that it says that the people too are to take part in the election of a bishop.[21] This, then, is what the Council of Nicaea ordains with regard to the election and appointment of a bishop—and this ordinance is the exact and full expression of what had been in force throughout the whole Church from the time after Christ’s apostles down to the time of this Council, and to which this Council gives the force of law. And that it was so with regard to the election and appointment of a bishop in the aforesaid period, we have more than one testimony.

From the first Christian century a classic testimony to this is given us by the apostolic disciple, Clement, bishop of Rome, in his epistle to the Corinthians, where we read: ‘Οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἡμῶν ἔγνωσαν διὰ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅτι ἔρις ἔσται ἐπὶ τοῦ ὀνόματος τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς. Διὰ ταύτην οὖν τὴν αἰτίαν πρόγνωσιν εἰληφότες τελείαν κατέστησαν τοὺς προειρημένους, καὶ μεταξὺ ἐπινομὴν δεδώκασιν, ὅπως, ἐὰν κοιμηθῶσιν, διαδέξωνται ἕτεροι δεδοκιμασμένοι ἄνδρες τὴν λειτουργίαν αὐτῶν. Τοὺς οὖν κατασταθέντας ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων, ἢ μεταξὺ ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρων ἐλλογίμων ἀνδρῶν, συνευδοκησάσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας πάσης, καὶ λειτουργήσαντας ἀμέμπτως τῷ ποιμνίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ…[22] The beautiful and dignified manner in which bishops were elected and appointed in this period is shown us by the Apostolic Constitutions thus: ‘Let the people, gathered together with the assembly of presbyters, in the presence of the bishop, on the Lord’s Day, take counsel. And let the one who is foremost among the other bishops ask the presbytery and the people (τὸ πρεσβυτέριον καὶ τὸν λαόν) whether this is indeed the one whom they seek as their chief. And when they have confirmed it, let him ask again whether all bear witness that he is worthy of that great and illustrious headship, whether he has rightly performed what belongs to piety toward God, whether he has not violated the rights of men, whether he has managed his own household affairs well, whether his manner of life is blameless. And when all, in agreement, according to the truth and not out of preconceived opinion, testify that he is such, as before God the judge and Christ, and before the Holy Spirit and the holy and ministering powers, let them again, a third time, inquire whether he is truly worthy of the ministry, that upon the mouths of two or three witnesses every word may stand; and when for a third time they have agreed that he is worthy, let the sign of consent be sought from all. And when this has been readily given, let them be heard. Then, silence having been made, let one of the chief bishops, with two others, standing near the altar, while the rest of the bishops and presbyters pray silently, and the deacons hold the divine Gospels over the head of him who is being ordained, say this prayer to God…’[23] Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in the third century, in one of his letters, speaks similarly to this: ‘One must diligently observe and guard the divine tradition and apostolic institution which is kept among us and indeed in almost every province, namely, that for the lawful appointment of him who is to be set over an appointed people, the neighboring bishops of the same province should assemble, and then let a bishop be chosen in the presence of the people, who most fully knows the life of each and has observed the conduct of each.’[24]

These and other testimonies show us most clearly that the Council of Nicaea did nothing other by this (4th) canon of its own than express, in its fullest form, what had been in force concerning the election of a bishop before it and up to its own time.

What the Council of Nicaea ordains we find confirmed by many historical examples of a later time as well. Gregory the Nazianzen writes a letter to the Caesareans, and in this letter recommends the election of Basil the Great, to the higher officials as much as to the clergy and people.[25] At the Council of Chalcedon, Stephen of Ephesus, proving how he had canonically received his see, adduces that he had been appointed to that see by 40 bishops, with the voice of the more distinguished leaders, of the whole clergy, and of all the citizenry.[26] Basil the Great himself, in one of his letters, mentions that it belongs to the bishops to choose a pastor for the city in question, but that the voice of the people has a decisive significance in this.[27] Among the canons adopted at the Council of Carthage of 419, we find the people expressly mentioned as having to express their judgment about the candidate for the episcopate, and only then will the bishops appoint or not appoint that candidate.[28]

