Canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (In Trullo, 691-2), 1–12

Canon 1

When any discourse or any work is begun, the best order, in the words of the theologian, is to begin from God and to end with God. Accordingly, since we today solemnly proclaim piety, and the Church, whose foundation is Christ, grows and prospers day by day, so that it rises above the cedars of Lebanon, now beginning this sacred discourse, we establish by the grace of God that the faith delivered to us by the eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, the God-chosen Apostles, must be kept pure of every innovation and unimpaired; and next, the confession of faith of the three hundred and eighteen holy and blessed fathers who assembled at Nicaea in the time of Constantine, formerly our emperor, against the impious Arius and the pagan polytheism, or rather many-godhood, devised by him, and who with one accord in faith disclosed and made clear the consubstantiality of the God-original nature in three hypostases, and who, not allowing this to remain hidden under the judgment of ignorance, plainly taught the faithful to honor with one honor the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, refuted and overthrew the teaching of unequal degrees of Godhead, and pulled down and destroyed the childish sand-built structures raised by the heretics against Orthodoxy. In the same way we also confirm the confession of faith proclaimed by the hundred and fifty holy fathers assembled in this imperial city in the time of Theodosius the Great, formerly our emperor, accepting what they declared concerning the Holy Spirit as God, and rejecting the impious Macedonius together with the earlier enemies of the truth, as one who presumptuously dared to proclaim as a servant Him Who is Lord, and who, like a robber, wished to cut asunder the undivided Unity, so that our hope’s mystery should not be complete for us. Together with the abominable Macedonius, raving against the truth, we also condemn Apollinaris, the deviser of wickedness, who impiously blurted out that the Lord took a body without mind and without soul, and thus that our salvation was not complete. Likewise we set our seal upon the teaching set forth by the two hundred God-bearing fathers assembled the first time in the city of Ephesus in the time of Theodosius, son of Arcadius, our emperor, as an unshakable rule of piety, confessing the one Christ, Son of God, incarnate, and glorifying the ever-virgin Mother, who bore Him without seed, in the strict sense and in truth, as Theotokos; and we reject, as cast off from the divine portion, the vain division of Nestorius, who teaches that Christ is separately a man and separately God, and who raised anew the impiety of the Jews. Equally we confirm as orthodox the confession of faith drawn up by the six hundred and thirty God-chosen fathers in the metropolis of Chalcedon in the time of Marcian, who was likewise our emperor, and which confession proclaimed loudly to all the ends of the earth that the one Christ, Son of God, consists of two natures, and that He must be glorified in these two natures; and it cast out from the holy places of the Church, as a raving monster and as a plague, the vain-minded Eutyches, who taught that the great mystery of the work of our salvation was accomplished only in appearance, and together with Eutyches, also Nestorius and Dioscorus, of whom the one was the champion and first fighter for division, and the other for confusion, but who, from opposite sides of impiety, fell headlong into one abyss of ruin and godlessness. Likewise we acknowledge and hand down as sacred to our descendants that which the hundred and sixty-five God-bearing fathers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, assembled in this imperial city, piously proclaimed in the time of Justinian, of blessed memory, formerly our emperor. In council they delivered to anathema and rejected Theodore of Mopsuestia, the teacher of Nestorius, and Origen, and Didymus, and Evagrius, who brought forward anew the fables of the Greeks, and in their dreamings and fantasies of mind put forward for display a certain transmigration and transformation of bodies and souls, and impiously and senselessly rose up against the resurrection of the dead; likewise also what Theodoret wrote against the true faith and against the Twelve Chapters of the blessed Cyril, and the so-called Letter of Ibas. We bind ourselves anew to keep unimpaired the confession of faith of the holy Sixth Council, lately held in this imperial city in the time of our emperor Constantine, of holy memory, and which gained greater force in that our pious emperor, in order to secure the institutions of that council for all ages, confirmed them with his own seal—the confession of faith by which we have been taught in godly manner to confess two natural wills or volitions, and two natural energies, in the one Lord Jesus Christ our true God, incarnate for our salvation, and which by the judgment of piety condemned those who perverted the true dogma of truth, teaching the peoples that there is one will and one energy in the one Lord our God, Jesus Christ; and it condemned by name: Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Honorius of Rome, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, who had been presiding bishops in this God-saved city, Macarius, formerly Bishop of Antioch, Stephen his disciple, and the senseless Polychronius, and thus preserved unimpaired the common body of Christ our God. In a word, we establish that the faith of all those men who were glorified in the Church of God, and who were the lights of the world, firmly holding the word of life, must stand fast and remain unshaken to the end of the ages, and likewise that their God-delivered writings and dogmas must also stand. We cast off and deliver to anathema all those whom they cast off and delivered to anathema, as enemies of the truth and as such who raved in vain against God and who wished to raise up iniquity on high. But if anyone does not keep and receive all the aforesaid dogmas of piety, and does not think and preach thus, but wishes to deny these same dogmas, let him be anathema, according to the decree already issued by the aforementioned holy and blessed fathers, and let him, as a stranger, be excluded and cast out from the roll of Christians. And after this we finally establish that nothing may be added to what has already been established before, nor anything taken away from it, and otherwise we could not have acted in this matter.

II Ecum. 1; IV Ecum. 7; Carthage 1, 2

— The first task of this council was, in the name of the ecumenical Church, to confess and solemnly confirm the Orthodox faith as it had been set forth at the earlier councils, and to deliver to anathema all those who had ever taught against that faith. Given the importance of the subject, the fathers of the council begin this canon of theirs with the words with which, in the year 362, Gregory the Theologian [Nazianzen] began his celebrated apologetic discourse on the reasons for which he left the see of Constantinople—namely, that every discourse and every work should begin from God and end with God.1 They confess and proclaim that the faith delivered to them by the Apostles and the holy fathers must be kept pure of every innovation and unimpaired (εἰ καινοτομητόν τε καὶ ἀπαράτρωτον φυλάττειν, nullam innovationem, immutabiliterque ac inviolabiliter esse servandam), and in particular all the dogmas of the faith issued at the ecumenical councils: the First of Nicaea (325), the First of Constantinople (381), of Ephesus (431), of Chalcedon (451), the Second of Constantinople (553), and the Third of Constantinople (680)—that is, at all the ecumenical councils held before this council.[1]

Thus every ecumenical council acted before beginning its own proceedings, that is, it would confess and confirm the dogmas set forth at the earlier councils. But the whole significance of the matter does not consist merely in the fact that all the ecumenical councils, and likewise this one, repeated the earlier dogmas of the faith; rather, that significance and force, according to the wise observation of Archimandrite Ioann in his commentary on this canon, consists, first, in the fact that the confession of the dogmas rests on the common, equal faith of all those men who were glorified in the Church of God and who were lights in the world, through their minds enlightened by God, through their pure knowledge of the truth, through their constancy in keeping that truth, and through the holiness of their life; and second, in the fact that the foundation and sanctity of the Orthodox confession is constituted by the uninterrupted tradition from the Apostles themselves—a tradition which is kept holy and unimpaired by the Orthodox Church as a deposit (παραθήκη, 1 Tim. 6:20; II Tim. 1:14).

Canon 2

This holy council determined, as most excellent and most worthy of the greatest care, that from henceforth, for the good of souls and the healing of the passions, the eighty-five canons received and confirmed by the holy and blessed fathers who were before us, and which have likewise been handed down to us in the name of the holy and glorious apostles, shall remain firm and unshaken. And since we are commanded in these canons to receive the ordinances of these same holy apostles issued through Clement, into which heterodox men have long since, to the harm of the Church, introduced certain spurious and impious things that have obscured for us the sublime beauty of the divine ordinances—therefore, for the correction and security of the Christian flock, we have judiciously set aside those same ordinances, in no wise admitting the offspring of heretical falsehood, nor mixing them into the pure and perfect apostolic teaching. With our seal we also attest all the other holy canons set forth by our holy and blessed fathers, namely: the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicaea, and thereafter those at Ancyra, then those at Neocaesarea, and likewise those at Gangra; besides these, those at Antioch in Syria, and also those at Laodicea in Phrygia; likewise the hundred and fifty fathers assembled in this God-guarded and imperial city, and the two hundred fathers gathered the first time in the metropolis of Ephesus, and the six hundred and thirty holy and blessed fathers assembled at Chalcedon; likewise those at Sardica, and those at Carthage, and also those who assembled again in this God-guarded and imperial city in the time of Nectarius, primate of this imperial city, and in the time of Theophilus, former archbishop of Alexandria; besides these, the canons of Dionysius, former archbishop of the great city of Alexandria, and of Peter, former archbishop of Alexandria and martyr, of Gregory, former bishop of Neocaesarea the Wonderworker, of Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, of Basil, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, of Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, of Gregory the Theologian, of Amphilochius of Iconium, of the first Timothy, former archbishop of Alexandria, of Theophilus, archbishop of the same great city of Alexandria, of Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, and of Gennadius, former patriarch of this God-guarded and imperial city; likewise also the canon issued by Cyprian, former archbishop of the land of Africa and martyr, and by the council held under him, which canon has been observed only in the places of the aforesaid primates of that council, according to the custom handed down to them. And let no one presume to alter or abolish the aforementioned canons, or to accept, instead of the canons here set forth, others fabricated under false titles by certain men who wished to traffic in the truth. And if anyone be shown to have attempted to replace or destroy any of the above-named canons, such a one shall be liable to the penance prescribed by that canon against which he has offended, and through it shall be healed of that in which he has sinned.

(Ap. 35; IV Ecum. VII Ecum. 1; Carthage 1; Protodeutera 10).

Among all the canons of the Orthodox Church, this one is by its significance among the most important—and for the science of canon law it is the most important of all others issued up to the year [illegible]. And this is because by this canon the canonical, ecumenical significance of hundreds of canons has been confirmed, which by their origin had significance and binding force only for individual regional churches, but now all these hundreds of canons acquire ecumenical and universally binding significance for the whole Church; here are meant all those canons issued by various local councils and holy fathers, beginning from the third century onward, not excluding even the apostolic canons. This canon also mentions the canons of the ecumenical councils held in the fourth and fifth centuries. The canons of those councils already had of themselves ecumenical significance, and when this council mentions them too, it does not do so in the same sense in which it speaks of the other canons, but wishes thereby to show how, even after several centuries, the canon of an ecumenical council must nevertheless always retain in the Church the significance and force of a strict law.

