Canons of the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431)

Canon 1

Since it is fitting that those also who were not present at the holy council, for some cause, whether ecclesiastical or bodily, should know what was established at it, we make known to your holiness and to your love that if any eparchial metropolitan, having departed from the holy and ecumenical council, has gone over, or shall hereafter go over, to the assembly of the apostates, or has received, or shall receive, the teaching of Celestius, such a one may in no wise undertake anything against the bishops of his eparchy, for he is henceforth already excluded by the council from all church communion and deprived of all authority. It shall belong, however, to the bishops of the eparchy itself, together with the neighboring metropolitans who think in Orthodox fashion, finally to depose him from the episcopal degree.

— From the Council of Ephesus we have 9 canons. The first six canons were issued at the seventh, or concluding, session of the council (31 July 431), and they form the conclusion of the conciliar letter addressed “to the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and all the people of every province and city.” The letter begins thus: “When we had assembled, by the emperor’s order, in the metropolis of Ephesus, some departed from us, about thirty of them, at their head John, bishop of Antioch. Their names are as follows: first John himself, bishop of Syrian Antioch, then John, bishop of Damascus, Alexander, bishop of Apamea, etc. These are unworthy to enjoy in the Church an authority by which they might help or harm others—not to mention that among them there are also some already deposed, especially for this, that, having been infected with the false teaching of Nestorius and Celestius, they refused to sign, together with us, the condemnation of Nestorius; all these the holy council, by a general decision, has deprived of all church communion and has taken from them the right to perform any sacred service.” Thereupon follow the six canons in order. The seventh canon was issued at the sixth session (22 July), when Charisius, presbyter and steward of the church of Philadelphia, brought before the holy council a complaint against a certain James, who in Philadelphia had led many astray into the heresy of Nestorius. The eighth canon was issued at the seventh session of the council, on the occasion of the complaint of Rheginus, Zeno, and Evagrius, bishops of Cyprus, against the bishop of Antioch, who wished to subject the autocephalous Church of Cyprus to his own jurisdiction. The ninth canon is the letter of this council to the council of Pamphylia concerning the resignation of Eustathius from his episcopal see. — The first six canons concern for the most part the events of that time, brought about by the heresy of Nestorius. Accordingly, strictly speaking, they have no direct bearing on church discipline. We shall endeavor to find in them what more nearly pertains to church law, and to that we shall give due attention.

This council had been appointed for Pentecost of the year 431, that is, for the 7th of June, on which day Pentecost fell that year. By the appointed time there had arrived at Ephesus the chief actors of that period: Cyril of Alexandria, and all those Orthodox bishops who were able to come and whom we afterward find signed on the acts of the council. John of Antioch delayed his arrival, out of his attachment to Nestorius and because he wished to forestall the condemnation of Nestorius. The Orthodox council, after long waiting, at last opened its sessions even without John, and issued its well-known decision against Nestorius.[1] A little later John arrived with his bishops. Taking offense, as it were, at the fact that the council had begun its work without him and had condemned Nestorius without hearing him and his bishops, John gathered a separate council of his own bishops, declared unlawful the council held under the presidency of Cyril, null the decisions of that council, and deposed Cyril and Memnon, metropolitan of Ephesus, the other champion of Orthodoxy.[2] This was bound to produce new disturbances in the Church, and indeed it did produce them, strengthening the party of the heretics—for many of the Nestorians went over to John. To forestall the evil consequences of this, after having in vain tried every means of reconciliation, the Orthodox council declared the council of John of Antioch and his partisans to be a council of apostates (τῆς ἀποστασίας συνέδριον, apostasiae seu defectionis consessus ac conventiculum), and deposed first John of Antioch, whom it means by the words μητροπολίτης τῆς ἐπαρχίας in this canon, and whom, as ἀνενέργητον [rendered powerless], it subjects to the common judgment of all Orthodox pastors—and after him all the bishops who had taken part in it, “as such,” in the words of Zonaras, “as approve, openly or covertly, the teaching of Nestorius.”

In issuing this ordinance of theirs, the fathers of the Council of Ephesus have before their eyes this general norm of church law, according to which ecclesiastical-hierarchical authority has its full and lawful force only when it acts within the limits established by law, and when the wielders of that authority stand in strict subordination to the laws and teaching of the Orthodox Church—whereas, on the contrary, as soon as they depart from those laws and cross the strictly established legal limits, that authority forfeits all its rights. In examining further on the canons of the council held at Constantinople in the year 861, we shall see what strong force this norm had in the Church. Besides this general norm, the Council of Ephesus follows also another, according to which the trial of a metropolitan belongs to a council which is composed not only of the bishops subject to the metropolitan accused, but of all the neighboring metropolitans together with those subject bishops. The words of this canon—“it shall belong to the bishops of the eparchy itself, together with the neighboring metropolitans who think in Orthodox fashion, finally to depose him from the episcopal degree”—show that the fathers of the Council of Ephesus mean thereby that council which is known in church history by the name ἡ σύνοδος τῆς διοικήσεως, the diocesan council.[3]

A diocesan council is an assembly of the metropolitans and bishops of one autocephalous church, gathered at the summons of the head of that autocephalous church, and under his presidency, to deliberate and decide upon church questions which lie outside the competence of the eparchial (that is, metropolitan) councils and which are of importance for a whole diocese.[4] The sources for the history and organization of these councils do not go back beyond the time of the Council of Nicaea, though we may find similar councils in earlier centuries too.[5] The resemblance between this kind of council held after the Council of Nicaea and those found before it shows that this institution is most closely bound up with the very life of the Church. It received its formal expression in the 2nd canon of the Second Ecumenical Council, which supplemented the 6th canon of the First Ecumenical Council in the sense that, just as the eparchies (metropolitan provinces) must be governed by the eparchial council (under the presidency of the metropolitan concerned), so too the dioceses (the provinces of the autocephalous bishops, or patriarchal provinces) must be governed by the diocesan council (under the presidency of the autocephalous bishop or patriarch).[6] Among the matters that fall within the competence of these councils belongs also the trial of metropolitans who have been found guilty before the Church for one reason or another. The fathers of the Council of Ephesus have this competence of the diocesan council before their eyes, and although, by their highest authority, the authority of an ecumenical council, they declare the apostate metropolitan deposed and consequently without authority to undertake anything against his subject bishops, they do not nevertheless reserve to themselves the final execution of this judgment of theirs, but, in accordance with the norm existing in the Church, founded on the canons and on church practice, leave this to the diocesan council concerned, composed of the metropolitans and bishops of the surrounding region, who shall εἰς τὸ παντὴ καὶ τοῦ βαθμοῦ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἐκβληθῆναι [wholly cast him out even from the degree of the episcopate]. This diocesan council, which had to carry out the final execution of the decision of the Council of Ephesus against John, had to be the council of Antioch, for Antioch, in the ecclesiastical division, according to the 6th canon of the First Ecumenical Council, was an autocephalous church province with its own autocephalous bishop. But if it was the task of the Antiochene diocesan council to carry this out, assembling under the presidency of the bishop of Antioch, while, at the same time, the very one accused and condemned, against whom this decision was to be executed, was that same bishop of Antioch—that is, the very one who ought to have been the president of the council and who possessed the right of convoking, deciding, closing the council, promulgating its decisions, and so forth—the question arises which diocesan council, whether indeed the Antiochene or some other, the fathers of the Council of Ephesus had before their eyes when they promulgated this decision of theirs, given that the very president of the Antiochene diocesan council was the one accused. Among the matters that, by the canons and the practice of the Church, fall within the competence of diocesan councils is also this, that such a council may itself directly summon to account, for any uncanonical act, even the very heads of the autocephalous churches, that is, its own presidents, in order to bring a canonical inquiry against them and, while preserving the established canons, to depose them from the episcopal degree. With this in view, the fathers of the Council of Ephesus confirm the rule that, in general, an accused metropolitan, whether he be autocephalous or not, must be tried at the diocesan council by all the remaining metropolitans and bishops of one autocephalous church; and in the concrete case, having before them John of Antioch as the guilty party, and having issued their decision concerning him, they hand over the final execution of that decision precisely to the council of Antioch, composed of the bishops and metropolitans “who think in Orthodox fashion,” as the council of the autocephalous church, and thus as the only one competent to decide, among other things, even upon the transgressions of its own president.

Having issued their sentence against John of Antioch and the others who were with him, as such as hold to the side of Nestorius and consequently approve his teaching—having thus condemned the followers of the Nestorian teaching—the council goes on to condemn and to subject to deposition also all those bishops who follow the teaching of Celestius.

At the time when, in the East, the forerunners of Nestorianism had begun to disturb the Church, in the first years of the fifth century a new heresy appeared also in the West, which, although its subject was chiefly an anthropological question, nevertheless stood in close relation, both internal and external, to the Christological question. This heresy is known under the name of Pelagianism or Celestianism.[7] The monk Pelagius appeared in Rome in the first years of the fifth century, and enjoyed universal respect for his strict moral life.[8] There joined Pelagius a younger but more gifted companion of his, Celestius, who, by his work Contra traducem peccati, took a stand against the teaching of the Church on original sin.[9] The teaching of Pelagius and Celestius was in the main the same; the difference between them consisted only in this, in the words of Augustine: “quod ille apertior, iste occultior fuit, ille perfidior, iste mendacior, vel certe ille liberior, iste astutior.”[10] By the names of their founders, the followers of the new heresy are called in history now Pelagians, now Celestians.[11] Accurate information about this heresy is furnished us by the writings of Pelagius and Celestius themselves, and then by the writings against them of Blessed Augustine.[12] The system of Pelagianism bears chiefly a rationalistic character, which makes reason the sole principle of religious consciousness. The chief error of the Pelagian teaching consists in the denial of the grace of God as a means necessary to man for salvation.

