Canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (In Trullo, 691-2), 13–34

Canon 13

Since we have learned that in the Roman Church it has become a rule that those who are worthy of ordination as a deacon or presbyter must bind themselves that they will no longer have intercourse with their wives, we, following the ancient canon of apostolic order and rule, wish that the family life of sacred persons, when it is according to law, shall remain in force from now henceforth, and that their union with their wives shall in no way be dissolved, nor shall they be deprived of it when it is time for mutual intercourse. Accordingly, whoever is found worthy of ordination as a subdeacon, or deacon, or presbyter, let nothing be an impediment to his being appointed to that rank on the grounds that he lives with his lawful wife, and let it not be required of him at the time of ordination that he declare that he will abstain from lawful intercourse with his wife, lest we thereby become the cause of dishonoring marriage, which was instituted by God and blessed by His presence; for the voice of the Gospel declares: what God has joined together, let not man put asunder (Matt. 19:6), and the Apostle teaches: marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled (Heb. 13:4), and again: art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed (1 Cor. 7:27). We know too that the fathers assembled at Carthage, being concerned for the chaste life of the clergy, ordained that subdeacons who touch the holy mysteries, and deacons, and presbyters, are to abstain, at the times appointed for them, from those who live together with them. For this reason we too must keep the same thing, which has been handed down from the apostles and has been in force from the earliest times, knowing that there is a time for every matter, and especially with regard to fasting and prayer; for it is necessary that those who serve at the holy altar be wholly continent when they approach the sanctuary, so that they may be able to obtain what they ask of God in sincerity. But whoever dares, contrary to the apostolic canons, to deprive any one of the sacred persons—namely, a presbyter, or a deacon, or a subdeacon—of union with his lawful wife, let him be deposed; likewise also a presbyter or deacon who casts out his wife under pretext of piety, let him be excommunicated, and if he remains obstinate, let him be deposed.

Ap. 5, 17, 26, 51; I Ecum. 3; IV Ecum. 14; Trullo 5, 6, 30; VII Ecum. 18; Ancyra 19; Neocaesarea 1, 8; Gangra 4; Carthage 3, 4, 25, 38, 70; Basil the Great 12, 27, 88.

— This is one of those canons which, among others, has given Roman Catholic theologians and canonists occasion to speak out against the Council of Trullo in general, and to express much that is harsh and offensive toward the Orthodox Church. On account of this canon, Cardinal Humbert, in the second half of the eleventh century, called the Orthodox Church nothing less than heretical, infected with the Nicolaitan heresy—although this very canon is also found in the Roman Catholic Corpus juris canonici, and although the canons of the Council of Trullo were also acknowledged by the Roman popes. This canon speaks of clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church and condemns it as contrary to the ancient canon of apostolic exactness and order (τῷ ἀρχαίῳ κανόνι τῆς ἀποστολικῆς ἀκριβείας καὶ τάξεως, antiquo canoni apostolicae observationis ordinisque), and therefore all the wrath against this canon, and against the council which issued it, on the part of Roman Catholic theologians and canonists, is wrath without foundation, as we shall presently see.[1][2][3][4]

The fathers of the Council of Trullo, in this canon of theirs, confirm the canonical enactments issued in earlier times concerning clerical marriage, which were to be in force in the Church as law, and in particular they confirm what is prescribed by Apostolic canons 5 and 26 and canon 3 of the First Ecumenical Council—the commentaries on which canons should be compared in this edition (and the parallel canons should also be compared). It prescribes, as an unchangeable law for all times and for the whole Church: (1) that a lawful first marriage constitutes no impediment to entering the priesthood; (2) that it is not required of one who is married and wishes to enter holy orders that he separate from his lawful wife, either before or after ordination; and (3) that whoever, under pretext of piety, casts off his lawful wife is subjected to excommunication from the exercise of the priesthood, and, if he persists, to deposition from his rank—just as also whoever compels a sacred person to separate from his lawful wife is subjected to deposition. This law the fathers of the Council of Trullo issued for presbyters, deacons and subdeacons, just as they had issued the corresponding law on this matter for bishops in their 12th canon. Confirming in this (13th) canon also the enactments of the Council of Carthage, expressed in canons 3, 4 and 25 of that council concerning the bodily continence of sacred persons, the fathers of the Council of Trullo ordain that subdeacons, deacons and presbyters who are married must abstain from intercourse with their wives at the times appointed for them (κατὰ τοὺς ἰδίους ὅρους, propriis temporibus), namely, when they approach the sanctuary, for then they must be wholly continent in all things (ἐγκρατεῖς ἐν πᾶσιν, omnino continentes).