In proclaiming these canons universally binding upon each and every one, this council at the same time determines how one is to regard certain sources of law that until then held force in ecclesiastical practice, and thus in this respect too proclaims an important and general norm both for the life of the Church itself and for ecclesiastical law.

Of the canons that are henceforth to have the force of law for the whole Church, the council proclaims first of all the canons of the holy Apostles (85), then the canons of the ecumenical councils: of the first (20), the second (7), the third (9), and the fourth (30); further the canons of the local councils: of Ancyra (25), Neocaesarea (15), Gangra (21), Antioch (25), Laodicea (60), Sardica (21), Carthage of the year 419 (133), and Constantinople of the year 394 (1); and finally the canons of the holy fathers: of Dionysius of Alexandria (4), Peter of Alexandria (15), Gregory of Neocaesarea (11), Athanasius of Alexandria (3), Basil the Great (99), Gregory of Nyssa (8), Gregory the Theologian (1), Amphilochius of Iconium (1), Timothy of Alexandria (18), Theophilus of Alexandria (14), Cyril of Alexandria (5), and Gennadius of Constantinople (1)—in all, 625 canons. Of all these canons the council states that no one may alter or abolish them, or, instead of the canons here set forth, accept others fabricated under false titles by certain men who wished to traffic in the truth (μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι τοὺς προδηλωθέντας παραχαράττειν κανόνας, ἢ ἀθετεῖν, ἢ ἑτέρους παρὰ τοὺς προκειμένους παραδέχεσθαι κανόνας, ψευδεπιγράφως ὑπό τινων συντεθέντας, τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καπηλεύειν ἐπιχειρησάντων). If it be shown that anyone has attempted to replace or destroy any of the aforementioned canons, such a one shall be liable to the penance prescribed by the canon against which he has offended, and through it shall be healed of that in which he has sinned. The fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council say the very same thing in their 1st canon, having before them the canons enumerated in this Trullan canon and confirming the canons of the council in Trullo. In general, as to the requirement that ancient customs, ancient traditions, ancient law and canon be preserved, that nothing be introduced contrary to the conciliar and patristic canons, and that everyone who does not submit to these canons be cut off from the Church—of all this the ordinances of every council speak (I Ecum. 6, 7, 13, 18; II Ecum. 2, 7; III Ecum. 7, 8; of this council …, etc.).

Concerning the canons, the Orthodox bishop declares in his oath before consecration: “Объщаюся блюсти каноны святыхъ апостолъ и седми вселенскихъ, и благочестивыхъ помѣстныхъ соборовъ, иже на сохраненіе правыхъ велѣній суть узаконены, и елико по разнымъ, временомъ и лѣтомъ отъ истинно поборствующихъ по святѣй каѳоличестѣй восточнѣй православнѣй вѣрѣ, каноны и святыя уставы суть изображены, и та вся хранити крѣпцѣ и ненарушнѣ до кончины моея жизни съ симъ моимъ объщаніемъ свидѣтелствую; и вся, яже они пріяша, и азъ пріемлю, и ихъ же они отвратишася, и азъ отвращаюся” (т. 2). “Аще же объщанное здѣ мною что преступлю, или божественнымъ правиломъ явлюся противенъ, … тогда абіе да лишенъ буду всего сана своего и власти, безъ всякаго извѣта и слова, и чуждъ да явлюся дара небеснаго, при посвященіи возложеніемъ рукъ данна го мнѣ Духомъ святымъ” (т. 19). The Orthodox Confession teaches on the same subject: ‘One must believe that everything the holy fathers decreed at all the ecumenical and local councils, wherever they were held, proceeds from the Holy Spirit, just as the apostles said at their council: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us (Acts 15:28). Following their example, the rest of the Orthodox councils likewise confirmed their decrees.’

This, however, does not limit the authority of the Church in its further legislative activity, nor does it exclude the possibility that a given local church may have, according to its own particular circumstances, its own special laws. The legislative authority of the Church has always had, and will always have, the right, according to circumstances, to abolish old or issue new ordinances, remaining of course faithful to the fundamental principles expressed in the universal canon. Just as in former times one council would abolish, or give another form to, the individual decrees of earlier councils, so too today a new council, were one to convene, would have that same right. Thus the ordinance of the 2nd canon of the Council in Trullo does not limit the lawful legislative authority of the Church so that it could not alter any canon whatsoever; rather it only forbids that canons be altered in their very substance, contrary to the general laws and spirit of the Orthodox Church, in indulgence of human passions. This ordinance restricts only the arbitrary will of individuals, on whatever rung of the hierarchical ladder they may stand; it likewise restricts every local church from altering, contrary to the spirit of the general ecclesiastical law, any canon accepted by the universal Church; but it in no way restricts a competent authority equal to that which issued the given ordinance—that is, an ecumenical council—from issuing, in view of new needs of the Church, a new canon, while preserving the general spirit of the Church’s legal norms, or from giving a different form to an earlier canon. The truths of faith and morals are one and the same; they can never be altered and must always remain the same. But the canons of the external life of the Church can be altered, and have been altered, by the very life of the Church. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the fathers when, according to the needs of the Church of a given age, they issued their canons, has not ceased and will not cease to inspire the fathers when, at another time, in His name, they gather to alter, according to the new needs of the Church, earlier canons, or to issue new ones. Yet until a legislative body appears with the same competence that the Council in Trullo and the other ecumenical councils had in the matter of issuing canons, every canon that today forms part of the general canonical code, in conjunction with the other related canons of that same code, remains absolutely valid and strictly binding upon everyone who wishes to belong to the Church.

In proclaiming, in this way, the universal binding force upon every member of the Church of all canons confirmed and accepted by the universal Church, this same Council in Trullo, by its [illegible] canon, at the same time permits each local church to preserve and follow its own local customs. Each local church, according to the conditions in which it finds itself, may have, besides the general canons, its own special ecclesiastical law, by which it regulates its external life. This special law, however, must be consonant in its foundations with the general, fundamental canons of the Church, must be imbued with the spirit of the general law, and must strive, in its particularity, toward the same end to which the general ecclesiastical law strives. In this, every local church, in its own external life, must be guided in the first place by the canons universally binding on all, and only in the second place by its own local institutions. These latter it may itself alter according to circumstances that newly arise, whereas the fundamental (ecumenical) canons it must keep absolutely and inviolably. The wilful departure of a local church, even from a single canon universally acknowledged and accepted by the universal Church, places that church in the position of a schismatic community, so that it ceases to constitute a part of the one Church of Christ.

Universally binding force, for every member of the Church, is possessed without exception by all the canons composing the general canonical code. The significance of these canons is conditioned not by the source of their origin but by the fact that they have been accepted and confirmed by the voice of the universal Church. Accordingly, a canon issued by an ecumenical council, or by a local council, or by one father or another, carries equal weight. The foundation on which they all rest, and the first source from which they flow, is Holy Scripture and Tradition. In founding His Church, Jesus Christ did not hand to it a ready-made collection of laws by which it was to be governed. But He set before it the goal toward which it must strive, empowered it to employ the means established for reaching that goal, and showed it the direction in which it must move in its activity. His commandments, preserved for us in the Gospel, are the principles on the basis of which the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, began to order itself and to carry on its activity in the world. By these evangelical principles the apostles were chiefly guided, uniting into a single community all those who believed in Christ, and giving that community instructions as to how it must conduct itself in its internal and external life. Holy Scripture and Tradition thus form the foundation on which, over the course of time, the canonical edifice of the Church was raised.

The first living interpreters of Holy Scripture and of apostolic Tradition in the Church were the councils. In the early centuries many councils were held, on various occasions—for instance, councils on account of Montanism, between the years 160 and 180; councils regarding the celebration of Pascha in Palestine, Rome, Pontus, Gaul, Mesopotamia, and Ephesus; the Antiochene councils on the matter of Paul of Samosata, the well-known anti-Trinitarian; councils on the rebaptism of heretics, and so forth; but the greater part of these councils and their decisions had only local significance, for one or another ecclesiastical region. Among all of them, the ecumenical councils and ten local councils stand out by their significance, whose decrees acquired universal significance for the Church, their ordinances having been accepted and approved as norms for the governance of the universal Church.

Besides these conciliar ordinances, the Church accepts, as a universal norm for its governance, also the canons of thirteen fathers. Just as the interpreters of the fundamental legal norms—Holy Scripture and Tradition—were the councils, so the interpreters of the conciliar ordinances were individual fathers. The canons of the councils constituted general ordinances, which the pastors of one or another local church had to apply, in individual cases and circumstances, according to their own judgment and on their own responsibility. This application of the councils’ decrees by individual pastors was often made public in their circular epistles to their flock, in the canonical epistles of one pastor to another, in their canonical answers to questions put to them, and so on. The deep canonical knowledge of certain of these pastors earned them universal respect in the Church, and from their epistles and other writings particular passages were drawn, often representing elevated canons of pastoral governance, and as such were accepted and approved by the whole Church and, together with the first, composed the universal ecclesiastical canonical code.

The fathers of the Council in Trullo mention in this canon the ordinances of the holy Apostles issued through Clement, into which heterodox men (ὑπὸ τῶν ἑτεροδόξων) very early introduced, to the harm of the Church, certain spurious and impious things that ‘obscured the sublime beauty of the divine teaching,’ adding: ‘for the correction and security of the Christian flock, we have judiciously set aside those same Clementine ordinances, in no wise admitting the offspring of heretical falsehood, nor mixing them into the pure and perfect apostolic teaching.’ These ‘Apostolic Constitutions’ are mentioned in the 85th apostolic canon, which notes that they ‘ought not to be published before everyone, because of what is mystical in them (διὰ τὰ ἐν αὐταῖς μυστικά),’ and that they were intended exclusively for the use of bishops. This canon of the Council in Trullo, finding that someone had introduced something heretical into these ‘ordinances,’ deprives them of the significance for the life of the Church that it recognizes in the other church-legal sources it enumerates; nevertheless, for the science of ecclesiastical law, the collection of the Apostolic Constitutions has always had, and will always have, great significance.