The disputes caused by Pelagianism called forth a multitude of councils, of which, in the opinion of Hefele, the first was held in the year 411.[13] In that year Celestius came from Rome to Carthage to obtain ordination to the presbyterate. Certain zealous Orthodox of Carthage warned Aurelius not to trust Celestius, for he was infected with false teaching—and he at once ordered a council to be gathered, before which Celestius had to appear.[14] The most decided opponent of Celestius was the deacon Paulinus, who laid before the council an accusation against Celestius, and the teaching of Celestius was formulated in the following six points: a) Adam would have died even if he had not sinned; b) the sin of Adam harmed him alone, and not mankind in the least; c) the newborn infant is in that same state in which Adam was before he sinned; d) it is not true that all mankind is subject to death because Adam sinned and died, just as it is not true that all mankind will rise again because Christ rose again; e) the law can lead everyone to heaven, just as the gospel can; f) before the coming of Christ there were men who were entirely without sin.[15] After Celestius had declared that this was indeed precisely his confession, the council excommunicated him—and he, at once turning with a complaint against this decision to Pope Innocent, went to Ephesus, where he succeeded in deceiving the Orthodox and in obtaining ordination to the presbyterate. Pelagius at the same time went to Palestine, and there began a dispute with Blessed Jerome. A Spanish presbyter, Orosius, who had spent much time with Augustine, accused Pelagius before John of Jerusalem, but Pelagius, at a council convened specifically for this in the year 415, succeeded in concealing his false teaching and thus clearing himself before the council.[16] In the same year he was accused of his teaching, at a council in Diospolis, by two Gallic bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who brought forward twelve heretical points against him.[14] At this council too he knew how, by cunning means, to reject the accusations and obtain acquittal.[17][18] At once the aforesaid bishops made this known to the bishops of proconsular Africa, who at that time (416) were gathered at a council in Carthage under the presidency of Aurelius. These confirmed the sentence pronounced against Celestius five years before, and addressed to Pope Innocent a conciliar letter, informing him of their action.[19] The example of the Council of Carthage was followed by the bishops assembled at Mileve in the same year under the presidency of Silvanus, among whom was Augustine also.[20] Innocent, in three letters of his, confirmed the decisions of the councils regarding Pelagius and Celestius.[21]

Meanwhile Celestius, who had gone from Ephesus to Constantinople, when he was expelled from Constantinople, made his way to Rome. Innocent had died (417), and his successor was Zosimus. Celestius presented his confession of faith to Zosimus, and the latter found him entirely Orthodox—and at once wrote to the African bishops, condemning their conduct against Celestius and threatening deposition to the chief opponents of Celestius.[22] For his part Pelagius too addressed his confession of faith to Zosimus, who approved it just as he had approved that of Celestius, and Pope Zosimus sent yet another letter to Africa in vindication of Pelagius.[23] Given this state of affairs, brought about by the pope, Augustine turned to the emperor and obtained from him a special edict against the Pelagians—and meanwhile persuaded Aurelius to gather a great council of bishops, which should answer Pope Zosimus and pronounce a final condemnation of Pelagianism.[24] On the 1st of May of the year 418 a council of 200 bishops assembled in the Secretarium of the Basilica Fausti in Carthage, which, having examined in the minutest detail the teaching of Pelagius and Celestius, issued eight canons against Pelagianism, and solemnly condemned their teaching.[25][26] In examining the canons of this council, which in our modern collections are known under the general name of the canons of the Council of Carthage, we shall have occasion to return again to this question. Submitting to the decision of this council, Zosimus withdrew his earlier letters and, in the so-called epistola tractoria, condemned the Pelagian teaching.[27] The condemnation was universal—and those who did not wish to submit were banished from Africa and from the West, and found refuge in the East with certain bishops, above all with Nestorius in Constantinople—and afterward joined the assembly of John of Antioch at Ephesus.

Issuing their ordinances, and seeing that, together with the Nestorians, the Pelagians or Celestians too were acting against the Orthodox council, the fathers of Ephesus condemned, together with the heresy of Nestorius, the heresy of the Pelagians as well—here separately, and in the 4th canon both heresies together.

The decision expressed in canons 1 and 4 against the Pelagians the council had already stated at its fifth session, in drawing up its letter to Pope Celestine: “When, at the holy council,” the fathers write in the aforesaid letter, “there was read the decision on the deposition of the impious Pelagians and Celestians—Celestius, Pelagius, Julian, Persidius, Florus, Marcellinus, Orontius, and their fellow-thinkers—we determined that what your holiness had determined against them should remain firm and unmoved, and, in agreement with you, we hold them to be deposed.”[28] The same decision is mentioned by Pope Gregory I in his letter ad Narsum comitem: “Pelagius, who was condemned at the Council of Ephesus, said this with the intention of showing that Christ’s redemption is of no significance for us.”[29] The same is mentioned also by the Patriarch Photius, speaking of the heresy of the Pelagians, “that it was anathematized by the holy council at Ephesus.”[30] We have specially adduced these two testimonies, of Gregory and of Photius, in order to remove every doubt that might arise as to whether the Council of Ephesus really did anathematize the Pelagian heresy—a doubt that might arise if one were to rely on the text of the Ephesine canons according to the collection of John Scholasticus, in which, in place of the words of this canon τὰ τοῦ Κελεστίου, there stands τὰ τοῦ Ἀρείου καὶ Νεστορίου [the teaching of Arius and Nestorius].[31]

We must make one further remark on the text of this canon, as we find it in the Slavonic Kormchaia. In that collection this canon reads: “Аще который митрополитЂ, или епископЂ, оставЂ, и не пришедЂ на соборЂ, Келестинова мудрствовати хощетЂ, или мудруетЂ, отвержент да будетЂ, и отЂ церкве изриновент.”[32] We do not intend to go into an examination of such a text of this our canon, nor have we adduced it with that intention—we shall in any case, together with Balsamon, draw attention to these words: “wishes to think as Celestinus thinks.” These words are erroneous, and cannot be justified by anything, for Celestine, bishop of Rome, taught as every other Orthodox bishop did, and shared the faith of Cyril and the other Orthodox bishops. They entered the Kormchaia from the collection of Alexius Aristenus, in which we read: “Ἐάν ἀπολειφθεὶς τῆς συνόδου μητροπολίτης τῶν Κελεστίνου ἀντέχηται, ἢ ἀνθέξηται, ἀπόβλητος” [If a metropolitan absent from the council holds, or shall hold, to the opinions of Celestinus, let him be cast out].[33] How so great an error could have crept in, so that in place of the heretic Celestius the name of Celestine, the Orthodox bishop, was inserted, it is difficult to guess.[34] And that Aristenus really did not know the difference between Celestius and Celestine, bishop of Rome—that this was, accordingly, not merely an accidental error—is attested by himself in his commentary on the 5th canon of this council, where we read: “Τινές… τὰ τοῦ Νεστορίου, τοῦ ἐπισκόπου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, καὶ τοῦ Κελεστίου, τοῦ τῆς Ῥώμης ἐπισκόπου, ἐφρόνησαν δόγματα” [Some… held the doctrines of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and of Celestius, bishop of Rome]—from which it is plain that he did not know who Celestius was, nor who Celestine was, and, consequently, did not know either the relations that existed between Celestine and Celestius on the one hand, and between Celestine and the Orthodox bishops of Carthage on the other.[35] Not to mention that in all the collections in which these canons are given, the name of Celestius is written most correctly, the memory of Pope Celestine was held in the greatest reverence, and the name of Celestine, as a saint of the Church, has been celebrated from the most ancient times—the best witnesses to this being the old manuscript Greek menaia that have come down to us.[36] Balsamon, in his commentary on this canon of the Council of Ephesus, remarks on this error and says: “If you find in some copies the scribal error concerning Celestius (for in place of Celestius, Celestine is mentioned—ἀντὶ γὰρ Κελεστίου, Κελεστίνου μέμνηται), do not take what is written as entirely accurate—for Celestine, the Roman pope, was Orthodox, while Celestius was a fellow-thinker of Nestorius, that is, a heretic.”[37] We shall find this same error further on in many other places of the Kormchaia as well.

Canon 2

If any diocesan bishops were not present at the holy council, but went over to the dissenters, or attempted to go over, or, having signed the deposition of Nestorius, afterward went over again to the seditious council—let such, by decision of the holy council, be deprived of the priesthood and deposed from their rank.

— The first canon spoke of metropolitans who fell away from the Orthodox council, whereas this canon speaks of bishops subordinate to a single metropolitan who likewise fell away. These bishops subject to one metropolitan are designated in the original text of the canon by the word ἐπαρχιῶται ἐπίσκοποι,[38] and in the Latin translation: provinciales episcopi.[39] By eparchy (ἐπαρχία, provincia), as we have seen, is called a church district subject to one metropolitan. Thus Macarius of Ancyra says: “The eparchy is composed of that whole district which lies within the bounds of one metropolis—for example, the metropolis of Heraclea is composed of the whole of Thrace, that of Ancyra of the whole of Galatia, that of Thessaly of the whole of Thessaly, and so forth; and the members of the eparchial council are the bishops belonging to that eparchy and subordinate to the metropolitan of the eparchy.”[40] Accordingly the metropolitan is called τῆς ἐπαρχίας πρόεδρος, the head of the eparchy (provinciae praeses): “The bishop must take care of those entrusted to his charge; should he fail, let him report it to the head of the eparchy—διδασκέτω τὸν τῆς ἐπαρχίας προεστῶτα.”[41] The bishops, however, who are within the district of one metropolitan see are called, in the 6th canon of the II Ecumenical Council, τῆς ἐπαρχίας ἐπίσκοποι, diocesan/eparchial bishops (provinciae episcopi).[42] Ἐπαρχιῶται is the term for the individual bishops who make up one metropolitan district in the 20th canon of the Council of Antioch, just as in this canon of ours.[43] If one wished to render these ἐπαρχιῶται precisely in our language, they would have to be called the heads of an episcopal district, just as the metropolitan would have to be called the head of a metropolitan (or eparchial) district, and the patriarch the head of a patriarchal (that is, diocesan) district. It is an error when, in our language, the terms ‘diocese’ or ‘eparchy’ are used to denote an episcopal district, that is, a district subject to a mere [diocesan] bishop. This has come into use among all the Slavs today, but it still cannot be said that such usages are correct. — It is likewise an error when the bishops subject to one metropolitan are, among us, designated by a term borrowed from foreign usage—suffragan (suffraganeus). Suffragan is the name given to any cleric whose duty is to assist his superior.[44] In a general sense suffragan denotes a vicar, a coadjutor, or, formerly among the Romans, their episcopi in partibus infidelium. If, subsequently, in the West, the term suffragan was appropriated by Gratian’s decree to bishops subject to a metropolitan[45] — can that, then, serve us as a norm, that we should call our bishops suffragans of the metropolitan, and adapt an unwarranted institution to our hierarchical order, when, apart from everything else that contradicts the spirit of the ecumenical, catholic Church in Roman canon law, we know that the relation between metropolitan and bishop among them cannot in the least be compared with the relation that exists, on the foundation of ancient church practice, between the same [offices] in the Orthodox Church? The ἐπαρχιῶται, then, after the metropolitans, are mentioned by the Council of Ephesus in this its canon, and it deprives them of the priesthood and declares them deposed, if they are simply dissenters from the Orthodox council—whether their dissent occurred before, or after, the condemnation of Nestorius. The difference between the condemnation in this canon and that in the first is that here are condemned not only those who did not wish to come to the Orthodox council and who thus from the very outset threw in their lot with the heretics, but also those who had already once signed the council’s decision against Nestorius, but afterward fell away from the council and joined themselves to John’s conventicle.