On the basis, then, of the provision of the Council of Nicaea and the other historical testimonies for a century and a half after that Council, some of which we have now adduced, the election of a bishop for the first five centuries of the Church consisted in the following. The people, the clergy, and the provincial bishops would assemble; it was examined who were worthy of that see; and after the people had expressed their opinion about the persons in question, the assembled bishops would decide who was most worthy of the episcopate, or else the bishops themselves would propose the person in question, and the people would then declare either their consent or their non-consent. After agreement had been reached between the people, the clergy, and the bishops, the election was submitted for confirmation to the provincial metropolitan, and after confirmation had been obtained, they proceeded to the ordination of the one elected. As is seen, the right of election in the strict sense belonged to the bishops, while the people had to testify as to the character of the person in question who was to become their bishop, or to express their consent to the person proposed to them by the bishops; the voice of the people was thus of equal weight to the voice of the bishops, nor could anyone be made a bishop without the people’s participation. If the bishops among themselves could not agree as to the person in question, the vote of the majority decided, as we have seen; and if even after that there was some further opposition, then recourse was again had to the people, for whom the bishop was to be chosen, and by the people’s voice every further disagreement was resolved. Against one elected by agreement of the bishops and the people, and confirmed by the metropolitan, no one was permitted to raise a voice of protest, and if by chance such a voice were raised owing to some circumstances, the canons ordain that the clergy in question, who did not know how to prevent the disorder but allowed a voice to be raised against the canonically elected bishop in the province concerned, must be punished.[29] In its main features this procedure in the election of bishops, and in particular with regard to the confirmation of the one elected, is repeated by the canons of many councils (Antioch 19; Laodicea 12; Carthage 13, 50; and others).

The participation of the hierarchy in the election and appointment of bishops, to whom it hands over divine authority, has remained and must always remain unchanged; the participation of the people in this has undergone various changes in the course of time. At the beginning, the whole people of the place in question took part in the election of a bishop, without distinction as to the social position of this or that member of the people. This produced disorders and confusion at elections, so that the Council of Laodicea found itself moved to put a stop to these disorders, and established that altogether the ‘gathering of the crowd’ (τοῖς ὄχλοις) should not be permitted to elect those who are to be appointed to the service of the Church.[30] After the issuing of this canonical ordinance, it entered into church practice that only the more distinguished persons from among the people should take part in elections; and to this practice the Emperor Justinian gave legal force, establishing that, when a new bishop is to be appointed, the clergy and the more notable citizens of the province in question are to assemble in an appointed place, and, after swearing that they will act impartially, are to choose three persons, of whom they are assured that they possess all the qualities prescribed by the canons and by the laws of the state, and from these three persons the metropolitan, together with the bishops, will then choose the most worthy and appoint him bishop.[31] This law of Justinian entered immediately after its issuance into the canonical collections, and thus became a general church law.[32] At the end of the eighth century, the Seventh Ecumenical Council found it necessary to concern itself with the question of the election of bishops, and, confirming the earlier ordinances in this regard, condemned in its third canon the custom which had crept in whereby some, bypassing the church authority, made use of the civil authorities (παρὰ ἀρχόντων) in order, through their agency, to become bishops, and it declared such an election null (ἄκυρον).[33] This was, in fact, precisely what these authorities themselves did by force, accepting bribes from the aspirants to episcopal dignity in question; and, deceiving also the state authority, which was supposed to exercise oversight of the correctness of the execution of the legal provisions on the election of bishops, representatives of that authority (ἄρχοντες) would find individual unscrupulous bishops who would, again for a bribe, carry out the wicked designs of those representatives of secular power. This, among other things, gave rise to a particular imperial Novel, of which we speak below.

And this manner of electing and appointing bishops by the competent provincial episcopal council, with the participation of the people, or of elected representatives of the people, we find preserved in the Church over a long succession of subsequent centuries. At the close of the eleventh century, the Alexandrian patriarch Mark turned to Balsamon with the question whether it might be permitted by the canons for peasants (πλήθη τῶν χωρικῶν, rusticorum turbae) to take part in the election of a bishop—and he naturally received a negative answer from Balsamon, who appealed to Canon 13 of Laodicea,[34] which decisively forbids, as we too have already mentioned, the ‘crowd of the multitude’ (ὄχλοις) from appearing at the elections of clergy with a right to vote. But against the participation of the people in the proper sense—that is, against its participation through its elected representatives—Balsamon says not a word to Patriarch Mark, although, as is known, participation of the people in the election of a bishop was not at all to Balsamon’s liking.[35] From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, testimonies to this are furnished us by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Among others, the decision of Patriarch Philotheus of November 1370 concerning the ordination of the monk Anthimos as metropolitan of Ungrowallachia, after an election carried out by the clergy and people;[36] or the decision of Patriarch Matthew I of February 1400, by which he ordains that, for the vacant archbishopric of Anchialos, according to the existing order the clergy and people should proceed to the election, and propose to him three persons, and he, having examined the relevant testimony (τὴν μαρτυρίαν) concerning them, will recognize the most worthy as the bishop.[37] In the course of time the right of the people to take part in the elections of their bishops began gradually to be lost, at least in the greater part of the provincial churches, but this right nevertheless did not thereby lose its character of lawfulness, as was solemnly attested by the Council of Jerusalem of 1672 in its tenth legal decree,[38] which also entered into the symbolical books of the Orthodox Church, namely into the Encyclical Letter of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1728.[39]

Besides this manner in which bishops were regularly elected and appointed, as we have now mentioned, history tells us that individual bishops were also appointed without formal election, but merely as a result of the nomination of the person in question as bishop by the state authority, and after this nomination the bishops in question, together with the metropolitan, would subject that person to an examination, and, finding him worthy, would ordain him and issue him a letter of confirmation.