The full title of this collection is: Διαταγαὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων διὰ Κλήμεντος τοῦ Ῥωμαίων ἐπισκόπου τε καὶ πολίτου καθολικὴ διδασκαλία, or simply Διαταγαὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων. The Apostolic Constitutions, as they are published today, are divided into eight books, and each book again into several chapters. The first book contains general moral teaching for laymen; the second speaks of the qualities and duties of priests in general; the third, of widows, of baptism, and of the ordination of bishops and clergy; the fourth, of care for the poor and of consecrated virgins; the fifth, of martyrs and of feasts; the sixth, of heresies, of abstinence, and of the Mosaic law; the seventh again contains general moral teaching, then speaks of baptism, of fasts, and of Christian prayer; and the eighth, finally, speaks of the extraordinary gifts of God and of ordination, then sets out various liturgical prescriptions, and at the end of the book, as an appendix to the whole collection, stand the 85 Apostolic Canons. This whole collection, as we have it today, is divided into three separate collections, differing from one another, of which the first comprises the first six books, the second the seventh book, and the third the eighth book, to which the apostolic canons are appended. This is demonstrated both by the internal content of the whole collection and by the relation of its first six books, first to the seventh, then to the eighth, as well as by the external composition of the collection. These three separate writings, or collections, that make up today’s collection of the Apostolic Constitutions were composed in the period from the second to the fourth century, and had as their basis somewhat older writings, which were later expanded and, in the fourth century, gathered by an unknown person into one great collection. According to the results of recent scholarship, and especially after the publication of the so-called ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles’—that is, after the year 1883—the basis of the first collection, or the first six books, is a writing entitled Διαταγαὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων διὰ Κλήμεντος προσπεφωνημέναι, which may well have been written by Clement, bishop of Rome, or possibly by some other Clement of the second century. This writing was subjected, in the third century, in Syria, to additions, and in many places ideas are noticeable that show the one who made the additions must have been a semi-Arian. The basis of the second collection, or the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions, is the aforementioned ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’ to which several models of prayers and instructions for baptism have been added. In using the ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’ the one who composed this seventh book must likewise have been a semi-Arian, since semi-Arian ideas are noticeable in it too, and it may well be that this was done by the very same person who edited, in its present form, the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions as well. The basis of the third collection, or the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, is made up of various writings that were gathered and arranged at the same time as the first two collections, that is, the first six books and the seventh. The time when the whole collection of the Apostolic Constitutions, in its present redaction, was arranged cannot be later than the fourth century. Since the main basis of this collection was the aforementioned writing ascribed to Clement, the compiler placed at the head of his collection the name of Clement, so as to give the impression that the whole collection derives from Clement, thereby wishing to lend it greater authority.

The collection of the Apostolic Constitutions presents to us a complete picture of the structure, governance, and life of the Christian Church in the first three centuries of Christianity, and for this reason this collection is of particular importance for ecclesiastical law. We have seen the decision of the Council in Trullo regarding these ordinances; but the council does not thereby decisively deny their significance, since it acknowledges that their basis is ‘the sublime beauty of the divine ordinances’; rather, the council cautions those concerned about these books that such books, as they were in its own time, cannot serve as a guide for bishops and must be rejected—but the council does not say that they must be rejected even when they have been purified of what is not strictly Orthodox in them. That the Church understood the ordinance of the Council in Trullo in this sense is attested by the multitude of manuscripts of these ordinances from later centuries, from which manuscripts we may judge that these same ordinances were used in ecclesiastical practice, purified of course of what was unorthodox in them; and history does not tell us that the Church ever raised its voice against this use. The best proof of this is furnished by the testimony of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, who, in his ‘Bibliotheca,’ mentions the Apostolic Constitutions and says that there are only three things in them that need to be rejected, but that these are things that anyone can most easily notice, so that everything else in these ordinances may be freely used. This explains also why 17 canons under the name of the Apostle Paul, 17 canons under the name of Peter and Paul, and 2 canons under the name of all the Apostles, taken from the eighth book, were incorporated into the canonical Synopsis; these canons are also found in our Kormchaia. In the commentaries on the canons, at the relevant places, we too make use of the Apostolic Constitutions, subjecting them, where necessary, to critical scrutiny.

The Council in Trullo, in this canon, also mentions a canon on the rebaptism of all heretics and schismatics who convert to the Orthodox Church, a canon issued in the year 256 in the African church under St Cyprian. To this canon too the Council in Trullo does not grant universally binding force for the whole Church, as it does for the canons it enumerates, but recognizes for it only local significance. In his commentary on this canon of Cyprian, Balsamon, explaining the thought of the Council in Trullo, indicates what significance it may have in ecclesiastical practice: ‘This canon requires that all who turn to the Orthodox Church, whether from among heretics or from among schismatics, be baptized anew, even though they had already received baptism before. Meanwhile the 7th canon of the Second Ecumenical Council decides this question quite differently, drawing a precise distinction as to whom it is and is not necessary to rebaptize. Read that canon, therefore, and follow the one issued later. Read also the 2nd canon of the Council in Trullo, and you will see that what this epistle (that is, the canon of Cyprian’s council) speaks of was not accepted by all the fathers; for it is stated there in this way: “the canon issued by Cyprian, former archbishop of the African region and martyr, and by his council, is kept only in the places of the aforesaid primates of that council, according to the custom handed down.” From which it follows that at first this canon was not the custom among all of them… But since the 7th canon of the Second Ecumenical Council requires something quite different, in regard to heretics and schismatics turning to the faith, from what this epistle established, the ordinance of the latter has accordingly been set aside.’[2] For these reasons, the aforementioned canon of Cyprian did not enter the universal ecclesiastical canonical code that was confirmed for the whole Church at the well-known council of Constantinople in the year 920.[3]

This important canon of the Council in Trullo passed word for word into the Corpus Juris Canonici of the Roman Catholic Church, so that in that Church too it would have to carry the force of law.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

Canon 3

Since our pious and Christ-loving emperor addressed this holy and ecumenical council concerning this, that those who are numbered in the clergy and who distribute the divine gifts to others should be pure and blameless ministers, and worthy of the spiritual sacrifice of the great God, Who is both sacrifice and High Priest, and that they should be pure from the defilement that has clung to some of them from unlawful marriages; and in view of the fact that those subject to the most holy Church of Rome proposed that the full strictness of the canon should be observed, while those subject to the see of this God-guarded and imperial city proposed the canon of loving-kindness and condescension—combining both of these in a fatherly and godly manner, so as to leave neither gentleness to the weak nor strictness to the harsh, especially since, on account of ignorance, transgression had seized a rather great multitude of people, we jointly establish concerning those who have been twice married and who have remained under the burden of sin up to the fifteenth day of the past month of January, of the past fourth indiction, of the year six thousand one hundred ninety-nine [i.e. from the creation of the world], and who are not willing to come to themselves from the same, that they shall be subject to canonical deposition. But those who fell into the error of a second marriage, but who, before this our ordinance, already recognized what was profitable and removed the evil from themselves, and cast far from themselves the unfitting and unlawful union—and likewise those whose wives from a second marriage have already died, and who thought of conversion, striving to advance in continence and have wholly abandoned their former lawlessness—whether they be presbyters or deacons—for such it is established that they must cease from every priestly service or activity, and undergo penance for a set time, but that they nonetheless enjoy the honor of the priestly seat and standing, being content that they may sit before others and beg of the Lord with weeping that the sin of ignorance be forgiven them; for it would be unfitting for one who still has his own wounds to heal to bless another. But those who had one wife, and she whom they took was a widow, and likewise those who, after ordination, contracted a first marriage—namely presbyters, deacons and subdeacons—after their priestly ministry has been suspended for some short time and after they have undergone penance, let such be restored again to their hierarchical degrees, but let them by no means be advanced to another, higher degree, whereby, of course, they will first have to dissolve the unlawful union. But all this we establish with regard to those sacred persons who, up to the fifteenth day, as has been said, of the month of January, of the fourth indiction, were caught in the aforementioned transgressions, ordaining for the future and repeating the canon which reads: “He who, after baptism, has been twice married, or has had a concubine, cannot be a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon, nor at all on the roll of the clergy”; and likewise, “he who has taken a widow, or a divorced woman, or a harlot, or a slave, or an actress, cannot be a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon, nor at all on the roll of the clergy.”

Ap. 17, 18; Trullo 26; Basil the Great 12, 27

— In this canon the 17th and 18th Apostolic canons are repeated word for word, and it is ordained that the prescriptions of those canons must henceforth hold in their full strictness. The rest of what this Trullan canon speaks of, as Zonaras precisely observes in his commentary on this same canon, “has lost its significance, as an ordinance that was occasioned only by the circumstances of that time and was issued out of condescension to those circumstances,” and therefore we do not dwell on the ordinance of this canon.

Canon 4

If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or subdeacon, or reader, or singer, or doorkeeper mingles with a woman who is consecrated to God, let him be deposed, as one who has defiled the bride of Christ; but if a layman does this, let him be excommunicated.

Ap. 45; Ancyra 19; Neocaesarea 9; Carthage 6, 44; Basil the Great 3, 6

— In the 25th Apostolic canon we saw that everyone from the clergy, from a bishop down to the lowest church servant, who commits fornication with any woman whatsoever, is subject to deposition from holy orders. All the more must this penalty be incurred by one of the clergy who defiles a woman who is consecrated to God and is the bride of Christ, as the canon says. By the term ‘woman’ this canon understands a virgin (παρθένος) who was not bound by marriage, but who, in the words of Basil the Great, voluntarily consecrated herself to the Lord, renounced marriage, and resolved to live in holiness (canon 18; compare also canon 16 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council).[19] Zonaras, in his commentary on the 44th canon of the Council of Carthage, calls such women ἱερὰς παρθένους (consecrated virgins, virgines sacratae).[20] The competent bishop consecrated them by a special rite (Carthage 6), and took care of them, entrusting them to honorable women, that they might live together with them and be confirmed in the virtues; or else several of them lived together in one house under the guidance of some older, distinguished woman, and under the strict supervision of the competent bishop.[21] The rite which the bishop performed in consecrating these virgins consisted of prayer and blessing, and was different from the laying-on of hands (χειροθεσία) of deaconesses, of whom we spoke in the commentary on the 15th canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, and of whom we shall speak again in the 14th and 40th canons of this council.