Canon 3

If any clerics in any city or village were deprived of the priesthood by Nestorius or his followers, on account of holding right doctrine, we find it just that they should again take up their [former] rank. And in general we ordain that no cleric who thinks in agreement with the Orthodox and ecumenical council shall in any manner whatsoever be made subject to bishops who have fallen away, or who shall fall away.

— The first canon of this council speaks of metropolitans who fell away from the Orthodox council; the second canon speaks of bishops who fell away; and this canon speaks of the relations of clerics toward such metropolitans or bishops, and determines that a cleric who was deprived of the priesthood by a non-Orthodox bishop on account of his Orthodox confession of faith must again take up the priestly rank from which he had been unlawfully cast down. The fathers of the council follow, in this canon, that general principle of the Church which later found formal expression in the 29th canon of the Council of Chalcedon, namely, that one who was deposed from his dignity without any fault of his own must be at once restored to his former dignity. Yet they do not express this ordinance of theirs unconditionally, as though a cleric might restore himself to the dignity of which he was deprived by his own private judgment; they make that judgment dependent on the agreement in which the cleric in question stands “with the Orthodox and ecumenical council.” Archimandrite Ioann, in his commentary on this canon, accurately conveys the thought of the fathers of Ephesus, saying: “It should be noted here that the council does not give clerics an unconditional right of independence from their bishops, whom they might suspect or even expose as unorthodox; it gives them this right only in the case where those clerics think in agreement with the holy and ecumenical council—that is, they must judge the orthodoxy of their bishops not according to their own understanding and will, but according to the clear teaching and institutions of the ecumenical fathers of the Church. At the same time it ordains that the bishops in question are not to be regarded indiscriminately as unorthodox—for instance, those who differ on some particular opinions—but that this must be held only of those who openly depart from the ecumenical councils and give themselves over to conventicles and sects opposed to the council’s teaching.”[46]

Canon 4

If any clerics fall away, or presume, whether privately or publicly, to hold the opinions of Nestorius or of Celestius, the holy council finds it just, with regard to these also, that they be deposed.

— Just as in the first two canons it condemns metropolitans and bishops who hold unorthodox opinions, so in this canon likewise the Council of Ephesus condemns clerics who hold to heretical teaching, and ordains that they must be deposed at once, as soon as it becomes known concerning them—“whether they held to that teaching”, says Zonaras, “privately and only for themselves, or professed it publicly and taught it to others.”[47] The text of this canon differs from ours in the collection of John Scholasticus, and it differs likewise in the collection of Aristenus and in the Slavonic Kormchaia, such that the sense of the canon comes out quite different.[48] In Scholasticus the words ἢ τὰ τοῦ Κελεστίου are absent, so that by this canon those clerics who follow Pelagianism are not thereby condemned. In Aristenus, those clerics are condemned who, besides Nestorius, are of one mind also with Celestinus—Εἴ τινες τῶν κληρικῶν Κελεστίνῳ … συμφρονήσαιεν.[47] In the Kormchaia it reads: “Аще которіи причетницы Келестиновѣ и Несторіевѣ ереси, повелѣнія мудрствуютъ, да извергутся.”[49] That in all these collections this canon is set forth erroneously may be shown by what we have already adduced on this question in the commentary on the first canon of this council. And that our text of this canon is entirely accurate, that the Pelagians were indeed condemned at this council, and that the holy Celestinus of Rome was mistakenly called a heretic—of this, besides what we have already said, there testifies among other things also a further letter of Gregory I, directed against the Pelagians, in which he says: “Examining the acts of the council of Ephesus, we have found not a word either about Adelphius or about Sabbas, nor about others who are known to have been condemned at that council, but we hold that, just as the acts of the council of Chalcedon were corrupted, so too the same must certainly have happened with the acts of this [Ephesian] council.”[50] This, it seems to us, is the sole reason that explains such an error in the text of John Scholasticus, of Aristenus, and of the Slavonic Kormchaia.

Canon 5

As for those who were condemned for unbecoming deeds by the holy council or by their own bishops, and whom Nestorius, contrary to the canons and out of his wilfulness in all things, or his like-minded followers, have sought, or shall in future seek, to restore to communion or to their former rank, we have judged it right that they gain no benefit thereby, and that they must, notwithstanding all this, remain deposed as before.

According to the canons, the council of Orthodox bishops, or individual metropolitans and bishops, have the right to judge the clergy subject to them and to subject them to excommunication or deposition for unbecoming deeds. Nestorius and his like-minded followers, with the intention of increasing the ranks of their adherents, paying no heed to the canons that exist in this regard, and acting arbitrarily—‘that is,’ says Zonaras in his commentary on this canon, ‘making no distinction between what is permitted and what is forbidden’[51] — received to themselves clergy excommunicated by Orthodox bishops and restored them to their former hierarchical rank. The council took notice of this occurrence, and by this canon of its own determines that for such clergy the pardon obtained from non-Orthodox bishops can have no value whatsoever, and that they, notwithstanding all this, remain outside ecclesiastical communion and deposed as before. By this the council renews the ancient norm of the Church, which we find among the apostolic canons and which the Church has held to in every age, namely, that ‘a clergyman who has been excommunicated by his own bishop may not be received by anyone other than that same bishop’ (Ap. canon 32).

We have shown, in the commentaries on the earlier canons, the errors present in the text of the Slavonic Kormchaia—here we shall quote word for word the ‘Interpretation of the aforesaid canons’ that follows this canon, from which it will be seen that the errors of the canon’s text are repeated also in the interpretation of the same canons: «Сгда собрашасѧ свѧтіи отцы на Ефесстѣмъ соборѣ, и ѡ҆ единомъ ѿ митрополитъ, ѿлучишасѧ ѿ православныхъ, и мудроваху повелѣная еретическая, злочестиваго Несторіа епископа Константина града, ꙗко человѣка вѣрующаго, и жидовскаꙗ мыслящаго, и Келестина епископа римскаго, ниже убо ѿ епископъ ѡ҆сташа, и не приидоша на съборъ, и не восхотѣша ѡ҆судити, ни проклѧти, не ѡ҆свѧщенно и злочестивую еписко̑пу, но паче побараху и помагаху ими. Сего ради убо повелѣ свѧтый соборъ, помагающихъ Несторію, и Келестину, и ико же ересь держащихъ, и тако мыслящихъ извержени быти ѿ сана, и ѿ церкве изринути. Епископомъ же и презвитеромъ, ихже бо Несторій, и Келестинъ, ѿ священничества извергли, за неже право мыслиху и вѣроваху, тѣмъ паки прияти свой чинъ. Такоже паки и иже ѿ своихъ епископовъ извержени быша за некаꙗ злаꙗ дѣла, и ѿ Несторіа и ѿ Келестина, приѧти и ѡ҆правдани быша, паки не свѧщени: и абіе да извержени будутъ».[52]

Canon 6

Likewise, should any presume, in whatever manner, to overturn what has been enacted by the holy council of Ephesus concerning each of these matters, the holy council ordains that, if they are bishops or clerics, they be wholly deposed from their rank; and if they are laymen, that they remain excommunicated.

— This canon forms the conclusion of the epistle that the council addressed “to the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and all the people of every district and city”, as we have already mentioned in its place. The preceding canons contain ordinances chiefly concerning those who held together with the dissenters from the holy council, who opposed the holy council, and who accepted the false Nestorian and Pelagian teaching; this canon concerns everyone, and condemns all—whether or not they belong to the sacred hierarchy—who by whatever means attempt to overturn the council’s decisions, subjecting those who belong to the sacred hierarchy to deposition, and the others to excommunication from church communion.

Canon 7

When this had been read, the holy council decreed that no one may bring forward, or write, or compose another creed besides the one which was established by the holy fathers assembled with the Holy Spirit in the city of Nicaea. And those who presume to compose another creed, or to bring it forward and offer it to those who wish to turn to the knowledge of the truth—whether from paganism, or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever—such, if they are bishops or clerics, are deprived, the bishops of the episcopate, and the clerics of belonging to the clergy; if they are laymen, they are anathematized. Accordingly, if it is discovered that anyone among them, whether bishop or cleric or layman, thinks or teaches concerning the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God as stands in the exposition presented by the presbyter Charisius, or that they follow the pagan and corrupted dogmas of Nestorius, which are appended here, let them undergo the sentence of this holy and ecumenical council, namely, that the bishop be deprived of the episcopate and deposed, the cleric likewise be excluded from the clergy; and should any layman be caught in this, let him be delivered to anathema, as was said before.

(II Ecum. 1; Trullo 1; Carthage 2.)