This was introduced into the Church already from the time when the Greco-Roman emperors proclaimed themselves protectors of the Church, made many great donations to the Church, and by law granted it broad privileges.[40] And this was greatly furthered by the very standpoint of Roman state law, according to which ius sacrum formed a part of public law (jus publicum), so that it came about that the rulers, by virtue of that ius sacrum, either appointed bishops directly, or exercised their influence upon the election and appointment of bishops,[41] or else, if the clergy and people desired some worthy person as their bishop, they would nominate that person as bishop.[42] Such nominations of bishops by rulers were often called forth by the necessity of circumstances.[43] It happened that bishops were sometimes at odds among themselves as to who should be appointed to some vacant episcopal see, and in such circumstances, in order to put a stop to unrest in the Church, which sometimes even threatened peace within the state, rulers were compelled either themselves to appoint a bishop by their own authority, or to entrust the election to the episcopal council of some other church province.[44] It is known that the Emperor Zeno, in 482, when Bishop Stephen had been killed, took from the Antiochenes the right to elect a bishop, and transferred that right to Patriarch Acacius; nor did the council of Antiochene bishops raise any voice against this act,[45] and in general the Church, without objection, recognized on many occasions the right of rulers themselves to appoint bishops in individual provinces. Nor was this right of rulers in contradiction with the prescription of Apostolic Canon 30 (respectively Canon 3 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council), since that canon is not directed against rulers, but against the forcible interference of civil officials in the elections of bishops. In the course of time, several legal ordinances were also issued in the sense of confirming this right of rulers in the appointment of bishops, both by the church and by the state authority. The Emperor Nicephorus Phocas (963–969), as a result of a dispute between the patriarch and the bishops subject to him concerning the election of a bishop, issued a special Novel, by which the emperor was henceforth to designate for appointed sees the persons whom the episcopal council would then have to examine and ordain as bishop.[46] The Emperor Isaac Angelus, as a result of a special request of the church authority in question, issued in 1187 a σημείωμα βασιλικόν concerning the election of bishops, retaining for the ruler that right which the church had recognized to him in this matter.[47] A decision of the Synod of Constantinople under Patriarch John XIV of July 1817 solemnly recognized the ruler’s right in this.[48] By this the ruler’s right in the appointment of new bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs was established forever in the Orthodox Church—and the rulers exercised this right either by confirming the candidate elected by the competent factors, or else by themselves personally designating the candidate—that is, by nominating the person in question as bishop—and then the episcopal council would examine the abilities of that nominated bishop, would assess how worthy he was to be bishop, and, finding him worthy, would ordain him, or would reject him, and then it would be necessary for the nomination of yet another person to follow.[49]

Canon 5

With regard to those who have been excommunicated, whether from the clergy or from the order of laymen, the judgment of the bishops of each province in question is to be valid, in accordance with the rule which lays down that those who have been excluded by some are not to be received by others. But let it be examined that such persons have not been removed from ecclesiastical communion out of contentiousness, or because of some ill will of the bishop. And in order that all this be subjected to the necessary examination, it has been found good that in every province there be councils twice each year, so that, when all the bishops of the province are gathered together in one place, such disputes may be examined, and it thereby be established that those who have offended the bishop are to be regarded by all as rightly excommunicated, and this until it should perhaps please the assembly of bishops to pronounce upon them some milder judgment. And let these councils be held: one before the Forty Days [Lent], so that, being freed from all pettiness of spirit, a pure offering may be brought to God; and the other in the autumn season.

Ap. 12, 13, 16, 32, 33, 34, 37; II Ecum. 2, 6; IV Ecum. 11, 13, 19; Trullo 17; VII Ecum. 6; Antioch 6, 7, 8; Carthage 6, 8, 12, 13, 16, 32, 33, 34, 37.

— In this canon are repeated, in substance, first Apostolic Canons 12, 13, and 32, that one excommunicated by one bishop may not be received by another, and then Apostolic Canon 37, that twice a year episcopal councils are to be held in every provincial church. The Council of Nicaea found it necessary to repeat these canons, moved by the disorders which the Meletians, of whom we spoke in the commentary on Canon 4 of this Council, had produced in the Church.

Beyond what the aforesaid Apostolic canons ordain, and of which we spoke in our commentaries on those canons, this Nicene canon: 1) forestalls abuses of authority by bishops in judging the clergy and laity subject to them, granting the aggrieved the right to have recourse by appeal to the provincial council; 2) determines that the affairs of one provincial church may not be adjudicated by the council of another provincial church, but every matter that does not exceed the bounds of the competence of the provincial council must be finally settled in its own provincial council; and 3) determines the time for the annual provincial councils.