The severity of the penalty which the canon ordains for clergy who defile a consecrated virgin shows that this speaks of such an act of fornication as was committed without fault on the part of the virgin, and therefore that deceit or violence was involved. This is confirmed also by the text of the canon itself, in which no penalty at all is imposed upon the virgins themselves; whereas, on the contrary, very severe penalties are prescribed for them if the act of fornication was committed through their own fault (Basil the Great, [illegible]).

A layman who defiles a consecrated virgin is, according to this canon, subject to excommunication from communion. These canonical penalties were also adopted by the Greco-Roman civil legislation, and Justinian’s Novel 123 makes such a transgression a criminal offense.

Canon 5

Except for those persons who are free from all suspicion, and who are designated in the canon, let none of the clerical roll keep with him a woman or a maidservant, so that he may thereby keep himself free from every reproach. And whoever transgresses this which we ordain, let him be deposed. Let eunuchs also observe this same rule, that they may keep themselves blameless; if they transgress this, let them be deposed if they are clergy, and if they are laymen, let them be excommunicated.

(Ap. 5, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26; I Ecum. 1, 3; Trullo 12, 13; VII Ecum. 18, 22; Ancyra 19; Carthage 3, 4, 25, 38, 70; Basil the Great 88).

— The canon to which this Trullan canon appeals is the 3rd canon of the First Ecumenical Council. The woman or maidservant (γυναῖκα ἢ θεραπαινίδα, mulierem vel ancillam) of whom this canon speaks are the same συνείσακτοι (women brought in to live with clergy) mentioned by that Nicene canon—and it threatens with deposition every sacred person who dares to keep such women in his house, while of course permitting him freely to keep a mother, sister, aunt, or another such woman only who is free from all suspicion.[22] Details on this are found in our commentary on the aforementioned Nicene canon.

This Trullan canon adds a similar ordinance concerning eunuchs, of whom we made mention in our commentary on the 21st–24th Apostolic canons.

Canon 6

Since it is said in the Apostolic canons that of those who entered the clergy unmarried, only readers and singers may marry, keeping this same rule, we too ordain that from now on no subdeacon, nor deacon, nor presbyter may, after his ordination, enter into the bond of marriage. And whoever dares to do this, let him be deposed. If any of those who are entering the clergy wishes to be lawfully joined in marriage to a wife, let him do this before ordination, as a subdeacon, or deacon, or presbyter.

Ap. 5, 26, 51; IV Ecum. 14; Trullo 8, 13, 21, 30; Ancyra 10; Neocaesarea 1; Carthage 16; Basil the Great 69

— In this canon the 26th Apostolic canon is repeated and proclaimed a general and unalterable law for all time, that no one who has already once been made a subdeacon may enter into marriage, still less one who has been ordained deacon or presbyter. If any of those entering the clergy wishes to be lawfully joined in marriage to a wife, let him do this before ordination (πρὸ τῆς χειροτονίας, antequam ordinetur) as a subdeacon, says the canon; but after that he may by no means do so any longer. What needed to be said on this question from a fundamental point of view we have already said in our commentary on the aforementioned Apostolic canon. Here we must turn to another very important circumstance, namely, that this Trullan canon (6) abrogates an older canonical ordinance on this question—namely, the ordinance of the 10th canon of the Council of Ancyra (year 314), which permitted even deacons to marry after ordination, if, being unmarried, they had been ordained to the diaconate.

We speak specifically of this ordinance of the Council of Ancyra in our commentary on the 10th canon of that council. This ordinance was for a long time regarded by many as canonical; and although it was plainly contrary to the practice of the Church of the earliest period and to the legal prescriptions already existing at that time (Apostolic Constitutions VI, 17; Ap. canon 26), it was nonetheless often followed, now in this, now in that local church. In the first half of the sixth century, Greco-Roman legislation, at the request of the Patriarch of Constantinople St. Epiphanius (520–535), found it necessary to issue a special legal ordinance on this matter. The Emperor Justinian, on the 18th of October, 530, issued a law in which the ordinance of the 26th Apostolic canon is proclaimed binding upon all, and it is ordained, in the sense of the holy canons, that anyone who marries after having been made a subdeacon is to be excluded from the clergy.[23] In the same sense three Novels (VI, XXII and CXXIII) were subsequently issued by the same Justinian, of which the last (of the 1st of May, 546) categorically prescribes that any presbyter, deacon or subdeacon who marries after ordination is to be immediately excluded from the clergy (ἐκβαλέσθω τοῦ κλήρου) and handed over to the civil authority of the place where he was a cleric.[24] These laws of course entered into the canonical collections and thereby acquired the significance belonging to them by their content. But alongside all these laws, and alongside the express prescription of the aforementioned Apostolic canon on this matter, it was nonetheless still considered permissible to hold to the ordinance of the 10th canon of the Council of Ancyra, and individuals, with the permission of their bishops, married even after ordination. Moreover, a custom crept in whereby some who entered the clergy unmarried were permitted to marry within the first two years after ordination, and only once that period had elapsed could they no longer marry.[25] This anti-canonical custom prompted the fathers of the Trullan council to issue this their canon (6) and thereby confirm the force of the 26th Apostolic canon. But the aforementioned custom had taken deep root, and we find among the Novels of the Emperor Leo the Wise (886–910) one which reminds everyone of the prescription of the aforementioned Trullan canon, sharply condemning the fact that, contrary to the canonical ordinances of the Church, those concerned were permitted to marry even after ordination, and specifically condemning the custom of the two-year period within which such marriage of sacred persons was permitted. By this an end was put generally to that anti-canonical custom, and it became an unalterable law that only readers and singers may marry after their ordination [cheirothesia], and no one else. Traces of that custom are nevertheless still observed even later—namely, at the end of the twelfth century, when the Patriarch of Alexandria, Mark, addressed Balsamon with the question: ὑποδιάκονος καὶ διάκονος δύναται νομίμως συναφθῆναι γυναικί, ἢ οὔ; (can a subdeacon or a deacon be lawfully joined to a wife, or not?). Balsamon answered this question by appeal to the aforementioned Novel of the Emperor Leo. In his commentary on the 10th canon of the Council of Ancyra, Archimandrite Ioann says of this custom that some explain it by the fact that in the early centuries individual young men were often ordained against their will, and these young men entered into marriage even after ordination.

On the basis of this Trullan canon, it is permitted today in the Russian Church for widowed priests and deacons to remarry, once the competent authority (the Holy Synod) has released them from the priestly rank. This was introduced into the Russian Church by the decision of the Moscow council of 1667 and by the decree of the 30th of April, 1724. As to whether a sacred person can canonically request release from his rank, and whether the church authority may grant this, we speak in our commentary on the 21st canon of this council. Here we dwell on the first question: whether it is canonically justified to permit widowed priests and deacons to enter into marriage, that is, whether it is justified, on the basis of this (6th) Trullan canon, to permit such a marriage, as is done in the present-day practice of the Russian Church.

From what has been said in the commentary on the 26th Apostolic canon, and from what has so far been said in the commentary on this canon, it is already clear that the practice of the Russian Church of permitting marriage to widowed clergy cannot be regarded as canonically justified.[26] This (6th) Trullan canon is as clear as it can be, and it can only be adduced as a prohibition upon sacred persons, from subdeacon upward, from entering into marriage, and in no way as a permission for this; and if this is nonetheless done, it must be done with great mental strain, and, what is chief, this itself shows that there is no canonical ordinance for such a permission, as the Russian canonists themselves demonstrate, and as we adduce in our commentary on the 21st Trullan canon.[27] This permission is justified by the fact that it is granted once the sacred minister concerned has been deprived of his rank and has ceased to belong to the clergy, has therefore passed into the order of laymen—and he is permitted to marry not as a sacred minister but as a layman.[28] But not even this can be justified. In the Nomocanon of the Fourteen Titles (IX, 29) the law of the Emperor Justinian of the 18th of October, 530, is cited in the sense of the 26th Apostolic canon, and there it speaks of an unconditional prohibition upon anyone who has once already received ordination from entering into marriage, and such a marriage is regarded as unlawful and shameful, and children of such a marriage are not regarded even as natural (naturales), but as wholly unlawful and unworthy of the right of inheritance. By the fact that this law of Justinian was received into the fundamental canonical collection of the Orthodox Church, its full legal binding force is recognized for the Church. Balsamon, in a scholion on the aforementioned passage of the Nomocanon, adds that the marriage was regarded as void and the children as illegitimate, in whatever manner the sacred minister concerned had been released from his rank and then married. Basil the Great, in his 6th canon, condemns as fornication every marriage contracted by a cleric after ordination, and ordains that it must be dissolved. Zonaras and Balsamon, in their commentary on this canon of Basil the Great, observe that this must be done all the more readily, in order to remove from the minister concerned every occasion for sin even when he has been deprived of holy orders—in other words, if a minister has been deprived of his rank by the competent authority and has thus become a layman, and as such has married, the Church does not regard that marriage of his as lawful, but that same marriage must be dissolved, “lest we thereby give heretics occasion,” as Basil the Great says in the aforementioned canon, “to reproach us, as though by indulgence in sin we draw some to ourselves.” This teaching of the Church on the prohibition of marriage to ministers, even when they have been deprived of holy orders, is expressed most clearly in Balsamon’s commentary on the 44th canon of Basil the Great, where the marriage of sacred persons is decisively condemned. “Clergy,” it says there, “since they have once renounced second marriage by the fact that they received consecration and promised this to God, cannot in any way be permitted, for the sake of bodily pleasure, to renounce their priestly dignity (διὰ τὴν σαρκικὴν ἐπιθυμίαν παραιτήσασθαι τὴν ἱερατικὴν ἀξίαν), to break their vow to God and to serve bodily pleasure; but even if they cease to belong to the priesthood, they must be forbidden to defile with a second marriage bodies once consecrated (κωλυθήσονται τὰ ἅπαξ ἱερωθέντα σώματα αὐτῶν δευτέροις γάμοις βεβηλῶσαι, corpora sua quae sunt Deo semel consecrata prohibebuntur secundis nuptiis profanare).” In this sense speaks also a decision of the Synod of Constantinople under the Patriarch Paisius in the year 1655, and it could not have spoken otherwise, standing on the canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church. If marriage is permitted in the Russian Church to sacred ministers once they have been released from priestly rank, this happens only because the aforementioned decree of 1724 remains in force, and we have more than one testimony that the church authority even in Russia condemns this, or at least does not approve of it. In the journal of the St. Petersburg Academy, Khristianskoe Chtenie (for the year 1871), there is an article by A. Lavrov (who afterward became Archbishop of Lithuania), and in that article (II, 84–87) several examples are cited, beginning from the seventeenth century, from which it can be seen how much effort the Russian church authority put into persuading the persons concerned to remain faithful to the vow they had taken, and how it almost condemned the very act which, according to the existing decree, it was ultimately obliged to perform. And from the beginning of the nineteenth century an example is given in which the Holy Synod earnestly recommends to the Metropolitan of Chișinău that he dissuade a certain widowed priest who had requested release from his rank in order to remarry, the Holy Synod recommending, among other things, that the metropolitan set before that priest that entry into holy orders unites one with a solemn vow to God to remain in this calling to the end of life, and that the Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians likewise teaches that each should remain in the calling in which he was called; that neither in the word of God nor in the canons of the holy fathers is there found permission for widowed priests to allow themselves a second marriage; from all of which it follows that a priest’s voluntary fall from this rank, which he himself brings about, cannot have God’s blessing (Synodal record of the 11th of September, 1816, no. 65). From this and other examples it is most clearly seen how groundless is the adducing of this (6th) canon of the Trullan council to justify the permission for a widowed priest to be released from his rank and then to marry. And that there is in general not a single canon that would permit this, we have already seen clearly and plainly.