— We have said that the 7th canon of the council of Ephesus was issued separately from the rest of the canons, and that it did not form part of the conciliar epistle addressed “to the bishops, presbyters, deacons, and all the people of every district and city”, as the first (six) canons did. It was issued on the occasion of a complaint by the presbyter and oeconomus of the church of Philadelphia, Charisius, submitted to the holy council. At the sixth session of the council this presbyter Charisius declared before the council that certain false teachers, with the intent of spreading the false teaching of Nestorius among the common people, employed cunning, composed some new confession of faith, and by their artfulness succeeded in turning a certain number of simple people to themselves. He showed that a certain pair, Antony and James, who called themselves presbyters, came from Constantinople and brought with them a special symbol of faith and many letters of recommendation from Nestorius’s fellow-thinkers. And from certain two presbyters, Anastasius and Photius, who were adherents of Nestorius, by boldness and cunning they deceived the bishops of Lydia, who permitted them to live freely in their land. James remained in Philadelphia of Lydia and began his work there, and after a short time succeeded in deceiving several simple folk, who accepted his symbol and acknowledged it as supposedly orthodox. Of the activity of Antony, who deceived people in other places of Lydia, Charisius makes no mention; he knew of James’s activity, and having obtained a copy of the symbol by which James taught the people, together with the signatures of those deceived, he submitted this symbol to the council together with a petition that the council find a remedy for it and condemn the cunning heretics. At the same time he submitted to the council his own confession of faith, in order thereby chiefly to repel from himself the accusation, on the part of the heretics, that his faith was not in agreement with the Nicene faith. The fathers of the council declared their readiness to take up Charisius’s complaint for examination, once certain preliminary conditions had been observed. They first ordered that the Nicene symbol be read.[53] Once this had been done, they ordered that Charisius’s own written confession of faith then be read, so that the council might be satisfied that he confessed the Orthodox faith and was not himself infected with any heretical teaching. Charisius’s confession of faith was found to be entirely Orthodox, for it was identical with the Nicene faith, and the council then—in accordance with the norm existing in the Church, which later found expression in the 21st canon of the IV Ecumenical Council, and on the basis of the 74th apostolic canon, having found that Charisius’s complaint could be taken up for examination—proceeded to the examination of the matter. When the matter had been heard according to the report of the official conciliar investigators,[54] when the false symbol[55] had been read, and its heretical character noted, the council issued its corresponding decision, which constitutes this our (7th) canon. The opening words of the canon, “When this had been read”, with which it begins, point to this origin of it.[56] By this canon the fathers of the council decisively forbid that any symbol of faith whatsoever be composed and introduced into the Church, other than the symbol whose foundation was laid at Nicaea and which received its full completion at the second ecumenical council of Constantinople[57] — and they subject to the strictest penalties those who presume to do this. By the same penalties, further, the fathers subject also anyone who presumes to teach a false faith, other than the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan one, to those turning to the Church from non-Christian societies, or from heretical societies. In a word, they will that only the symbol of faith confirmed at the I and II Ecumenical Councils remain firm and unshaken in all and through all, and they excommunicate entirely from the Church everyone who does not confess that symbol; they recognize as Orthodox only those who confess the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan symbol, and they declare unorthodox—that is, heretics—those who do not confess that symbol. And it is in this sense alone that this canon has been received and confirmed at all the other ecumenical councils held afterward.

Canon 8

The most God-beloved fellow-bishop Rheginus and his companions, the most God-beloved bishops of the eparchy of Cyprus, Zeno and Evagrius, have reported a novel practice which is being introduced contrary to the ecclesiastical institutions and contrary to the canons of the holy apostles, and which infringes the general liberty. In view of this—and since a common evil requires a strong remedy, lest still greater harm be done, especially as it was not even the ancient custom that the bishop of Antioch should ordain in Cyprus, as was proved to us both in writing and by word of mouth by the most devout men who came to the holy council—let it be, that the presidents of the holy churches of Cyprus have full and unchallengeable authority, in accordance with the canons of the holy fathers and ancient custom, to appoint the most devout bishops themselves; and let this same rule hold also for the other districts, and for all eparchies, so that none of the most God-beloved bishops shall take possession of another eparchy which has not, of old and from the very beginning, been under his hand or that of his predecessors; and if anyone has taken possession of another eparchy and forcibly appropriated it to himself, let him restore it, lest the canons of the fathers be transgressed, lest the arrogance of worldly power creep in under the pretext of sacred ministry, and lest we lose, little by little and unwittingly, that liberty which our Lord Jesus Christ, the deliverer of all men, has given us by His own blood. Accordingly, this holy and ecumenical council decrees that to every single eparchy there shall be preserved, pure and unviolated, the rights which it has held from the very beginning and of old, in accordance with the custom established from antiquity. And for its own security, every metropolitan shall have the right to take a copy of what has been decided. And should anyone put forward any enactment contrary to what has been determined here, the whole holy and ecumenical council decrees that such an enactment shall be void.

(Ap. 34, 35; I Ecum. 6, 7; II Ecum. 2; Trullo 20, 36.)

— The occasion for the issuing of this canon was a complaint which three Cypriot bishops submitted at the seventh session of the council of Ephesus against the bishop of Antioch, who wished to subject the Cypriot church to his own jurisdiction and thus to take from it that ancient privilege which it enjoyed, by which the council of Cypriot bishops had, independently, the right to appoint its own bishops. The chief bishop (metropolitan) of Cyprus had, from time immemorial, been independent, and in the canons of the Church we find that he was always recognized as autocephalous, αὐτοκέφαλος (nemini subjectus). Even though the 9th canon of the II Ecumenical Council subjects metropolitans to the bishops who preside over the dioceses (patriarchs), the individual metropolitans nevertheless remain αὐτοκέφαλοι. In his commentary on that canon, Balsamon says: “Do not be surprised if, after this, you hear also of certain other independent churches (ἑτέρας ἐκκλησίας αὐτοκεφάλους), such as: Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Iberia… The archbishop of Cyprus was acknowledged as such by the III council; read then that council’s 8th canon and the 39th canon of the Trullan council.”[58] The right of independence of the Cypriot church rests on the antiquity of custom and on the canons; the motivation given for the issuing of this canon proves this to us most clearly.[59] The words of the 6th canon of the I Ecumenical Council, “let the ancient customs prevail also in the other eparchies, τά πρεσβεῖα σῴζεσθαι ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις”, have, as we have already noted in our commentary on that canon, clearly no other sense than that the autocephaly of individual church districts—apart from those mentioned in that canon—must be sacredly respected, for it rests on the antiquity of custom—τὰ ἀρχαῖα ἔθη κρατείτω. The bishops of Antioch on several occasions sought to deprive the Cypriot church of its independence and to subject it to their own authority, basing themselves chiefly on the fact that, politically, the island of Cyprus was subject to the Antiochene prefect.[60] Most recently, John, the well-known head of the Ephesian conventicle against the holy council of the Orthodox, proceeded most resolutely in this matter after the death of Theodore, metropolitan of Cyprus, with the intent of subjecting the bishops of Cyprus to himself once and for all.[61] He was assisted in this by political officials, of whom we read in the acts of the seventh session of the council of Ephesus.[62] Upon the complaint of Rheginus, Zeno, and Evagrius, the council of Ephesus took up this question for examination and established the autocephaly of the Cypriot church.[63] The resolve with which the fathers of the council of Ephesus decided this question of the Cypriot church, and the manner in which they secured its rights, shows us how much importance they attached to the sacred guarding of the boundaries of churches. They do not confine themselves, in this their canon, merely to the solemn confirmation of the autocephaly of the Cypriot church, but proclaim as law—a law resting on the 35th canon of the holy apostles and the 3rd canon of the council of Antioch, and one which may in no way be infringed—that no bishop may extend his authority over a church that was not from the very beginning under his jurisdiction—ὥστε μηδένα τῶν θεοφιλεστάτων ἐπισκόπων ἐπαρχίαν ἑτέραν, οὐκ οὖσαν ἄνωθεν καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὑπὸ τὴν αὐτοῦ, ἤγουν τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ χεῖρα καταλαμβάνειν—and they conclude: “this holy and ecumenical council decrees that to every single eparchy there shall be preserved, pure and unviolated, the rights which it has held from the very beginning and of old, in accordance with the custom established from antiquity.” Of the Cypriot church we shall have occasion to speak further in discussing the 39th canon of the Trullan council, where we shall see that that council confirms this ordinance of the council of Ephesus in the most solemn manner and proclaims: ὥστε ἀκαινοτόμητα διαφυλαχθῆναι τὰ παρὰ τῶν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ τὸ πρότερον συνελθόντων θεοφόρων πατέρων τῷ θρόνῳ [τοῦ τῆς Κύπρου νήσου προέδρου] παρασχεθέντα προνόμια.[64] Worthy of attention in this canon are the words: “lest the arrogance of worldly power creep in under the pretext of sacred ministry.” The Church of Christ has never had any authority other than that which Christ gave it, and Christ could give it, nor did He give it, any authority other than that which He Himself received from God the Father. “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21), says Christ to His disciples, teaching them what manner of authority they were to have. According to this the Apostle Paul says that priests are the representatives of Christ and the continuers of His ministry. Nor can it be said that the apostles or their successors had, or could have had, any authority which Christ, as head of the Church, did not Himself have. Christ, while He was on earth, never appropriated to Himself the authority of worldly rulers, nor did He ever exercise worldly power; He never used force or arms to subject men to Himself, but sought, by persuasion and by wonders, to bring them to the knowledge of the truth and of true piety. He Himself teaches us this, declaring that He had received no worldly power whatever from the Father. When the Jews accused Him before Pilate of calling Himself king of the Jews, and when Pilate asked Him whether He was king of the Jews, Christ answered him in a manner that shows He possessed no worldly power on earth: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36). Pilate repeats to Him: “Art thou a king then?” and Jesus answers him that he is, but only in this, that He bears witness to the truth: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth”, says Christ—and could He have declared more clearly that He had not come into the world to exercise worldly power? What, in fact, the authority was that Christ gave to His apostles is best shown to us by the passages of Holy Scripture that speak of it. If the Church has no other authority than that which Christ gave His disciples, and through them to their successors, and if it cannot be proved from Holy Scripture that He gave His disciples any authority other than spiritual, then every effort of individual church hierarchs to prove that they may also exercise worldly power is in vain. The first and chief authority that Christ gives the apostles is that they should preach the Gospel throughout the whole earth and baptize those who believe (Matt. 28:19), and that this authority is none other than spiritual is manifest. The second authority that Christ gives the apostles, and through them the Church, is the authority of binding and loosing: “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). On these words of Christ some have gone astray, undertaking to prove that this refers also to worldly affairs. A groundless contention, for Christ Himself answers such as follows: “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:21-23). From this it is clear that the authority of binding and loosing which Christ gives the apostles refers only to sins—so that it concerns only souls, and in no way bodies, as Chrysostom wisely observes on this.[65] The third authority, granted by Christ to the apostles, is the authority to perform the sacrament of the Eucharist in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19), an authority which certainly cannot be called worldly. The last authority, concerning the punishment of transgressors, is mentioned by John: “he that… will not hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican” (Matt. 18:17). These words show that the Church can impose no other punishment upon transgressors than removal from communion and exclusion from the Christian fellowship. How far removed Christ and the apostles were from any thought of worldly power is shown by the fact that they most resolutely turn away such power from the Church, and reserve to it only and exclusively spiritual authority. Christ Himself first turns such power away from Himself, and thereupon tells His disciples that this power belongs not to them, but to worldly rulers: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them… but it shall not be so among you” (Luke 22:25-26; cf. Mark 10:42-43). By this remark Christ teaches His disciples two truths: first, that they and their successors must stand far removed from all worldly authority and jurisdiction; and second, that the spiritual authority which they hold is not an authority of dominion, but of love and gentleness, for it is the task of worldly power to govern outward things, while it is the task of spiritual power to govern the inward feelings of the heart. Origen observes on this: “Sicut enim omnia carnalia in necessitate sunt posita non in voluntate, spiritualia autem in voluntate non in necessitate, sic et principum spiritualium principatus in dilectione subjectorum debet esse positus, non in timore corporali.”[66] And elsewhere the same [author] observes that the sacred persons in the Church are not called to lord it over, but to serve, their own church.[67] Jerome, on this same point, draws a distinction between the authority of the prince and the authority of the bishop: “quod ille nolentibus praesit, hic volentibus; ille terrore subjiciat, hic servituti donatur; ille corpora custodiat ad mortem, hic animas servet ad salutem.”[68] This teaching of Holy Scripture on the character of church authority the fathers of the council of Ephesus had vividly before their eyes, and it is for this reason that they note, in this their decision, that the arrogance of worldly power should not be allowed to creep in under the pretext of sacred ministry. In their condemnation of those bishops who strive to gain some ascendancy over others, one sees again that the fathers had before their eyes those words of the Savior which He addressed to His disciples concerning primacy: “Be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased” (Matt. 23:8-12); and before them, too, were those other words of the divine Teacher by which He expresses the equality among His disciples: “whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Mark 10:43-44). As a supplement to this our exposition, we shall adduce the remark of Archimandrite Ioann in his commentary on this canon: “In these words two particular thoughts are expressed: first, that in church administration there must be no superiority of power, such that any one local church authority whatsoever should rise above other authorities which are equal to it by the sacred dignity of their rights, still less that this local authority should raise itself above all the local churches, whose rights, by the institution of the holy fathers, must be self-standing and inviolable in themselves; second, that in the sacred rank of church authority, and in its sacred rights, there must be nothing worldly, which by its spirit and its activity is wholly unbecoming to it—such as: worldly power, worldly honors, the use of worldly means for its own ends, and so forth. So strictly did the canons of the fathers limit church authority, and so far were they from any thought of an ecumenical primacy of any one see whatsoever over the whole Church!”[69]