It happened, as the canon says, that some bishops would at times excommunicate both clergy and laymen from the Church for reasons which were not always capable of being justified, and which Balsamon, in his commentary on this canon, calls episcopal partiality (ἐμπάθεια).[50] For this reason the canon ordains that in such circumstances the matter is to be examined at the provincial council, and this, according to Zonaras’s commentary on this canon, when the bishop in question is obstinate and unwilling to absolve the man of the penalty he has imposed upon him,[51] and the council must examine, in the words of our Kormchaia: ‘да некогда не по достоянию нанесено бысть намъ отлученіе, но отъ малодушія, сиречь есть, отъ прости епископли, или отъ распри нѣкоя, или ина ради вины не сотворшу, страстьми воли епископли; страстная же воля есть, еже рещи, не сотворилъ ми еси сего, да будеши отлученъ.’[52] The decision of the provincial council in this regard becomes final, even against the will of the bishop in question, nor could there any longer be an appeal against that decision to some other episcopal council, since, according to the words of Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council, which appeals to this Nicene canon, all matters of a given provincial church are to be finally settled at its own provincial council, nor may the churches be disturbed by the accidental transfer of such matters from one provincial church to another.

This canon has always been interpreted in this sense. Among others, the bishops of the province of Carthage bear witness to this in their relations with the bishop of Rome. When the Roman bishop Celestine sought from the fathers of the African church—which was self-governing in its own affairs—that they submit for his review and decision the sentence pronounced against Apiarius, a presbyter of Sicca, who had been excommunicated and had appealed to Rome, the Council of Carthage of 424 answered the Roman bishop in a special letter, in which the council says to him, among other things: ‘We beg you, that in the future you not readily give ear to those who come from here, and that you no longer permit yourself to receive into communion those who have been excommunicated by us, for your beatitude will readily find that this was so established also at the Council of Nicaea; for if we find that this is to be observed with regard to the lower clergy and laymen, how much more must this not be observed with regard to bishops. Accordingly, those who have been excommunicated from communion in their own province—let not your holiness deliberately and improperly receive them into communion, as ought not to be done; likewise let your holiness forbid, as befits you, the shameless flights of presbyters and of clergy who follow after them; for by no ordinance of the fathers has this been taken away from the African church, and the establishments of the Council of Nicaea in the most manifest manner commit both the lower clergy and the bishops to their respective metropolitans. And that same Council of Nicaea reasonably and justly ordained that whatever matters arise must all be settled to their conclusion in their own respective places; for the fathers acknowledged that in one province the grace of the Holy Spirit would not be lacking, by which the priests of Christ discern justice wisely and firmly maintain it—the more so since everyone, in case he is dissatisfied with the decision of the local judges, is permitted to have recourse to the councils of his own province, or even to an ecumenical council; unless indeed there be someone who could believe that our God can inspire justice in the judgment of one man, whoever he be, and yet deny it to the numerous priests gathered in council. And indeed, can that judgment beyond the sea even be well-founded, to which the necessary persons cannot even be brought for testimony, whether because of natural weakness, or the infirmity of old age, or countless other impediments? As for your sending anyone, as it were from the side of your holiness, on this matter, we find that no council of the fathers has ordained anything of the kind; and as to what you once wrote to us through our fellow bishop Faustinus, as though this had been established by the Council of Nicaea, we have been unable to find anything of the sort in the accurate copies taken from the original text of the Council of Nicaea, which we received from the most holy Cyril, our fellow bishop of the church of Alexandria, and from the most reverend Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, and which, even before this, we sent by the presbyter Innocent and the subdeacon Marcellus to Boniface of blessed memory, your predecessor. Do not, therefore, any longer, at the request of certain persons, send here your clergy to adjudicate our affairs, and do not permit this, lest it be said that we introduce the vain pride of the world into the Church of Christ, which offers to those who wish to see God the light of simplicity and the day of humility.’[53] In the same manner Cyprian once wrote to the Roman bishop Cornelius.[54]

For the settling of such judicial matters, of which this Nicene canon speaks, and likewise of all other matters that concern the church life of a provincial church (Ap. 37; II Ecum. 2), this canon ordains that the first annual council be held in the last days of the meat-fare period before the Great Fast [Lent], and not in the fourth week after Easter, as had been prescribed by Apostolic Canon 37, and this, in the words of this Council of Nicaea, ‘so that, being freed from all pettiness of spirit, a pure offering may be brought to God.’ Zonaras, in his commentary on this canon, says of this: ‘He who holds that he has been unjustly excommunicated will complain against the one who excommunicated him, and this latter, hearing that the excommunicated man does not submit to the penance willingly, but complains, will not be able to maintain a calm disposition toward the excommunicated man. And when the two are so disposed toward one another, how will they be able to bring an offering to God from a pure heart? And for this reason it has been ordained that one council be held before the Forty Days, and the other in the autumn—for October too is an autumn month.’[55]