Canon 7

Since we have learned that in some churches deacons occupy church offices, and that on this account some among them, filled with presumption and self-will, take precedence before presbyters, we ordain that a deacon, even if he holds a dignity, that is, some church office, shall not again take precedence before a presbyter, except in the case where, representing the person of his patriarch or metropolitan, he comes to another city on some business—for then, as the deputy of the patriarch or metropolitan, honor must be shown to him. But if anyone, led astray by presumptuous boldness, dares to do this, let such a one, once cast down from his degree, be the last of all in that rank to which he belongs in his own church; for our Lord commands that we are not to seek the first places, according to this teaching set forth by the holy evangelist Luke as spoken by our Lord and God Himself (14:8-11). For to those who had been invited to a banquet He told the following parable: When you are invited by anyone to a wedding, do not sit down in the highest place, lest someone more distinguished than you be among the guests, and lest he who invited both you and him come and say to you, ‘Give this man your place,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:8-11). And let this same rule be observed also among the other holy ranks; for it must be known that spiritual dignities are far more exalted than worldly ones.

— Apart from the established degrees of the sacred hierarchy (ἱεραρχία τάξις, hierarchia, ordinis), there existed from the earliest times of the Church various church offices (officia or ἀρχοντίκια ἐκκλησιαστικά, officia ecclesiastica) which concerned the outward administration of the Church, and which were not conditioned by this or that degree of the sacred hierarchy. These church offices too were called degrees (βαθμοί, gradus), but not in the proper sense (καταχρηστικῶς, abusive), as Balsamon observes in his commentary on the 17th Apostolic canon, for degrees in the proper sense (κυρίως, proprie) exist in the sacred hierarchy, whereas the offices and headships are only honors and means of livelihood (τὰ δὲ ὀφφίκια καὶ τὰ ἀρχοντίκια τιμαί εἰσι καὶ πορισμῶν ἀφορμαί, officia autem et archonticia sunt honores et victus acquirendi occasiones). Persons who performed such offices were called church officials, ἐκκλησιαστικοὶ ἄρχοντες, or officiales, or also ἀξιωματικοί (dignitaries).[29] These church officials, as officials, were not bound to perform the sacred services as the rest of the clergy were, but were occupied with the outward, administrative affairs of the Church entrusted to them by the competent church authority.[30] The origin of these church officials goes back to the first centuries of the Church, and the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries speak of them as already an old institution (Gangra 7, 8; IV Ecum. 2, 26).[31] The chief among these church officials were called the exokatakoiloi (ἐξωκατάκοιλοι): the oikonomos, the sakellarios, the skeuophylax, the chartophylax, the sakellion, and the prōtekdikos. These offices were very important, especially with the bishops of the greater cities, and most of all at the patriarchal court of Constantinople; and the persons who held these offices enjoyed great honors and were regarded as great dignitaries, so much so that they bore the epithet ‘great,’ being called, for example, ho megas oikonomos, ho megas sakellarios, and so on. In most cases these offices were performed by deacons—and on the strength of these lofty offices of theirs they were filled, as this Trullan canon says, with presumption and self-will (αὐθαδείᾳ καὶ αὐτονομίᾳ), considered themselves superior to presbyters, and allowed themselves to sit in the higher places before presbyters. This was contrary to the established hierarchical order, which had already been made law at the First Council of Nicaea, as we saw in the 18th canon of that council, and according to which canon deacons were unconditionally required to take a place lower than presbyters. The Trullan council, observing that deacons had forgotten the ordinance of the Nicene council and, led astray by presumptuous boldness (τυραννικῷ χρώμενος θράσει), were overturning the hierarchical order in the Church, decisively forbids such things, stressing that spiritual dignities are far more exalted than worldly ones (τῶν κατὰ κόσμον ἀξιωμάτων κρείττονα τὰ πνευματικά, saecularibus seu mundanis dignitatibus spiritales praestantiores esse), that is, that the degrees of the sacred hierarchy have in the Church a far more exalted significance than the offices which some perform in carrying out the outward, administrative affairs of the Church. And if any deacon dares to go on overturning the established hierarchical order, the council ordains that such a one be cast down from the office he performed, be deprived of the place that belonged to him among the deacons according to the time of his ordination, and be the last of all in rank (ἔσχατος πάντων γινέσθω τοῦ τάγματος). And to explain why, the canon recalls the passage from Luke’s Gospel where Jesus Christ tells His disciples that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:8-11).

This canon allows an exception to this general norm only in such a case where, on account of some important church business, a deacon goes to another city with a special commission from his patriarch or metropolitan, and there represents the person of the patriarch or metropolitan; then, as their deputy, honor must be rendered to such a deacon. And this honor consisted in the fact that such a deacon, as the representative of his patriarch or metropolitan, could, in gatherings outside the church (ἔξω τοῦ βήματος)—that is, not during divine service—sit among the presbyters, and even among the bishops, vote in the discussion of the questions concerned at councils equally with the other members of the council, sign conciliar decisions like the others, and enjoy similar rights.[32] But that even in this such deacons always had to know their own hierarchical degree and render due honor to presbyters is evident from the way this Trullan canon is framed.[33][34] It can be seen from this that the Trullan canon permits this exception only on account of a custom that had crept in, whereby bishops willingly entrusted certain more important church business to their favorite deacons, and that this exception did not have, nor could it have had, the force of law—all the less since it conflicts with the clear ordinance of the 18th canon of the First Ecumenical Council, and since this, according to the wholly well-founded observation of Balsamon in his commentary on that same canon of the First Ecumenical Council, is irregular (παραλόγως, praeter rationem).[35] In the course of time, deacons nonetheless, taking advantage of their proximity to bishops, managed to arrange that almost all the chief church-administrative offices in the Church were entrusted to them exclusively, and they came to occupy, especially at the patriarchal court of Constantinople, a position such as the cardinals occupied in Rome.[36] Such an irregularity (παραλογισμός) could not, of course, always continue, and in more recent times we do indeed find the titles of the former high church officials still attached to episcopal sees, but these officials today are no longer deacons at all, but persons of presbyteral rank.

Canon 8

With the intention that everything which our holy fathers established should be kept by us also in all things, we repeat also that canon which enjoins that in every eparchy councils of bishops be held every year, in whatever place the bishop of the metropolis finds best. But since, on account of barbarian incursions and other various circumstances, the heads of the churches are unable to convene councils twice a year, it is established that, for the church business which naturally arises, a council of the bishops concerned be held in every eparchy at least once a year, and this from the holy feast of Pascha until the end of the month of October each year, in whatever place, as has been said, the bishop of the metropolis finds best; and bishops who do not come, but remain in their own cities, though being in health and free from any pressing and necessary business, shall be brotherly rebuked.

Ap. 80; I Ecum. 5; IV Ecum. 19; VII Ecum. 6; Antioch 20; Carthage 95

— In all likelihood the same reason that prompted the fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council to issue their 19th canon on the periodic holding of metropolitan councils also prompted the fathers of the Trullan council to issue a similar canon. In that canon (of the Fourth Ecumenical Council) it is said that the fathers had heard that the canonically established councils were not being held regularly, and therefore they ordained that in this regard the canonical prescriptions of earlier times must be strictly observed. In this (Trullan) canon this is not mentioned, but it can easily be assumed on the basis of a Novel of Justinian of the year 564, in which it is mentioned that the prescription of the 37th Apostolic canon concerning annual episcopal councils was not being observed by the competent bishops, and that these councils were for the most part not being held, and it is therefore ordained that these councils must in any case be held at least once a year.[37] The fathers of the Trullan council, having this evidently in view, issue this their canon and ordain that these councils must unconditionally be held, as the canons prescribe (Ap. 37; I Ecum. 5; IV Ecum. 19; Antioch 20). But in view of the wartime conditions that had arisen in the seventh century, especially after the rise of Islam, and taking into account also various other incidental circumstances that could stand in the way of bishops on their journeys to the places where the councils were to be held, the fathers of this council modify the earlier canonical ordinances that councils should meet twice each year, and determine that these councils in every metropolitan district be held once each year, between Easter and the end of the month of October, in a place appointed by the metropolitan. For bishops who do not come to these councils and are not hindered by anything of importance, the fathers of this council prescribe the same penalty as the fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (canon 19), namely, that they be subjected to rebuke. This ordinance of this canon was repeated also at the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

Canon 9

No cleric may keep a tavern. For if it is not permitted him even to enter a tavern, how shall he, in addition, serve others in one and carry on what is unbecoming to him? And whoever does this, let him either cease, or be deposed.