Canon 9

According to the God-inspired Scripture, which says that all things are to be done with due deliberation, those who are appointed to sacred office ought in especial measure to look to this, that with the utmost diligence they consider beforehand all that they have to do. For they who thus order their life have prosperous hope in everything, and in the course of their desires all goes as though before a favorable wind; and this saying is wholly agreeable to the truth. But it happens at times that some grievous and unbearable sorrow weighs upon a man’s mind, greatly troubles him, turns him aside from the pursuit of his duty, and brings him to reckon as advantageous that which is by its nature weak. Something of this sort we have learned befell also the most devout and most pious bishop Eustathius. As is known, he was canonically appointed; but afterward, as he himself says, he was disturbed by certain persons and placed in unexpected circumstances, and being withal of himself ill-disposed to labor, wearied by the cares which his office laid upon him, and unable himself to withstand the reproaches of his adversaries, he tendered—in a manner incomprehensible to us—his written resignation of his see. He ought assuredly, having once undertaken the priestly charge, to have held it to the end with spiritual fortitude, without regard to toil, and to have willingly borne the sweat that would have brought him reward. Although he plainly showed his negligence, which arose rather from fear of the many labors than from indolence and neglect, your piety of necessity appointed our most devout and most pious brother and fellow-bishop Theodore to govern the church; for it was not fitting that it should remain a widow and the flock of the Savior remain without a shepherd. But since he now, weeping, has turned to us—not seeking to contest the city or the church in favor of the aforesaid most pious bishop Theodore, but only to beg the honor and name of bishop—all of us, taking pity on the old man and regarding his tears as common to us all, have taken care to learn whether he was in fact subject to lawful deposition, or whether some accused him of any transgressions merely to defame him. And we have learned that he did nothing of the sort, but that his whole transgression consists in the resignation itself. For this reason we do not condemn your piety for having appointed, as indeed you ought, the aforesaid most devout bishop Theodore in his place; but, holding that it is not most fitting to deny with excessive severity the honor of this man, but rather that mercy ought to be shown to an old man who has for so long been removed from the city in which he was born and from the house of his fathers, we establish and ordain that, free from all opposition, he shall enjoy the name of bishop, and the honor, and communion. This, however, in such a manner that he neither ordains, nor of his own authority takes possession of a church for sacred ministry, except if some bishop, of good will and out of love in Christ, should call him to himself, or if it should happen that his brother and fellow-bishop permits it. But if you should determine something even more indulgent in regard to him, this too will be pleasing to the holy council.

(Protodeutera 16; Peter of Alex. 10; Cyril of Alex. 2, 3).

— This canon stands in the Athenian Syntagma outside the numbering of the canons of the Council of Ephesus, and is found separately as: τῆς αὐτῆς ἁγίας καὶ οἰκουμενικῆς τρίτης συνόδου πρὸς τὴν ἐν Παμφυλίᾳ εὐαγὴ σύνοδον, περὶ Εὐσταθίου, τοῦ γενομένου αὐτῶν μητροπολίτου—“an epistle of this holy and ecumenical third council to the pious council of Pamphylia, concerning Eustathius, who had been their metropolitan.”[70] Apart from the other canons it is likewise found in the editions of Beveridge and Pitra;[71][72] it likewise stands apart in the newer Russian editions of the canons.[73] In the Slavonic Kormchaia the heading of this canon states: “this is the ninth canon.”[74] For the sake of the uniformity we wish to maintain in this edition of ours, we have adduced this canon as the ninth of the Third Ecumenical Council, rather than presenting it separately as a conciliar epistle.

In this canon of the Council of Ephesus the chief matter under discussion is the written resignation—βιβλίον παραιτήσεως, libellum abdicationis—which a bishop may tender in respect of his see.[75] Given the importance which this canon has by virtue of its content, in our commentary on this canon we shall direct our attention 1) to what significance, under the law of the Orthodox Church, attaches to a resignation which a bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch tenders in respect of his see, and 2) to whom that resignation must be tendered and who, according to the canons of the Church, is called upon to accept it.

The canons of the Orthodox Church decisively condemn a bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch who tenders a resignation of the administration of that ecclesiastical province which has been entrusted to him by lawful authority—and should he tender such a resignation, he ceases that same instant to be a bishop, in the strictest sense of the word.

By the canons of the Church it was permitted to those who had been elected to an episcopal see to renounce it freely, should they wish—save that in such a case they had to declare this before their consecration; for if such a declaration was made known after consecration, it was not only disregarded, but he who persisted in such a declaration was subjected to excommunication from the general communion of the Church. In one single case could such a declaration be taken into account, and the person concerned not be subjected to condemnation—namely, when the people and clergy of an ecclesiastical province refused to receive the bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch appointed by lawful conciliar authority.

According to the sense of the 17th canon of the Council of Antioch, no bishop may abandon the see entrusted to him; should he do so, he is summoned to resume it, and if even then he refuses to submit, but remains obstinate in his resignation, he is deposed from the episcopal dignity and excommunicated. This was the general norm in the Church. Zonaras interprets this canon thus: “He who is called to govern a church, and yet abandons the office entrusted to him, let him be excommunicated, that is, let him be reckoned as deposed (ἀκοινώνητος ἔσται, ἥγουν καθαιρεθείς), until he resume it anew. And if he obstinately refuses to submit, let him be altogether excluded from communion (διόλου ἔσται ἀκοινώνητος), unless the full (τελεία) council should determine otherwise concerning him.”[76] An exception was allowed, as we have said, only when the clergy and people refused to receive the one elected. The 36th Apostolic canon speaks of this clearly. Balsamon, in interpreting this apostolic canon, says: “In this way this canon establishes that a bishop who has been appointed to the teaching office (χειροθεσίαν δέξηται διδασκαλικήν) and refuses to fulfill the office entrusted to him must be excommunicated, until he consents to take up the place entrusted to him. But if he should go, and the people refuse to receive him, in such a case let the clergy of that place—which did not know how to teach the people as it ought—be subjected to excommunication, without any regard to whether that clergy is at fault in this matter or not. The bishop meanwhile retains his honor.”[77] In this one case alone, then, could a bishop who had not been in charge of his church retain the honor and name of bishop—otherwise he was finally deposed.

This fundamental norm of the Church—that a bishop is deposed who abandons the see entrusted to him by lawful authority, without being compelled to it by the circumstance foreseen in the 36th Apostolic canon—found its best expression in this our 9th canon of the Third Ecumenical Council. The question which occasioned the issuing of this canon shows us most clearly what the practice of the ancient Church was regarding the abandonment of sees, and what rule was to hold good for this in future.