Canon 6

Let the ancient customs prevail which exist for Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, namely, that the bishop of Alexandria have authority over all these provinces, since this is also customary for the bishop of Rome. Likewise also at Antioch and in the other provinces let the privileges of the churches be preserved. But let it above all be known that if anyone become a bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, the Great Council determines that such a one ought not to remain a bishop. But if, all the bishops having been in agreement in the election, and the election having been orderly and according to the ecclesiastical canon, two or three should object out of fondness for contentiousness, in such a case let the vote of the majority prevail.

Ap. 34; I Ecum. 4; II Ecum. 2, 3; III Ecum. 8; IV Ecum. 28; Trullo 36; Antioch 9, 16, 19; Carthage 13.

— This canon, which is clear in itself, has been, from the fifth century down to the present day, the object of the most varied artificial operations: its text has now been twisted in such a way as to prove something that some, out of a preconceived notion, wished by force to prove from it; now again, by way of sophisms, it has been given a sense which it never could and never can have. It is a canon of an eastern council, that is, of a council held in the eastern half of the Christian world, and among the 318 fathers there were in all seven from the West, and all the rest, 311 of them, from the East. For easterners, then—both those who took part in the Council and all the rest from the oldest times down to the present—this canon is clear and altogether comprehensible, nor do we find any dispute among eastern canonists, or among theologians of the Orthodox Church in general, as to whether it ought to be understood this way or that, or as to what the fathers of Nicaea meant to say by this or that expression in the canon. It was not, then, for easterners that this canon became the object of what we have just described, but for western canonists and theologians, and especially for those westerners who had the mediate or immediate task of proving and defending the primacy of the Roman high priest, that is, the primacy of his authority over the whole ecumenical Church. The primacy of the Roman high priest is a product of history. The first centuries of Christianity knew nothing of that primacy, just as the fathers of this First Ecumenical Council knew nothing of it. This Council is meanwhile one of those before whose authority the whole Church, eastern and western, bowed then, as it still bows deeply today, for it has always, everywhere, and by all been recognized as the infallible voice of the ecumenical Church and as the true interpreter of pure apostolic teaching. And it was the authority of this Council that certain persons sought to use, in order to prove to those who did not believe in the primacy of the Roman high priest how the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, too, had recognized that primacy, and hence the whole Church already in the first half of the fourth century. A certain more prominent western canonist of a more recent time says that the primacy of the Roman high priest did not even have need for the Council of Nicaea to recognize that primacy.[56] So thinks that canonist; but they did not think so in earlier times, and least of all in the period of the undivided Church, that is, for the first nine or ten centuries—rather they then thought it precisely necessary to prove the primacy of the Roman high priest by the authority of the Council of Nicaea, when other proofs for it had not yet been found. Among the acts of the Council of Nicaea, meanwhile, there was not, nor could there be found, a single word which spoke of Roman primacy, and hence the desired goal could not be reached by the regular path; but it could be reached by another path, as indeed it was. Among the acts of the Council was found this our (6th) canon, in which mention is made of the rights of the privileged bishops in question, and that no one should be permitted to hinder them in the enjoyment of those rights, and specifically, that the bishop of Alexandria, the bishop of Antioch, and the other bishops of the respective privileged churches, should in the exercise of their rights in the appointed church provinces be as autonomous and independent as the bishop of Rome is autonomous and independent in this respect. As is seen, there is in this canon too no mention of primacy; but the bishop of Rome is nevertheless mentioned, and hence it seemed to those persons that they ought at least to make use of that for their own purposes. And this could be done either by interpreting the canon according to a preconceived idea and giving it the sense that was wished, or else by doctoring the text so that it should correspond to the intended purpose. And both the one and the other were done. The latter method was used in the period when scientific criticism had not yet developed; and when that criticism later did develop, then they had recourse to the former.