— We have seen the ordinance of the 54th Apostolic canon, that no sacred person may enter taverns. This canon takes that as the reason why it can be still less permissible for a sacred person himself to keep a tavern, and it ordains that every such person who persists in doing this is to be deposed from holy orders. Balsamon, in his commentary on this canon, draws attention to the words of the canon: καπηλικὸν ἐργαστήριον ἔχειν (cauponariam habere tabernam), and interprets them in the sense of actually keeping a tavern (ἐνεργεῖν ἐμπορίαν καπηλικήν, cauponariam mercaturam exercere), that is, of conducting a tavern-keeper’s trade, and says that this is unconditionally forbidden to sacred persons by this canon; but that it is not at all forbidden them ‘to have a tavern by right of ownership and to let that tavern out to others,’ since monasteries and various churches do this as well.[38]

Canon 10

A bishop, or presbyter, or deacon who takes interest, or so-called percentages, let him either cease, or be deposed.

Ap. 44; I Ecum. 17; VII Ecum. 19; Laodicea 4; Carthage 5, 16; Basil the Great 2, 14; Gregory of Neocaesarea 3; Gregory of Nyssa 6

— In our commentaries on the 44th Apostolic canon and the 17th canon of the First Ecumenical Council, we already had occasion to speak of the taking of interest, which some sacred person may chance to allow himself. This Trullan canon repeats those canons, and subjects to deposition from holy orders everyone who takes interest. This ordinance is likewise repeated by many other canons.

Canon 11

No one numbered among the sacred clergy, nor any layman, shall eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have dealings with them, nor in sickness call them in and receive healing from them, nor bathe together with them in any way at the baths; and whoever dares to do this, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated.

Ap. 7, 64, 70, 71; Antioch 1; Laodicea 29, 37, 38; Carthage 51, 73, 106

— Confirming the earlier canons (see the parallel canons), the fathers of the Trullan council by this canon forbid all dealings with Jews, and this under threat of deposition for sacred persons, and of excommunication for laymen.

Canon 12

We have also learned that in Africa, Libya and other places, some of the God-loving prelates there continue to live together with their wives even after ordination has been performed over them, and thereby become, for the people, a cause of stumbling and offense. Since our concern must in the main be directed toward the benefit of the flocks entrusted to our hands, we ordain that henceforth this shall in no way be the case. And we declare this, not in order to abolish or pervert what has been apostolically established, but because we are concerned for the salvation of the people and for their advancement in good, and that no stain remain upon the priestly order. For the divine apostle says: do all things to the glory of God; give no offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Greeks, nor to the church of God, even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ (1 Cor. 10:31-32; 11:1). And whoever is found to do such a thing, let him be deposed.

Ap. 5, 51; I Ecum. 3; Trullo 30, 48; Carthage 3, 4, 25, 70.

— That in the early Church bishops could live in lawful marriage, we have already seen in the commentaries on Apostolic canons 5 and 51 and canon 3 of the First Ecumenical Council; but in those same canons we have also seen that they could also not be married—indeed, that it was accounted a merit when some avoided marriage and lived in continence for the sake of ascetic exercise in virtue (δι’ ἄσκησιν) and for the sake of piety (δι’ εὐλάβειαν). The idea, then, of the unmarried life of a bishop existed from the very beginning of the Church itself; and if that idea could not be fully realized at once and obtain full legal force, this depended, on the one hand, on the historical circumstances of the Church, and, on the other, on the fact that precisely because of those circumstances ecclesiastical discipline could not soon be established in its full completeness. It was destined for the Council of Trullo, as in much else, so also in this respect, to establish by law what had been preserved in the consciousness of the Church by tradition from the apostolic age onward.

Very important is the enactment of this Trullan canon. It ordains, under threat of deposition, that no bishop may live in marriage. But it does not say that he must also be tonsured a monk before becoming a bishop, as is the case today—and for this reason, in commenting on this canon, it is necessary to turn our attention specifically to the development of the canonical institution of the celibacy of bishops, and, alongside this, to how it came to be established in the Orthodox Church that a candidate for the episcopate must be a monk before his consecration.

In his First Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul says: he that is unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife (7:32-33). Paul says this of all Christians, and thereby already gives to understand how much weight he places, for the service of the Lord and the service of the Church, on those who are not bound by marriage. For this reason he himself too remained unmarried (1 Cor. 7:8). Yet this same Paul did not require of every bishop that he be unmarried, but tells his disciple Timothy that a bishop should be the husband of one wife (1 Tim. 3:2). This concession of Paul’s toward bishops, which stands in evident contrast with what he wrote to the Corinthians in favor of celibacy, is explained by the circumstances of that age. Chrysostom, commenting on this passage from Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy, observes: ‘The apostle said: a bishop must be the husband of one wife—and he said this not with regard to the present age, for such a thing does not exist in the Church today, since a bishop today is distinguished by complete holiness and purity; but he said it because among the Jews and the pagans, who were most dissolute, it was considered a great thing to have only one wife. And accordingly, by those words the apostle did not issue a law, but wished only to make a concession to the notions of his own time concerning married life.’ Theodoret (of the fifth century) likewise comments on this passage from Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy, and says that ‘the apostle was compelled to show such a concession toward bishops, that is, to permit them to have one wife, because the preaching of the Gospel was then only in its infancy: the pagans had no concept of virginity, and the Jews did not permit it either, since they regarded the begetting of children as a blessing; and since at that time it was almost impossible to find a man who kept bodily purity, the apostle therefore directs that such men be ordained from among the married, who had only one wife.’ And in the Apostolic Constitutions (VI, 14) we already find the thought of the Apostle Paul concerning bishops expressed quite precisely: καλὸν μὲν εἶναι ἀγύναιον· εἰ δὲ μή, ἀπὸ μιᾶς γυναικός (it would be good for him to have no wife, but if this cannot be, then let him be the husband of one wife). So it was in the Church all the while ecclesiastical discipline had not yet been fully established, and while the external circumstances of the Church were such as the first three centuries present to us; although, as the aforementioned apostolic canons and many other testimonies from the early centuries tell us, there were also, even in that age, many clerics, and bishops above all, who, δι’ ἄσκησιν and δι’ εὐλάβειαν, were entirely without a wife, that is, strictly celibate.[39][40]

The external circumstances of the Church changed with the Edict of Milan of the year 313. The Church began to act freely, and among other things to order and establish ecclesiastical discipline in matters of the priestly hierarchy. Among these matters the question of the marriage of bishops necessarily had to come to the fore. There was a rule that a bishop might have his lawful wife and children (Apostolic 40), and of course many bishops did have wives and children. But alongside this there was again a great multitude of bishops who were chosen from among unmarried clergy, and who had spent their whole lives in virginity. This was especially furthered by the monastic institution, which developed in the third century and which had already, by that time, given the Church many bishops. The active participation of monks in the Arian disputes, and their self-sacrifice for evangelical truth against false teachings, brought it about that those in authority turned especially to monastic communities to find worthy bishops for widowed [i.e. vacant] churches.

Sozomen, looking back in his ecclesiastical history at the age of the third and fourth centuries, writes that it was chiefly the monks who were the cause that the false teachings of Eunomius and Apollinaris did not spread throughout the whole Church, and adds: ‘the people admired the virtues manifest in the deeds of the monks and considered true only what the monks preached to them, while they shunned as plague-stricken those who preached otherwise. Thus the Egyptians too, following the teaching of their monks, were able manfully to withstand the Arians.’[41]

The appearance of monasticism as a new protector of Orthodoxy was everywhere greeted with enthusiasm, and from monasticism bishops already began then to be chosen chiefly. And indeed, Orthodoxy found its strongest defenders precisely in those bishops who had learned, in monastic schools, to understand Christianity not merely as a simple system of dogmas but also as a science of life, and who, by the purity of soul and body, raised themselves to the possibility of direct contemplation of divine things.

The appearance of monasticism, from which many great bishops arose in the Church, on the one hand, and, on the other, the elevated notion of bodily continence which developed in the Church, and the awareness that the higher a hierarchical degree in the Church, the less right it confers to bodily comforts and the more it must be disposed to complete service of God and the Church in body and spirit—all this contributed to its being held, already at the beginning of the fourth century, that the celibacy of bishops was something natural to the very foundation of the Church’s constitution, and something that sooner or later necessarily had to become law.

The Emperor Constantine, in his address at the opening of the First Ecumenical Council, solemnly greeted the assembled bishops and called them representatives of virginal purity. And it is well known with what regard the emperor himself treated Bishop Paphnutius, a member of the First Ecumenical Council, who had been a member of an Egyptian monastery before becoming a bishop. Athanasius the Great, likewise a member of the First Ecumenical Council, tells us, as archbishop of Alexandria, in one of his letters, how widely the idea of episcopal celibacy was already spread in his own time and even before it. Dracontius, bishop of Hermopolis, who had been appointed bishop from the monastic life, frightened by the persecution which threatened the Orthodox from the Arians, had left his episcopal see and returned to his solitude. Athanasius addressed to him for this reason a special letter, and, brotherly reproaching him for his conduct and demonstrating to him that he was obliged to return to his see, refutes his claim that he could not return because of his monastic calling, saying: ‘You are not the only one who has been consecrated from among monks, nor are you the only one who has been a monastic superior and beloved by his monks, for you know that Serapion too was a monk and superior to many monks; you are not unaware of how many monks Apollos was father to; you knew Agathon, you know Ariston, you remember Ammonius, who traveled together with Serapion; you have perhaps heard of Muitas in upper Thebaid, you could have inquired about Paul in Lycopolis, and likewise of many others, who, when they were consecrated bishops, did not withdraw, but, taking Elisha as their example, knowing how Elijah acted, and having before their eyes what the apostles did, took upon themselves the care of the episcopate and did not neglect their service… And all of them fulfilled the hopes of the Church.’[42][43][44]

In this testimony of Athanasius and others we find vividly expressed that same thought which had already prevailed from the time of the First Ecumenical Council, when at that council the question was raised of the marriage or celibacy of the clergy. That council issued only its one (3rd) canon, that no cleric may keep in his house a woman not his own kin, and said nothing more on the matter, thereby doubtless acknowledging, with regard to the celibacy of bishops, that practice which already existed in the Church at that time and which we have now examined.