At the seventh session of the Council of Ephesus a question was examined concerning a certain Eustathius, who had been metropolitan in Pamphylia.[78] This Eustathius, according to the words of this canon (or of the epistle addressed to the council of Pamphylia), being faint of heart and weak, frightened by the struggle to secure his own rights and unable to withstand the harassment of his adversaries, tendered to his own council (that of Pamphylia, the one that had appointed him) a written resignation (βιβλίον παραιτήσεως, libellum abdicationis) of the see of the primate of the provincial church of Pamphylia. The council found it fitting to accept the resignation of such a metropolitan, and at once elected and appointed another in his place, the bishop Theodore. Eustathius experienced, as was entirely natural, the consequences of such an act of his—namely, he was excommunicated and deprived of his episcopal rank and honor. Theodore himself pitied the condition of Eustathius, but it lay beyond his power and that of his council to help him in any way.[79] When the Council of Ephesus assembled, Eustathius, terribly burdened by the humbled state he had himself brought about, urged on by this same Theodore, turned to the ecumenical council, begging that out of mercy the right be granted him at least to bear the name of bishop: Προσῆλθε κλαίων, οὐ περὶ τῆς πόλεως, οὐδὲ τῆς ἐκκλησίας φιλονεικῶν τῷ θεοσεβηστάτῳ ἐπισκόπῳ Θεοδώρῳ, ἐξαιτῶν δὲ τέως τὴν τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τιμὴν καὶ κλῆσιν—“he came forward weeping, not contending for the city or the church against the most God-fearing bishop Theodore, but asking only for the honor and title of bishop.”

He could not seek such mercy from the council of Pamphylia, for that council would have been bound to hold to the existing norms, and so could not have granted his petition—the canon being clear that any bishop who abandons his see is to be excommunicated. Eustathius knew this well, and therefore turned with his petition to the ecumenical council, as the only body empowered to alter, within the bounds of the fundamental canons, the decision of a provincial council. The ecumenical council took Eustathius’s petition into detailed examination, and, after a thorough review of the matter, fully approved the act of the council of Pamphylia, and fully recognized as lawful the consequence to which Eustathius had subjected himself by his own act. Wishing nevertheless to show indulgence to the humbled condition of Eustathius and to help him within the bounds of what was possible, it addressed a special epistle to the council of Pamphylia, informing it that, having taken into account Eustathius’s petition, it had permitted him to remain in ecclesiastical communion and to enjoy the name and honor of bishop.

And to show the full exceptionality of such a decision, and the direction which must always prevail in the Church in similar matters, the council adds: “He deserves condemnation, for once he had undertaken the hierarchical headship, he ought to have held to it without ceasing, with spiritual fortitude, without regard to toil, and to have borne willingly the sweat that would have brought him rich reward. Your piety wisely understood this negligence of his… and, acting according to the established order and with the good intention that the church should not remain a widow, nor the flock of the Savior without a shepherd, appointed in his place… Theodore, to govern the church. But now Eustathius has come to us with tearful eyes, begging not that the city or the church be restored to him, but only that he be permitted to bear the honor and name of bishop… We by no means intend to condemn your piety for having appointed, as indeed you ought, the aforesaid most pious bishop in his place; but, holding that indulgence ought to be shown to a feeble man, and mercy to an old man, we have permitted him freely to bear the name and honor of bishop and to remain in the general communion, but without the right to perform sacred ministrations or to ordain on his own authority.” As can be seen, for the fathers of the Council of Ephesus it was an entirely novel thing for a bishop to tender his resignation of his see, and they even express their astonishment at such an occurrence—οὐκ ἴσμεν ὅπως (“we know not how”)—and for that reason they speak so severely of Eustathius in their epistle, and so favorably of the council of Pamphylia and its decision, so as thereby to justify the exceptional character of their own decision in this matter, and to show that this decision of theirs could hold good only for that particular case, and by no means was to stand as a norm in the Church.

Some have thought it possible to prove, on the basis of this epistle of the Council of Ephesus, that thereby the Council of Ephesus establishes a canon and gives bishops the right to tender resignations of their sees at will, without thereby being subject to excommunication. Balsamon decisively rejects such a claim as false—οὐκ ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο ἀληθές—and, to demonstrate the groundlessness of such a claim, he notes that this decision of the fathers of the Council of Ephesus was made because they wished to show indulgence, and that what is decided out of indulgence, merely to attain some momentary purpose, cannot be adduced as a precedent and held as a rule for the future—τὸ οὕτω παρὰ τῶν πατέρων διορισθέν, κατ᾽ οἰκονομίας λόγον ὡρίσθη, καὶ οὐ χρὴ τὸ κατ᾽ οἰκονομίαν διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον εἰσενεχθέν, εἰς ὑπόδειγμα ἕλκεσθαι, καὶ ὡς κανόνα κρατεῖν εἰς τὸ ἑξῆς… That the βιβλίον παραιτήσεως (libellum abdicationis) on the part of a bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch was unknown before the Council of Ephesus, that such a resignation was regarded as unlawful and entailed deprivation of rank, that even after the Council of Ephesus such an act continued to be subject to condemnation, and that therefore even in present-day church practice it must be regarded as unlawful and deserving of canonical condemnation, that is, of deposition, when a bishop abandons his see and seeks to retire without a canonically justified reason for it—all this is shown most plainly by this very canon of the Council of Ephesus. This is best explained to us by Zonaras in his commentary on this canon, which we here reproduce in the original: Ἐκ ταύτης συνοδικῆς οἰκονομίας οἴονταί τινὲς ἐνδεδόσθαι τοῖς ἐπισκόποις παραιτεῖσθαι τὰς ἐκκλησίας αὐτῶν, τὴν δὲ ἀρχιερωσύνην παρακρατεῖν. Οἶμαι δὲ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἐντεῦθεν καταλαμβάνεσθαι ὅτι πάλαι οἱ τὰς ἐπισκοπὰς παραιτούμενοι, εἰ τέως ἐδέχοντο, πάντων ἐξέπιπτον, καὶ οὔτε ἀρχιερατικόν τι δίκαιον μετὰ τὴν παραίτησιν εἶχον, οὔτε ἐπίσκοπον ὠνομάζοντο. Εἰ γὰρ ἦν ἔθος, ὥστε τὸν παραιτησάμενον ἀρχιερατικὰ δίκαια ἔχειν, τί δήποτε ὁ Εὐστάθιος μετὰ δακρύων προσῄει τῇ ἱερᾷ συνόδῳ, καὶ ᾐτεῖτο καλεῖσθαι ἐπίσκοπος καὶ ἐπισκόπου ἔχειν τιμήν; καὶ ἡ σύνοδος ἔγραφε περὶ τούτου τῇ κατὰ Παμφυλίαν συνόδῳ; Μᾶλλον μὲν οὖν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ταύτης, καὶ τὸ ὅλον παραιτεῖσθαι τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς τὰς ἐπισκοπὰς οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον φαίνεται εἶναι, οὐδὲ γίνεσθαι τότε, λεγούσης, ὡς, ἀπειρηκὼς πρὸς τὰς φροντίδας ἐκ πολλῆς ἀπραγμοσύνης, παραιτήσεως, οὐχ ἴσμεν ὅπως, προσεκόμισε βιβλίον. “Ἔδει γὰρ, ὡς, ἅπαξ ἐγκεχειρισμένον ἱερατικὴν φροντίδα, ταύτης ἔχεσθαι μετ’ εὐρωστίας πνευματικῆς καὶ οἷον ἀνταποδύεσθαι τοῖς πόνοις, καὶ ἱδρῶτα τὸν ἔμμισθον ἐθελοντὶ ὑπομένειν… Ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔθος ἦν παραιτήσεις ἐκκλησιῶν γίνεσθαι τότε, ἐμφαίνεται ἀπὸ τοῦ γράψαι τὴν σύνοδον, ὡς, οὐκ ἴσμεν ὅπως παραιτήσεως προσεκόμισε βιβλίον. Ξενιζομένων γὰρ ἐπὶ τῇ πράξει, καὶ ἀπορούντων ἦν τὸ λέγειν, ὡς, οὐκ ἴσμεν ὅπως ἐγένετο τόδε· εἰ δὲ συνήθως ἐγίνετο, οὐκ ἂν ἠπορεῖτο. Τὸ δ’ ἐπιφέρειν, ἔδει γὰρ, ὡς ἅπαξ ἐγκεχειρισμένον ἱερατικὴν φροντίδα, ἔχεσθαι ταύτης, καὶ τὰ ἐξῆς, δίδωσιν ἐννοεῖν, ὅτι τὸ παραιτεῖσθαι τὰς ἱερατικὰς φροντίδας οὐκ ἐπιτετραμμένον, ἀλλ’ ἀποτετραμμένον μᾶλλον ἐστι, καὶ ὑπ’ αἰτίασιν.”[80][81]

Confirmation of this thought of the fathers of the Council of Ephesus regarding the resignation which a bishop may tender of his see we find in the 3rd canon of Cyril of Alexandria. This canon concerns a certain Peter, who was bishop of a city in the province of Antioch, and who tendered a resignation of his see and was for that reason deposed. “He gave his resignation,” we read in this canon, “not of his own will, but from necessity, from fear, and because some threatened him. But setting this aside, it in no way accords with the institutions of the Church that sacred persons should tender resignations; for if they are worthy to serve, let them remain in service; if they are not, let them be removed from service, but in no way by resignation, but by judgment.”[82] The primate of the Alexandrian church sees in such an act a decisive illegality, and declares that it must necessarily entail deposition and excommunication from the general communion; he sets forth the reason that, if one is worthy to occupy a hierarchical office in the Church, he must always remain in that office; if he is not worthy of such an office, he must be removed by ecclesiastical judgment, but by no means be permitted to tender a resignation—whether voluntary or extorted, it is all the same. “It is unlawful,” says Balsamon in his commentary on this canon, “and stands in decisive opposition to the institutions of the Church, when sacred persons abandon their churches—καὶ τοῦτο ἀνίσχυρόν ἐστιν, ὡς μὴ τοῖς θεσμοῖς τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀρέσκον, τὸ παραιτεῖσθαι τοὺς ἱερουργοὺς τὰς ἐκκλησίας αὐτῶν.”[83]

The same we find in the 10th canon of Peter of Alexandria. In this canon those are condemned in the most decisive manner who abandon their sees, especially on occasions when the church is in danger and they abandon it to the mercy of its enemies. The canon adduces the words of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, who said that it would be dearest to him to die and to be with Christ, yet to remain in the flesh is more needful for your sake[84] — and to condemnation are given over those who flee from their posts in precisely those hours when they ought in especial measure to be present, to save their flock and guide it with counsel, to teach and console it. Of such men, says the canon, the words of the evangelist Luke apply best, who says: “this man began to build, and was not able to finish”[85] — and he is therefore worthy of contempt.[86]

Such was the practice of the Church in this matter. It is unlawful, and stands in opposition to the canons of the Church, to tender resignations—this was the general principle that prevailed, and everyone who tendered such a resignation and persisted obstinately in it was subjected to canonical punishment—he was deposed and deprived of the general communion.