The original Greek text of the sixth Nicene canon reads at its beginning thus: Τὰ ἀρχαῖα ἔθη κρατείτω, τὰ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ Λιβύῃ καὶ Πενταπόλει, ὥστε τὸν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ἐπίσκοπον πάντων τούτων ἔχειν τὴν ἐξουσίαν· ἐπειδὴ καὶ τῷ ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἐπισκόπῳ τοῦτο σύνηθές ἐστιν. Ὁμοίως… (Antiqui mores serventur qui sunt in Aegypto, Lybia et Pentapoli, ut Alexandrinus episcopus horum omnium potestatem habeat, quandoquidem et episcopo Romano hoc est consuetum. Similiter…). Thus it stands in all Greek canonical collections and editions of the Council of Nicaea from the oldest times down to the present. And thus it is also in all western editions and in the Latin translations, even in the Pseudo-Isidorian collection. Meanwhile, at the Fourth Ecumenical Council (year 451), one of the representatives of the Roman bishop, Paschasinus, in order to prove the primacy of the Roman high priest and to convince the fathers of Chalcedon of this, appealed to the Council of Nicaea, which had supposedly recognized that primacy, and read from one of his own records the sixth Nicene canon in the following text: ἡ ἐκκλησία Ῥώμης πάντοτε ἔχῃ τὰ πρωτεῖα. ἔχει τοιγαροῦν καὶ ἡ Αἴγυπτος… (Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum; teneat igitur et Aegyptus…). What was answered to this Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon when they heard this so distorted text of the canon, and what indignation this evoked among the fathers of Chalcedon, we mention in the commentary on Canon 28 of Chalcedon.[57]

With the course of time it was seen that outright forgeries were not succeeding, and so a different path was taken. They began to insist that even with the original, that is, unfalsified, text of this canon, it could nonetheless be proven that the Council of Nicaea had recognized the primacy of the Roman high priest. And upon this a whole literature developed, beginning three centuries back and continuing even to the present day.[58] They wish by force, through every sort of strained argument and sophism, to prove that this canon speaks of the primacy of the Roman high priest, and that hence the whole Western and Eastern Church recognized that primacy already at the beginning of the fourth century. A vain labor, and of a worth exactly equal to that forgery at the Council of Chalcedon. It is not for us here to refute this and to demonstrate the groundlessness of the Western assertions.[59] This has been refuted by those same Western writers who wished to look at the matter objectively, and among them the late bishop of Rottenburg, Dr. Hefele, one of the best connoisseurs of the history of the ecumenical and other councils. In his Conciliengeschichte, precisely in his commentary on this (6th) Nicene canon, he says: ‘This canon does not regard the Roman bishop as the pope, nor yet as a mere bishop of the city of Rome, but as one among the great metropolitans, to whom not merely a single province was subject, but several provinces together.’[60] This is an entirely correct understanding of the sense of Canon 6 of the First Ecumenical Council; and thus have the canonists and theologians of the Orthodox Church always understood, and today still understand, the sense of that canon. — And after this brief digression, which we considered necessary to make, we pass to the commentary on the canon itself.

The occasion for the issuing of this canon, exactly as for canons 4 and 5 of this Council, was chiefly the Meletian schism. We have seen in the commentaries on those canons in what that schism consisted, and that Meletius was chiefly guilty in that he extended his authority over church provinces which did not belong to him, and that he allowed himself to violate the rights of the bishop of Alexandria, appointing, without the knowledge and consent of the latter, bishops in church provinces subject to that bishop of Alexandria, of whom (appointed unlawfully by Meletius) there were, at the time of the Council of Nicaea, twenty-nine.[61] Having condemned Meletius, the Council needed by law to forestall the recurrence of similar things in the future, and in particular to see that the rights of the bishop of Alexandria in his own province be preserved, just as the rights of the other privileged bishops in their respective church provinces.

What were the rights of that bishop of Alexandria in the period of the Council of Nicaea? They were not the rights of an ordinary metropolitan in the sense in which Canon 4 of this Council speaks—that is, not the rights of the metropolitan of one determinate church province (ἐπαρχία, provincia)—but the rights of the bishop of Alexandria extended over three provinces, namely, as is said in the canon, over Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, of which provinces each in turn had its own metropolitan with the bishops subject to him.[62] These rights of the bishop of Alexandria, and of the church of Alexandria in general, the canon expresses as privileges (τὰ πρεσβεῖα, privilegia) of that church, and hence the bishop of Alexandria was among the privileged bishops who existed in the time of the Council of Nicaea, and who were afterward called patriarchs. It is in general difficult to say with full precision in what exactly these privileges of the bishop of Alexandria consisted, and the most opposed opinions have been expressed about this, chiefly two: according to some, this canon speaks of ordinary metropolitan rights, while according to others it speaks of patriarchal rights.[63] The first opinion is put forward, among others, by Beveridge in his notes on this canon.[64] With all our respect for Beveridge, of whom, as can easily be seen, we make much use in these our commentaries on the canons, we nevertheless cannot share his opinion in this instance, and this for reasons we shall now adduce. The second opinion is put forward on the basis of Valesius,[65] and, among others, by Hefele.[66] The same opinion is put forward by Balsamon in his commentary on this canon.[67] And that opinion we too share—not, of course, in the sense that the Council of Nicaea by this canon established the patriarchal dignity in the Church, but that it recognized and sanctioned particular greater rights for the metropolitans in question of the appointed privileged churches, which metropolitans had under their jurisdiction not merely a determinate number of subject bishops, but also a determinate number of ordinary metropolitans with, in turn, their own subject bishops.