And that this practice—namely, that bishops be unmarried—prevailed generally everywhere is shown by the following testimonies from the very century in which the First Ecumenical Council was held, that is, the fourth century. Gregory of Nazianzus, in the funeral oration for his father, delivered in the presence of Basil the Great, mentioning the election of Basil to the archiepiscopal see of Caesarea, says: ‘That contention, the stronger and fiercer it was, the more foolish and senseless it was; for it must have been clear to everyone who shines among all more brightly than the sun among the stars, and everyone understood this well, and best of all the most select portion of the people, all those who serve at the altar, as well as our monks, among whom, or at least largely among whom, this choice ought to be made, and then there would be no evils for the Church…. For who, being of sound mind, could leave you—(he says to Basil)—divine and holy head, and turn to another, you, I say, who are wholly in God’s hands, who know not the burden of marriage, who possess nothing, who are almost bodiless and nearly bloodless, who are most skilled in the holy books?…’[45]

Epiphanius of Cyprus, setting forth in his σύντομος ἀληθὴς λόγος περὶ πίστεως καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας the order of the Church, says: ‘the crown of all is the episcopate, which for the most part consists of virgins; and if not of virgins, then of monks; and if there be none suitable for this among the monks, then of such as abstain from their wives, or of widowers after a first marriage.’ In the year 390 a council was held at Carthage under Bishop Genethlius, and by the 2nd canon of that council it was determined that bishops must be without a wife and preserve virginity, the fathers of that council invoking, as the basis of their enactment, the apostolic tradition preserved from the most ancient times of the Church. These and other testimonies show all too clearly how deep a root the practice of appointing only unmarried men as bishops had taken; and they also show us that the greatest part of bishops arose from monasticism, and that those bishops who arose from monasticism were the greatest lights of the Church. Without mentioning the others, it is enough to know that Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom—the most brilliant minds of all who have ever been in the Church—took their episcopal sees from monasticism. And this already provided sufficient basis for the practice of future centuries, and also for the practice which prevails today in the Orthodox Church. But there was still no law on the celibacy of bishops, so that we find, alongside unmarried bishops, also such as lived in marriage even as bishops.[46][47][48][49][50]

So firmly had the idea become established in the consciousness of the Church, over the course of two centuries (the fourth and fifth), that bishops should be unmarried, that discontent was voiced whenever a bishop lived in marriage, and this was regarded as a weakening of spiritual discipline and an inclination toward pagan religious customs. This was much furthered also by the fact that certain married bishops often neglected church affairs and occupied themselves chiefly with family matters, and, in addition, used church funds for the upbringing and settling-in-life of their children, naturally to the detriment of the Church. The ecclesiastical authority awaited a fitting occasion to regulate this matter by law, as it later did. Meanwhile, in the first half of the sixth century, the civil state authority took up this matter and issued several relevant legal enactments. These enactments are severe—but this itself shows, among other things, what notions then prevailed concerning married bishops. In the year 528 the Emperor Justinian issued a law ordaining that, among the married, only those who had neither children nor grandchildren might be chosen bishops, lest concern for their upbringing distract the bishop from sacred service, and lest church property be squandered on their account. Three years later Justinian issued a second law on the election of bishops, and there it is strictly ordained, in addition to the foregoing, that the bishop’s wife may in no way live together with him.[51][52]

Finally, by a special Novel addressed to Epiphanius, Patriarch of Constantinople, concerning the qualifications required of candidates for the episcopate, Justinian prescribes, among other things, the following: ‘When henceforth someone is to be appointed bishop, following the holy canons, we ordain: … 3. A bishop may not be married; he must either have always been unmarried, or else have had previously a maiden as wife, but in no case a widow, a divorced woman, or a concubine. 4. He may not have children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, nor grandchildren, and whoever is found in this condition is to be deprived of the priesthood, just as also he who appointed him is to be deprived of the episcopate, for by this he offends against this law… 7. He must previously either have spent his life in monasticism or have been at least six months in the clergy, but in no case be married, or have children, or grandchildren. This we require unconditionally with regard to God-loving bishops, as was also established earlier by two of our laws, in which, without mentioning the past and without inquiring after those who had long lived with wives, we forbade for the future, after the issuing of the law, that one who has a wife be ordained bishop; and this law we now renew—and should anyone act contrary to this, let him be deprived of the priesthood, and let him too be excluded from the clergy who ordained such a one bishop. Let a bishop, therefore, be appointed either from among monks, or else from among clergy who have such testimony concerning their life….’[53]

They did not yet, however, have a positive canonical basis. To issue a positive law on this matter, in the spirit of the Church and in accord with its tradition, was the task which the Council of Trullo had to fulfil, as it did in fact fulfil by this (12th) canon of its own.

In this canon is confirmed what we have said thus far, namely, that the celibacy of bishops was regarded as an entirely normal thing, corresponding to the spirit of the Church, while, on the contrary, a bishop’s cohabitation with a (lawful) wife was regarded as abnormal and contrary to the notion of the sublimity of the episcopal dignity. In the seventh century, even without a positive law up to that time, the general practice throughout the Church was that bishops should be unmarried, and a bishop’s living with a wife constituted, in that century, a rare exception, and was a cause of stumbling and offense to the people (πρόσκομμα καὶ σκάνδαλον, offendiculum et scandalum), as the fathers of the Council of Trullo say in this canon, on the occasion of their having learned that certain bishops in Africa, in Libya, and in certain other places continued to live with their wives even after ordination had been performed over them. In order to put a stop to this stumbling and offense, the fathers of the council, imbued with the concern that everything in the Church be for the benefit of the Christian people, established by law, for all times and for the whole Church, that henceforth, under threat of deposition, no bishop might ever again keep a wife in his house and live with her, but that he must be without a wife. But since there existed a canon (Apostolic 5) that a cleric in general, and therefore a bishop too, might not put away his lawful wife under pretext of piety—that is, that he might freely live with her—the fathers of the Council of Trullo take note of that canon, and say that by the enactment of this (12th) canon of theirs they do not intend to abolish or pervert what has been apostolically established, but are concerned only for the salvation of the people and its advancement in good, and that no stain (μῶμόν τινα, ullum probrum) remain upon the priestly order; in support of which they cite the relevant words of the Apostle Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (10:31-33). In canon 48 of this same council we shall see what is ordained concerning the wife of one who happens to be chosen bishop from among married clergy.

In this way, canon 12 of the Council of Trullo gave canonical confirmation, with regard to candidates for the episcopate, to what had been preserved by tradition in the Church since apostolic times, what had been the practice, if not universally, throughout the Church for six centuries, and what was henceforth (from the end of the seventh century) to hold good for all future times in the Orthodox Church as law—namely, that bishops must be unmarried.[54]

As soon as this law on the celibacy of bishops was canonically established, a movement is at once observable in the Church toward electing bishops chiefly from among persons who had never been bound by marriage, in the first place from among monks, and then from among those secular clerics who entered the priesthood while unmarried, and who are called in the sources (virgines), ‘virgins.’ Among married clerics—that is, those whose wives were still living—it can be seen that after the Council of Trullo very few were taken as bishops, and if occasionally a rare bishop was chosen from among these, it was always out of regard for extraordinary intellectual abilities by which the person concerned was distinguished, or else because of his social position and connections with the supreme bearers of state or ecclesiastical authority. This happened mostly with persons who were in service at the patriarchal court of Constantinople—that is, those high ecclesiastical officials at that court, or at other significant episcopal courts, of whom we spoke (as officials) in the commentary on canon 7 of the Council of Trullo. But in the main, elections to episcopal sees fell upon virgins (παρθένους) and monks. Chiefly upon monks, and this because in earlier times bishops from monasticism had, in general, always been among the most brilliant minds of the Church (Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, and others), because monasticism had earned much merit as a defender of Orthodoxy in the Church’s various struggles with heretics, and finally because, already in the first half of the sixth century, it had been established by Justinian’s legislation that monks in particular should be appointed bishops. This last was much furthered by the events that occurred in the life of the Church a few years after the Council of Trullo, namely the events brought on by iconoclasm, which appeared in the Church in the first half of the eighth century.