In the 9th century the severity of the practice hitherto observed was in some measure softened, although in substance it still remained, and the tendering of resignations of sees did not cease to be regarded as contrary to the canons. The council held in 861 in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople touches in its 16th canon upon the question of the resignation of bishops. Properly speaking, this canon speaks of the resignation of a patriarch, for, as appears from the conciliar acts, this canon was issued on the occasion of Ignatius, who was at that time patriarch of Constantinople. The council, yielding to the circumstances of the time, acknowledges that in certain cases a tendered resignation may be accepted, but that in such a case, before it is accepted, certain preconditions must unconditionally be observed—namely, that the resignation must be tendered to the council concerned, which must ascertain the cause for which it is tendered, and only then was it accepted or not accepted: χρὴ γὰρ πρότερον τὴν αἰτίαν τοῦ μέλλοντος τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἐκδιώκεσθαι κανονικῶς ἐξεταζομένην εἰς πέρας ἄγεσθαι—“it is necessary first to bring to completion the canonical examination of the cause for which the person concerned wishes to withdraw from the episcopate.” This procedure was strictly observed, and under no circumstances was it permitted to appoint a new primate to a see unless a strict conciliar examination had shown that the resignation could truly be accepted. But even here, the fathers of the council speak most harshly of those who tender resignations, regarding their act as faintheartedness and worthy of contempt. In interpreting this canon, Balsamon says: Πολλάκις τινὲς ἐπίσκοποι διὰ ἐπηρείας πρακτορικάς, ἢ διὰ ἐπιθέσεις γειτονούντων, ἢ δι’ ἀνυποταξίαν λαοῦ, παρητοῦντο ἀπὸ μικροψυχίας τὰς οἰκείας ἐπισκοπάς—“Many times certain bishops, whether from fear of insolent officials, or from fear of the assaults of neighbors, or because the people would not willingly obey them, faintheartedly abandon their sees.”[87] The consequences of such a resignation, if accepted for the causes examined, were in no way different from the consequences which the 9th canon of the Third Ecumenical Council and the 3rd canon of Cyril of Alexandria attached to those who tendered them: ὁ τοιοῦτος τῆς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τιμῆς τε καὶ ἀξίας ἀλλοτριωθήσεται παντελῶς—“such a one must be wholly deprived of the honor and dignity of a bishop,” add the fathers of the First-and-Second council, speaking of one whose tendered resignation was accepted. There is, accordingly, not a word either in this or in any other canon of the Orthodox Church about any sort of retirement pension, still less about rewards for such an act. All of them speak only and exclusively of such a bishop being deposed and excommunicated from the general communion—and nothing more. In general, the aforementioned canon of the First-and-Second council speaks only of the need to examine the reasons why one tenders a resignation, and that “on account of the disputes and confusions that occur in the church of God,” as the canon says—in other respects, it remains in full agreement in this regard with the institution of Cyril of Alexandria and other canons, as Balsamon aptly observes in interpreting this canon: “this canon says nothing other than what the canon of Cyril of Alexandria says.”[88]

It must be supposed that it was advantageous for many to tender resignations of their sees when these no longer pleased them, or when they had had their fill of them, and that they therefore sought by every means to justify such resignations and, naturally, to escape the canonically established consequences that fell upon those who tendered them. Balsamon noticed this and decisively refutes them by the authority of the church canons in his commentaries on the Nomocanon of Fourteen Titles—and, answering those who strove to justify the theory of resignations by appealing to particular examples from church practice, and especially to a wrongly interpreted canon of the Third Ecumenical Council, he says: Οἱ δὲ λέγοντες, ὀφείλειν ὡς κανόνα τὴν περὶ τῶν παραιτήσεων μακρὰν συνήθειαν κρατεῖν, οὐ καλῶς λέγουσι· μακρὰ γὰρ συνήθεια ἄγραφος οὐ κρατεῖ, ἔνθα ἐγγράφῳ νόμῳ ἢ κανόνι ἐναντιοῦται—“those who say that a long-standing custom regarding resignations ought to prevail as a canon do not speak well; for a long unwritten custom has no force where it is contrary to a written law or canon.”[89]

As to the question of whom a resignation of a see must be tendered to, in the certain cases precisely indicated by the canons, it would be superfluous even to speak. To this question there can be only one answer. Not only positive law, but plain common sense as well teaches that only he who can give something to someone can also take it from him: “he who has the right to give something has the right also to take it away, and he who cannot give something cannot take it away either,” we read in the Institutes of Justinian.[90] In the canonical epistle, or 9th canon, of the Council of Ephesus, it speaks of Eustathius, who tendered a βιβλίον παραιτήσεως, a written resignation of his see, to the council of Pamphylia, and that this was accepted by that council. The same is said in the canonical epistle, or 3rd canon, of Cyril of Alexandria concerning Peter, who tendered a similar resignation to the council of Antioch, and the council, having accepted it, deposed him. Both Eustathius and Peter had been appointed by councils—the first by that of Pamphylia, the second by that of Antioch. It is to these same councils that they now turn, tendering their resignations. And they act entirely correctly in this, for he who has the right to give has the right also to take away, or, that which is received from someone by a lawful process must likewise be returned by a lawful process—any other course is an anomaly. Eustathius received his see from the council of Pamphylia, and it is to that same council that he now returns it, to dispose of it as it will; Peter received his see from the council of Antioch, and it is to that same council that he tenders his resignation of it. And their resignations, regardless of whether they were justified, are entirely regular, for they were presented to the authorities that alone and exclusively are competent to adjudicate upon them. Accordingly, if a resignation is not tendered to the competent authority concerned, it is of no significance whatsoever, it is null, nor can it be regarded as a resignation at all, for the competent authority knows nothing of it and consequently cannot adjudicate upon it. Of a case in which a resignation was ever tendered by a bishop of his see to any authority other than a conciliar one, we know nothing in the history of our law; nor could such a case have occurred, for no authority other than a conciliar one could receive such a resignation from a bishop, according to that general principle which we have set forth above. The conciliar authority, then, or more precisely, that authority which appointed a given bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch—that authority alone can be the judge of the bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch, it alone can adjudicate upon a resignation tendered to it and accept or refuse it—every other authority is incompetent in this matter.

The best evidence of this is the deference shown by the fathers of the Council of Ephesus toward the council of Pamphylia, which had deposed Eustathius. For all its supreme authority, the ecumenical council does not allow itself even remotely to arrogate to itself the right that belongs to that council in this matter. It solemnly approves the decision of the council of Pamphylia as fully and exclusively competent to decide upon the errant metropolitan—and, although by its own authority, as the highest power in the Church, it could have altered the decision of the lesser council and annulled it, it nevertheless does not permit itself to do so, for it would thereby have touched upon rights guaranteed by law to that council, and would thus have touched something sacred which no one may touch. “You have acted,” say the fathers of the council, addressing the members of the council of Pamphylia, “according to the established order…. nor are we in the least minded to condemn your piety… but, holding that indulgence ought to be shown to a feeble man and mercy to an old man, we have found it right to permit him to bear the name and honor of bishop; and if you now, or hereafter, should find it good to grant him yet more, this too will be most pleasing to the holy council”—in other words: we have granted this much out of indulgence and mercy—we could give him nothing more, for that lies beyond the bounds of our authority; it is your exclusive right to decide concerning the bishop whom you have elected, you alone therefore are competent to reach one or another decision about him, nor can anyone take that right from you—not even we, who constitute the highest ecclesiastical authority, an authority above which there is no other in the Church.

Accordingly, the state authority too, which by the canons has a rightful part in the election of ecclesiastical primates—bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs—cannot, apart from the council, the chief and first factor in the election, receive and decide, on its own, upon a resignation which an ecclesiastical primate tenders of his see.

By the canons, the state authority has its rightful part in the appointment of bishops, and especially in the appointment of primate-bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs.

What significance does this participation have? In our commentary on the 4th canon of the First Ecumenical Council we saw that the people and the bishops had direct participation in the election of ecclesiastical primates. This right belonged to them exclusively. In the course of time the right to participate in elections was recognized by the Church as belonging to the state authority as well, and this, in the words of Socrates, because in the state authority there was observed as much zeal for the flourishing of the Church and as much concern for the Church’s advancement as was sometimes not observed even in the people itself.[91] This right was properly recognized as belonging to the state authority from the time it became Christian. Constantine already makes use of this right; but in what sense and to what end? To remove possible disorders at elections and to secure the preservation of the church canons. “Nullis se electionibus SS. interposuerat Constantinus, nisi ut dissensiones compesceret, canonesque suaderet observari”, we read in Eusebius.[92] And this was the general norm in the Church. When the Antiochenes elected Eusebius as their ecclesiastical primate, Constantine writes to them and urges them to hold to the sacred canons, whose sanctity may not be violated by anyone.[93] Constantius wished to abuse the right granted him by the Church, and arbitrarily decreed that George should occupy the see of Alexandria. The unlawfulness of such an attempt was at once cast in his face by Athanasius the Great. “Cur”, he writes, “cum se ecclesiasticum canonem curae habere praetexit, omnia contra canonem facit? Ubi enim ille canon, ut e palatio mittatur is, qui episcopus futurus est?” — “Why, when he wishes to be called a guardian of the church canons, does he act in everything contrary to the canons? Where is that canon by which the court may send the man who is to become bishop?”[94] And in another place the same father says: “Postulandos esse episcopos cleri populique votis, non vi intrudendos, contra civium voluntatem”—“A bishop must be chosen by the clergy and the people, and by no means may he be imposed by force and against the will of the people.”[95] Valentinian, in the election of Ambrose of Milan, took the same kind of part as Constantine—a mediating, reconciling part. Disagreement had prevailed among the people as to who should be appointed to the vacant see of Milan, and after long disputes all agreed, by divine inspiration as Socrates says, upon the devout Ambrose: “Episcopis, qui aderant, videbatur haec consentiens populi vox divinitus sane emissa”.[96] But Ambrose was not yet baptized, and hesitated whether to accept the office offered him. Valentinian, to whom all turned, had to decide the matter, and he wrote to the clergy and people that in this election he discerned the will of God, and that he saw no reason why they should not proceed to the consecration.[97] Theodoret presents this event to us even better, and shows what significance Valentinian attached to his own right of participation in the election of ecclesiastical primates. When the people and clergy could not agree on whom to elect as primate of their church, the council turned to the emperor, begging him to declare himself, by his own wisdom, in favor of one or the other of the candidates. The emperor refused their request, and, considering himself not in the least authorized in this matter, reminded them of the church canons and told them that they must know the worthy better than he: “Concilium contendit ab imperatore, ut ipse, utpote sapientiae et pietatis insignibus praeditus et exornatus, episcopum deligat. At ille: Major est haec provincia, quam quae viribus nostris sustineri queat. Vosque divina repleti gratia, et illius splendore illuminati, multo melius hoc episcopi deligendi negotium transigetis…”[98] When Ambrose was elected, the emperor greeted the new bishop and urged them to consecrate him at once. The same view of their own right is shown by Theodosius, when Nectarius was elected bishop of Constantinople;[99] Arcadius, when Chrysostom was elected;[100] Theodosius II, when Nestorius was elected[101]; and others. In general, we find in the first centuries of the Church that the state authority participated in elections, but solely and exclusively so that the church canons might be exactly preserved and that the conciliar election might thereby be made generally binding for the whole state.[102]