In the canon it is stated that the bishop of Alexandria must freely enjoy his rights over Egypt (the eastern part), Libya, and the Pentapolis. These three provinces, to which Athanasius the Great adds also the Thebaid (Upper Egypt),[68] constituted the great political province (διοίκησις, dioecesis) of Egypt in the broad sense, which was subject to the Praefectus Orientis and whose chief city was Alexandria. Hence the boundaries up to which the bishop of Alexandria had the right to extend his authority were the same boundaries that constituted the great political province (dioecesis) of Egypt in the broader sense. In that province there existed four political provinces, as has been mentioned, and each of these provinces constituted its own separate church province with its own chief city, in which resided its own first provincial bishop, or metropolitan. And that in fact in each of these chief provincial cities there was a separate metropolitan—that is, that each of the mentioned provinces: Egypt (the eastern part), Libya, the Pentapolis, and the Thebaid, constituted a separate (ordinary) metropolitan province with its own metropolitan and subject bishops—is attested, among other things, by the names of the respective metropolitans which history of that time mentions to us. In the first place attests the very name of that Meletius of Lycopolis, who occasioned this Nicene canon, and who, as is known, was metropolitan in the Thebaid;[69] further attests the name of Sidereus, of whom Athanasius the Great says that he appointed him metropolitan of Ptolemais in the Pentapolis.[70] These testimonies, among others,[71] suffice to confirm what has been said above, namely that in each of the four aforementioned provinces there were their own metropolitans, who were all, by the ordinance of this Council, together with their subject bishops, in dependence upon the higher metropolitan, or, as our canon simply says, upon the bishop of Alexandria. This dependence of the metropolitans in question upon the bishop of Alexandria can be determined only when all the historical circumstances of that time are taken into account, and when Canon 4 of this Council, with which this (6th) canon stands in inseparable connection, is kept in view. And accordingly this dependence can be expressed in general as follows: in the metropolitan provinces subject to the bishop of Alexandria, the rights of the competent metropolitan of each of those provinces must be strictly preserved, so that no one can become a bishop in one of those provinces unless he has been canonically elected at the provincial council and unless the competent metropolitan has expressed his consent to that election; and the bishop of Alexandria, as metropolitan of the privileged church, has the right of supreme confirmation of that election, and without his confirmation no bishop can be appointed within the boundaries of his province (eastern and Upper Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis); but with regard to the canonically established rights of ordinary metropolitans in general, even the bishop of Alexandria cannot appoint anyone as bishop unless he has heard the voice of the metropolitan under whose jurisdiction the new bishop will act. To this right of supreme confirmation, on the part of the bishop of Alexandria, of every election of the diocesan bishops, may be added also this, that it belonged to him to ordain the very metropolitans for the metropolitan provinces subject to him.[72] Thus may be regarded what the Council of Nicaea established for the bishop of Alexandria and for the bishops of the other privileged churches of which it speaks in this canon. Afterward, at the subsequent ecumenical councils, and chiefly at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, all this was set forth in detail and with precision, as we speak of it in the commentaries on the canons of those councils.

Having established the rights of the bishop of Alexandria in the provinces in question, the canon points out that those rights must have full force, since this too is customary for the Roman bishop (σύνηθές ἐστιν, consuetum est, gewohnheitsmässig zusteht)—that is, since the same relation exists also for the Roman bishop with regard to the church provinces subject to him. And what were those church provinces which stood to the Roman bishop in such a relation as Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis stood to the bishop of Alexandria? And here again there is great dispute among western canonists, in which dispute it is difficult for an Orthodox canonist to find his bearings. Rufinus, a western bishop and historian of the fourth century, who lived in Rome, adduces this Nicene canon in his Church History thus: ‘Et ut apud Alexandriam et in urbe Roma vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Aegypti, vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat.’[73] Since the political division of the empire was determinative also for the church division, these suburbicariae ecclesiae would have been in those provinces which in the first half of the fourth century were suburbicariae to Rome, and which were dependent upon the Praefectus urbis. This scope has seemed to some more recent western canonists too small, and they say that subject to the Roman bishop were not merely the provinces dependent upon the Praefectus urbis, but those which were dependent on the Vicarius urbis, and these would be: Campania, Hetruria et Umbria, Picenum suburbicarium, Sicilia, Apulia et Calabria, Lucania et Brutia, Samnium, Sardinia, Corsica, Valeria—ten provinces in all,[74] or otherwise expressed, southern Italy and the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia.[75] Balsamon, in his commentary on this canon, says that the Council of Nicaea recognized to the Roman bishop authority over the western provinces (ὁ ἐπίσκοπος τῆς Ῥώμης προέχει τῶν ἑσπερίων ἐπαρχιῶν, Romanus episcopus praeest occidentalibus provinciis).[76] We are inclined to regard these words of Balsamon as a confirmation of the opinion of those who consider subject to the Roman bishop, in the time of the Council of Nicaea, those provinces which were dependent on the Vicarius urbis, and hence subject to him also all the metropolitans who were in those provinces.