The age of iconoclasm was, for the Orthodox Church, an age of grievous trial. It was not merely a matter of abolishing the veneration of holy icons, but chiefly of imposing upon the Church a foreign power, a temporal power, which wished by force of its own edicts to determine what was to be considered Orthodox in the Church. The temporal power sought to force its way violently into the domain of the Church. The whole cult was subjected to the greatest profanation; and the most holy mystery itself, the mystery of the Eucharist, was threatened, under the impious teaching, with the loss of its essential significance. Uninvited reformers were destroying the bond with the tradition of the apostolic Church. In defense of the independence of the Church, the sanctity of her mysteries, the apostolic and patristic tradition, and true piety, monasticism stood forth, first in the persons of bishops who had emerged from monastic schools, and then also of simple monks. These unarmed defenders of Orthodoxy pledged themselves to every suffering in the struggle with an enemy who, in his furious zeal, left nothing undone to win victory for himself in the Church; there were councils to which the illegitimate name of ‘ecumenical’ was given, there were books through which false teaching was thrust upon the people, there were tortures, persecutions—in a word, everything needed to crush Orthodoxy. This struggle between truth and falsehood lasted a whole century, and monasticism laid down thousands of its own victims in that struggle. The truth of Orthodoxy at last prevailed, and the Church gratefully acknowledged in that victory the whole merit of monasticism. From this time on, the Church begins to appoint as bishops chiefly such persons as belonged to monasticism, and then arises the custom that everyone who is chosen bishop but has not until then belonged to monasticism receives monastic tonsure before his episcopal ordination. Among the first notable examples of this is mentioned St. Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, who was not a monk when he was chosen patriarch, but who received monastic tonsure before his ordination (in the year 806). After St. Nicephorus this entered into the practice of the Church down to the present day, with very rare exceptions, and these generally only when abnormal circumstances prevailed in the Church.[55][56]

The idea that a bishop must come from monasticism became universal in the Church, beginning from the ninth century, after the age of iconoclasm. And if someone was chosen from the secular clergy (after the death of his wife, or after an agreed separation from her), it was required that such a one be free of all family ties, so that he might devote himself wholly to the interests of the Church. There existed the laws of Justinian which we mentioned above, according to which no one who had children or grandchildren could be a bishop. Those concerned invoked these laws, which were also found in the canonical collections, and condemned those elections which fell upon persons who had children, and considered the appointment of such persons as bishops unlawful. This kind of judgment on candidates for the episcopate who had children provoked a reaction among bishops who had become bishops from the secular clergy and who had children, and it was argued that Justinian’s laws on this matter had no canonical basis and were, in general, contrary to the canons of the Church, and in particular to the Trullan (12th) canon, which said nothing on the matter. The reaction was led by certain bishops with influence at the imperial court in Constantinople, and they obtained from the Emperor Leo the Philosopher (886-912) a special Novel addressed to Stephen, patriarch of Constantinople, which abrogated the relevant laws of Justinian and ordained that anyone worthy of that dignity might freely be appointed to the episcopate, even though he had lawful children (κἂν αἱ γοναὶ νόμῳ τετιμημέναι).[57]

, and which is found in two places in our Kormchaia (chapters 49 and 48).

This Novel of the emperor’s, to which nothing can be objected from the canonical standpoint, nevertheless brought disorder upon the Church. It was taken that it was directed against bishops who had become such from monasticism; and, emboldened by it, bishops who had become such from the secular clergy began to strive that, just as they had been permitted to have children and keep them with them, so likewise they might keep their wives with them. A strange phenomenon, yet true nonetheless. It was found that this same Council of Trullo permits a bishop to live with his lawful wife even after ordination—or rather, conversely, that a wife is free to live together with her husband the bishop. The 12th canon of Trullo decisively forbids this; but there is the 48th canon of the same council, which speaks of the voluntary separation of the wife of one who is to be ordained bishop, from her husband, and of her entering a monastery, and this by common consent (κατὰ κοινὴν συμφωνίαν, communi consensu); and from this it was inferred that if there is no such ‘common consent,’ then that wife need not enter a monastery. This inference seemed to those concerned entirely correct, and some among the wives of ordained bishops, asserting that they had given no such ‘consent’ (and they were not compelled by law to give written consent), continued to live together with their husbands the bishops. Such irregularities repeated themselves often over a long series of years, to the scandal of the whole world. At last the necessary attention was turned to this matter by the supreme authorities, both ecclesiastical and civil. The metropolitan of Cyzicus alerted to this the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and the Emperor Isaac Angelos, pointing out the great scandal that arose from this among the people, who saw how bishops lived with their wives and in nothing differed from the most ordinary citizen, and pointing out how by this the existing enactments of the Church were recklessly violated and the very standing of the hierarchy undermined. As a result of this report, the aforesaid emperor, in agreement with the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and the metropolitans of Caesarea, Ephesus, Cyzicus, and many others (καὶ ἕτεροι οὐκ ὀλίγοι—‘and not a few others’), issued in the year 1187 a special Novel ordaining: ‘the wives of ordained bishops are to be sent immediately (ἀνυπερθέτως) to women’s monasteries, situated far from the place of the bishop’s residence, and there tonsured as nuns, and let them live according to the monastic rule in whatever monastery each of them is tonsured. Should they not willingly accept tonsure, then let those who were their husbands before ordination be deprived of their episcopal throne and dignity, and let others be chosen in their place. Henceforth, however, whoever has a lawful wife before ordination shall not be able to be ordained otherwise than when the two of them (husband and wife) first, by common written consent and agreement (διὰ κοινῆς τῶν δύο ἐγγράφου συμφωνίας τε καὶ ἀρεσκείας), separate, and the wife enters the monastic life.’[58][59][60]

This Novel provoked discontent among bishops who had been elected from the secular clergy, and who had been accustomed to live with their wives, but who now had to be separated from them. This same Novel also provoked discontent generally among the secular clergy, all the more so since, after the events that had occasioned the aforementioned imperial Novel, very few bishops indeed were any longer chosen from that clergy’s ranks. Among others, George Pachymeres attests to this in his history of the Emperor Andronicus Palaeologus, in which he relates two incidents of how the secular clergy complained that bishops were being chosen almost exclusively from monks. Especially significant is the second incident mentioned by Pachymeres, when the patriarch (of Constantinople) John XII, in response to such a complaint from the secular clergy, declared that he acknowledged the justice of the complaint, but since the disorders up to that time had given the question of episcopal election an entirely different course, and since it was now (in the time of Patriarch John XII) already established opinion that a bishop should be chosen from among monks everywhere and as a rule, except in wholly extraordinary cases, the patriarch, in reply to the aforesaid complaint, could do nothing but acknowledge the existing state of affairs and, in choosing a bishop, follow the example set by others. This was so at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century; and from that time the aforementioned practice became ever more firmly established in the Church and became universal, with very rare and quite exceptional exceptions. In the first half of the fifteenth century Symeon of Thessalonica writes thus of this practice: ‘This high honor (the episcopate) is now already entrusted almost everywhere to monks. And should you wish to survey the whole Church, you would scarcely find anywhere that someone who lived in the world (and not in a monastery) was deemed worthy of the episcopate, whereas the episcopate is, as it were, destined by fate for monks. And should you find anyone who was appointed to the episcopate from the secular life, know that the Church always first required of such a one that he receive the monastic habit. So think all the faithful, and above all the God-inspired heads of the churches, who render honor to the divine schema, on account of its heavenly institution and on account of the vow.’ The same teacher of the Church, speaking elsewhere of the sublimity of the monastic order, says: ‘For this very reason (on account of this sublimity of the monastic order) the Church of Christ today, in general, first adorns everyone who is to become a bishop with this sanctified and most holy order, and only then, once he is in that order, ordains him bishop.’[61]

These passages from the writings of Symeon of Thessalonica most vividly illuminate the mind of the Church concerning candidates for the episcopate. And if we take into account the standing of Symeon of Thessalonica as a teacher of the Church, we must regard this testimony of his as classic. This testimony of Symeon of Thessalonica found solemn confirmation in the life of the Church in the following centuries. We have seen what Epiphanius of Cyprus wrote on this question in the second half of the fourth century. The same thing, ten and more centuries later, we again find clearly stated as the teaching of the whole Orthodox Church, namely in the year 1625, in the Confession of Metrophanes Kritopoulos. Speaking in the 11th chapter of that confession (ὁμολογία τῆς ἀνατολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς) about the priesthood, Metrophanes says: ‘Bishops are in general always chosen either from the monastic order, or from among virgins, or from among the continent. By virgins (παρθένους) we mean those who have never known a wife at all. By the continent (ἐγκρατεῖς), according to the present custom of the Church, are meant those who have been joined with only one lawful wife. And if their wives should die, or they should separate from them by mutual agreement (for it happens that spouses agree together, and, intending to lead a better and more perfect life, the husband enters a men’s monastery and the wife a women’s), then these (the continent), having entirely entered the monastic life and spent some years (ὀλίγοις τισὶν ἔτεσι) in that life, and being found to have been worthy and good in that life, are then chosen for the episcopate, just as the virgins are.’ As a rule, then, only one who had been a monk from the beginning, or a virgin, could be chosen bishop; while a secular priest could be chosen if his wife had died (or he had separated from her by agreement, and that wife had entered a women’s monastery) and he had become a monk, and had shown himself for several years to be a worthy and good monk. This condition—that a secular priest must first become a monk in order to be able to become a bishop—is regarded in the Orthodox Church as a universal rule. In the last years of the seventeenth century, Dositheos, patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote his ‘History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem,’ and in that history, speaking of the meat dishes forbidden to monks, he says: ‘in the beginning, when bishops were not monks, they could freely eat meat dishes or abstain from them; but since it became customary that no one can be a bishop unless he first becomes a monk, bishops too may not eat meat.’ This is only indirect testimony, but it nevertheless sheds much light on the question.[62]

As a conclusion to the commentary on this (12th) canon of Trullo, we cite the relevant passage from the commentary on the same canon by Archimandrite Ioann: ‘To the Council of Trullo belongs, in the proper sense, the fact that it established, as a general and permanent rule for all places and all times of the Orthodox Church, the ancient tradition and custom of the Church, as well as the particular enactments of various periods, concerning the celibacy of bishops. And as a consequence of this—since, in appointing married presbyters to the episcopate, their necessary separation from their wives could not take place without many difficulties, nor could it take place without their voluntary mutual consent, lest the apostolic canons (Apostolic 5) and the general laws of Christian marriage be contradicted—the Church has taken it as a rule to appoint monks to the episcopate. Such a rule can not only more easily be carried out, but it may also be said of it that it corresponds better: (1) to the sublimity of the episcopal dignity, which requires a special purity and perfection of life; (2) to the very purpose of that dignity, which, by the importance, extent, and difficulty of the obligations bound up with it, requires of the bishop that he devote himself, wholly and completely, and his whole life, to the good of the Church; so that he, having separated himself from the world in monasticism, will be able more freely and without hindrance to fulfil his obligations, and this will likewise exalt him morally above all bodily ties and external relations to the world, so that he may be solely the guardian of the house of God and a true shepherd, always ready to lay down his soul for his sheep; and finally (3) it corresponds to the very meaning of the episcopate itself, as the spiritual bond of the bishop with his church, to which he is wedded, and which he is therefore bound to keep pure and spiritually chaste in faith and life, so that he may present her to Christ as a chaste virgin (2 Cor. 11:2).’