There is no change in this in the following centuries either. In the 6th century the participation of the state authority in elections appears to us equal to the participation held by the clergy and people. As an example we may mention Epiphanius, who, in a letter to his pope Hormisdas after his election and consecration, writes that in his election there took part the emperor, the empress, all the great men of state, together with the clergy, the monks, and the faithful people: “Sententia de electione christianissimi principis Justini et piissimae reginae, sequentiumque eorum, his quibus est bona conversatio et qui rectis honoribus sunt sublimiores, simul et sacerdotum et monachorum et fidelissimae plebis consensus accessit.”[103] The emperor Justinian established by his 123rd Novel that three persons must be chosen, and that the best of them be appointed to the vacant see: “Sancimus, quoties opus fuerit episcopum ordinari, clericos et primates civitatis, cujus vacans est episcopus, ordinaturi, mox in tribus personis decreta facere… ut ex tribus personis, pro quibus talia decreta facta sunt, melior ordinetur, electione et periculo ordinantis—ὁ βελτίων χειροτονηθῇ τῇ ἐπισκοπῇ καὶ τῷ χρίσματι τοῦ χειροτονοῦντος.” Should there happen to be no three worthy persons, let two be chosen, or even one—and if within six months the choice falls on no one, then, by the provision of the same Novel, the one who is to hold the first place at the consecration chooses himself: “Si vero non inveniuntur tres personae ad talem electionem opportune, liceat decreta facientibus, in duabus vel in una persona decretum facere. Si vero qui debent episcopum eligere, citius ipsa decreta intra sex menses non faciant, tunc periculo propriae animae, illi, quem competit ordinare episcopum, ordinet.”[104] As can be seen, Justinian does not even remotely think of arrogating to himself some new right not granted him by the church canons. At least in this last case he could have arrogated to himself some right—but he does not do even that, for he will not violate the canons. He grounds this provision of his on old custom—“Secundum priscam consuetudinem.” This decision of Justinian’s we find repeated afterward also in the 137th Novel.[105] The people and clergy choose three, and the first bishop—metropolitanus, vel consecrator quicumque alius—was to choose one of them. The emperor, as can be seen, does not even dream of any particular right of his own in this, of a right to impose his own candidate. He establishes only the norm by which the clergy and people are to elect, and grants his confirmation in advance, and grants it in order that this conciliar act might be binding upon every citizen, just as every other act of state. When afterward individual emperors wished to abuse this by their own power, they were always condemned, and every such act of theirs, once it had been examined and found deserving of condemnation, was annulled. Here is one example. Copronymus, scorning the church canons, imposed, bypassing the lawful election, upon the church of Constantinople as its primate one of his own favorites, who was distinguished by no piety whatsoever. The clergy and people rose up against such a violation of the canons, condemning this act and calling it tyrannical: “Facti odium quendam nactus, cui et nomen erat idem et eadem fidei sententia erat, ei, proscelestum facinus! ecclesiae curam administrationemque committit. Non patrum electione, non synodi examinatione, non denique canonico suffragio atque decreto, sed tyrannica potius potestate, antistitem ipsum constituens.”[106] And the emperor was forced quickly to revoke his act and content himself with seeing at his court his friend—a patriarch, but stripped of all jurisdiction in the Church. — Other emperors, too, attempted to arrogate to themselves in elections a right that did not belong to them, but their attempts were always thwarted.[107]

The participation of the state authority in the election of bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs thus had the character of oversight, so that the institutions of the Church might be secured from violation, and of recognition, on the part of that same authority, of the conciliar act once the requisite church institutions had been exactly observed. And that such indeed was the significance of this participation, we may here adduce one authoritative testimony. At the installation of the patriarch of Constantinople, one of the chief officiants at that ceremony declares: “Our mighty and pious lord and emperor, and the holy and great council, summon your holiness to the great throne of the patriarchate of Constantinople.” On the strength of these words it has seemed possible to some to prove that they signify that it is the emperor who appoints the patriarch and that the council has here only a secondary, subordinate significance, and, when the question arose of a patriarch’s withdrawal from his see, they maintained that this withdrawal was dependent on the emperor alone and could be accepted by him alone, independently of the council. Symeon of Thessalonica[108], in order to remove every false interpretation of this, says in his well-known treatise “On the Sacred Rites” that the whole part of the emperor in this consists in his appearing there as the executor of the conciliar decision, and that he does this not by any particular authority of his own, but by the authority granted him by the Church as its defender and protector: “Testantur haec verba, quod imperator, non a se ipso, sed quae synodus statuit, simul cum synodo pronuntiat, et solum ministerium hic praebet. Qua propter nugantur quidam rerum novarum inventores, invidia parta, cum dicunt, imperator creat patriarcham. Nullo modo id facit imperator, sed synodus ministrante pio imperatore, non tantum quoniam defensor est, et imperator unctus ab ecclesia, sed etiam ut cooperetur, et ministret, et adjuvet, et firma conservet, quae ad ecclesiam spectant”[109] — these words show that it is not the emperor who establishes this by himself, but together with the council and in the sense determined by the council, offering only his own cooperation. Mistaken, accordingly, are those inventors of novelties who, moved by envy, maintain that the emperor appoints the patriarch. It is by no means the emperor who does this, but the council, and the emperor takes part in it out of his own piety, and this not only because he is the defender of the Church and an anointed emperor, but so that by his help and participation he may protect the acts of the Church and render them generally binding! And further, informing those who ground their claim that the emperor appoints the patriarch on the fact that the emperor gives the patriarch the staff at the installation, he tells them that the emperor does not give this of himself, but as the plenipotentiary of the Church, and that he then bows before him and kisses his hand: “Non igitur creat illum patriarcham, neque illi dat aliquid, sed operi jam facto consentit, et obsequitur. Clarum est enim, quod nihil ei dat, sed potius ab eo accipit, et veluti minister est rerum ecclesiasticarum; nam cum electio sacram virgam propria manu tradidit, ad eum accedit, et illi caput inclinat, et aperit, et sicut moris est, benedictionem accipit, osculaturque electi patriarchae manum. Clarius adhuc patet, imperatorem nihil illi dare, sed haec facere ut ostendat se amorem in ecclesiam ferre et demonstret se ecclesiam honorare, non ut ecclesiae imperet”—he himself does not appoint the patriarch, nor does he give him anything, but declares his assent to a deed already accomplished, and submits himself to it. And that he gives him nothing, but on the contrary receives from him, and performs the office of a co-participant in the work of the Church, is clearly seen from the fact that, having handed the holy staff to the one elected with his own hand, he approaches him according to custom and bows his head, thereby removing his cap, receives a blessing, and kisses the hand of the elected patriarch. Still more clearly is it seen from this that he himself thereby gives him nothing, but does this to show the love which he bears toward the Church, and that he honors the Church, and does not lord it over her.[110]

After this testimony of the blessed Symeon of Thessalonica, any further discussion of the significance of the state authority’s participation in the appointment of ecclesiastical primates is superfluous. Its entire participation consisted in this, that the state authority solemnly declared its recognition of the conciliar act, and thereby gave that act the character of being generally binding for the whole state.

Accordingly, the answer to the last question we posed in this our commentary on the 9th canon of the Third Ecumenical Council—whether the state authority, which participates in the election of ecclesiastical primates, may, independently of the other factors that participate in the election, that is, independently of the council, receive and decide of its own accord, without the council, upon a resignation which an ecclesiastical primate should happen to tender of his see—the answer to such a question, according to the law of the Orthodox Church and to church practice, justified by all the centuries of the Church’s existence, can be, we say, none other than negative.

According to the teaching, then, of the law of the Orthodox Church, no bishop, on whatever hierarchical degree he may stand, may tender a resignation of the see entrusted to him; and should he tender one, he ceases, in the strict sense of the word, to be a bishop—that is, he loses all the rights that belong to him as a bishop by the canons, even the right to bear the name of bishop, unless the competent canonical authority should, in a particular manner and out of mercy, permit him even this last—and his see, as a consequence, remains entirely vacant, exactly as if he had died; there arises, accordingly, a true canonical sede vacante, to which, by the canons, an end must be put, either at once or at the latest within three months, by the election and appointment of a new bishop. As to a tendered resignation, the right to adjudicate upon it belongs solely and exclusively to that authority which entrusted the see in question to him; the council by right elects and entrusts a certain see to one man, the council therefore alone is empowered to accept or not accept a resignation tendered to it, while the state authority has in this exactly as much part as it had when the person in question was appointed to the see concerned.