Speaking always of the privileged churches, the canon adds that in like manner (ὁμοίως, similiter)—as to the church of Alexandria and to the church of Rome—the privileges must also be recognized to the church of Antioch and to the churches of certain other appointed provinces. How large was the province subject to the bishop of the church of Antioch, this canon does not tell us; but by analogy with how it is determined in the canon for the province of the bishop of Alexandria, it must be held that the province subject to the bishop of Antioch coincided with the boundaries of the political province of the East (dioecesis Orientis), whose chief city was Antioch, and which was dependent, like the province of Egypt, on the Praefectus Orientis. This province comprised: Palaestina, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Cilicia, Isauria, Mesopotamia, Osroene, Euphratensis, and Cyprus.[68] Whether in all these provinces there were also respective metropolitanates dependent on the bishop of Antioch, we do not know; but that there existed in Palestine a separate metropolitanate with its chief city Caesarea is attested by Jerome, who says that the metropolitan of Caesarea, by Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea, was dependent upon the chief metropolitan of Antioch.[77]

And what were the other churches of which this canon says that their privileges must be preserved (τὰ πρεσβεῖα σώζεσθαι)? Holding always to the fact that in the period of the Council of Nicaea the boundaries of church provinces were determined by political boundaries—taking into account for the East what Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council tells us in this regard, and for the West what the respective historical testimonies tell us—it can be said with full assurance that there were five such privileged churches, three in the East and two in the West, namely the provinces of: Asia Proconsularis, Pontus, Thrace, Italy, and Africa Proconsularis. The first three provinces were, in the political relation, dependent on the Praefectus Orientis, like the provinces of Egypt and Antioch; the fourth was dependent on the Praefectus Italiae and constituted a separate Vicariatus Italiae alongside the vicariatus Romae of which we have already spoken. The fifth had its own independent administration. Asia Proconsularis constituted a separate province with its chief city Ephesus, and in that city was the seat of the chief metropolitan of the Asian province. Pontus was composed of six provinces with its chief city Caesarea in Cappadocia, where was the seat also of the chief provincial metropolitan. In the chief city of Bithynia (of that same province of Pontus), in Nicaea, there was also a metropolitan, but only a titular one, without the rights of an ordinary metropolitan. Thrace was composed of five provinces with its chief city Heraclea, and with its own metropolitan. Italy constituted a separate vicariate in dependence upon the Praefectus Italiae with seven provinces (Liguria, Aemilia, Flaminia seu Picenum annonarium, Venetia, Alpes Cottiae, and Alpes Rheticae), and with its chief city Milan (Mediolanum).[78] Lastly, Africa Proconsularis was divided into four provinces (Africa propria, Numidia, Mauritania Caesarensis, and Mauritania Sitifensis) with its chief city Carthage. The metropolitan of Carthage was primate of all Proconsular Africa (Primas universae Africae); and besides him there was still another metropolitan, who resided at various places, namely, that metropolitan was whoever was the eldest by years, so that the metropolitan see changed according to in which city that oldest bishop by years happened to be found.[79]

These metropolitans (of Ephesus, of Caesarea in Cappadocia, of Heraclea, of Milan, and of Carthage) were, in the period of the Council of Nicaea, autonomous and entirely independent, and enjoyed in every respect the same rights and privileges as the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.

Since the fathers of the Council of Nicaea had in this way established the rights of the privileged churches, and, in order to put an even firmer stop to the disorders which Meletius had caused in the Church by his self-arrogated appointment of many bishops, and in order to forestall such disorders once and for all in the future, they repeat in this their canon, in substance, what they had ordained by their fourth canon, and lay down that this ordinance must be unconditionally binding for everyone and always before everyone’s eyes (καθόλου δὲ πρόδηλον ἐκεῖνο). Namely, only that person can become a bishop who has been canonically elected by the competent episcopal council and to whose election the competent metropolitan has declared his consent, regardless of whether that metropolitan occupies his see in one of the privileged churches, such as those of which this canon speaks, or in an ordinary church without particular privileges. And whoever becomes a bishop without the knowledge and consent of the competent metropolitan, of him the canon ordains that he is to be regarded as if he had not been appointed a bishop at all (τὸν τοιοῦτον μὴ δεῖν εἶναι ἐπίσκοπον). The canon anticipates the case that the election should not be unanimous, and that two or three in the episcopal council should oppose the rest out of their fondness for contentiousness (φιλονεικίαν), and in such a case it ordains that no attention be paid to that opposition, but that the vote of the majority of the members of the electoral council decide—provided, of course, that everything else proceeded in order and canonically.