The occasion for issuing this canon was, as is stated in the canon itself, that the fathers of this council had learned that in the Roman Church it had become a rule that candidates for the diaconate and presbyterate must bind themselves, before ordination, no longer to have intercourse with their wives—that is, that they would henceforth live in continence.

In the Roman Church, and indeed throughout the whole Western Church, for the first three centuries of Christianity, matters stood entirely the same with regard to the marriage of clerics as in the Eastern Church. Of the celibacy of clerics—that is, that they must unconditionally be unmarried—there is no trace whatsoever in the history of the Western Church of the first three centuries.[5] Only in the fourth century does this idea begin to be advanced at individual local councils of the West, under the influence of the ascetic tendency which generally prevailed in the Church at that time, and as a result of the historical circumstances brought on by the age of persecution. This idea was advanced for the first time at the Council of Elvira (in Spain) in the year 306, which by its 33rd canon ordained that no one belonging to the clergy might have a wife and children, under threat of deposition.[6] This would be the first enactment on celibacy.

A second [enactment] was issued at the Council of Arles (in Gaul) in the year 314, which by its 29th canon, under threat of deposition, forbids the same thing to bishops, presbyters and deacons.[7] Rome, for a long time yet, did not pronounce its own judgment on this matter—and only in the year 380, when the Roman Church began to extend its influence more widely throughout the West and to assert its primatial significance as the oldest church in the West, did Pope Siricius adopt the idea of the Council of Elvira and, counting on celibate priests as reliable instruments for the realization of the papacy’s primatial aspirations everywhere, issue a strict enactment against married clerics.

‘We have learned,’ says the pope, ‘that many priests of Christ and levites, even long after their consecration, have begotten offspring both from their own wives and even from unclean cohabitation, and defend such a crime (scelus) of theirs by saying that in the Old Testament too the right to beget children (facultas generandi) was granted to priests and ministers of the altar.’ He then interprets in his own way the words of the third book of Moses [Leviticus] (20:7), and continues: ‘Since some of those of whom we speak have fallen into sin through ignorance and repent of that sin, we do not deprive them of our mercy, and that on condition that they promise to be continent; and we permit them to remain to the end of their lives in whatever office they held when they were convicted of the sin, without any right ever to obtain a higher office. But those who wish to excuse themselves by an unlawful right which is supposedly guaranteed by the old law, let them know that they are, by the authority of the apostolic see (apostolicae sedis auctoritate), deposed from the ecclesiastical rank in which they unworthily stood, nor may they any longer touch the venerable mysteries, of which they have deprived themselves by giving themselves over to abominable lusts. And since these examples compel us to forestall what might happen in the future, let everyone know that if any bishop, presbyter or deacon should henceforth be found in this (which we do not wish), every path to our indulgence is closed to him; for the knife must cut away the wounds on which the remedy of warmth could have no effect.’

As can be seen from the words of Pope Siricius, many (plurimi) clerics in the West at that time were living with their lawful wives and had children; and lest this strict enactment of his, which stands in decisive opposition to the already existing canonical enactments (Apostolic 5, Gangra 4), provoke unrest, he somewhat softens its severity by permitting those who submit to his enactment to remain in the clergy in service, but without the right to be raised to higher hierarchical degrees; while those unwilling to submit, and to cast off their children and their lawful wife, fall under the full severity of this enactment of the pope. It is rather striking that the pope calls the lawful married life of clerics a crime (scelus), and designates those living such a life as men given over to abominable lusts (obscenis cupiditatibus), making no distinction whatsoever between lawful marriage and unclean cohabitation (turpis coitus)—for surely it cannot be maintained that a priest is equally guilty before the law whether he lives with his lawful wife or with a harlot. Moreover, that Siricius himself understood that he was issuing an anti-canonical enactment can be seen from the fact that in this whole enactment of his he mentions none of the existing canonical enactments on clerical marriage, nor does he trouble, as would be proper, to bring these enactments into any harmony with his own, but simply asserts the authority of the apostolic see (apostolicae sedis auctoritas), and on the basis of that authority commands what he wishes to be done.

The strict demands of Pope Siricius concerning the celibacy of the clergy did not find, with the popes who followed nearest to Siricius’s own time, the kind of support which Western canonists in general would like to portray in their writings in defense of celibacy. Four popes may be mentioned: Innocent I (401-417), Leo the Great (440-461), Pelagius II (578-590), and Gregory the Great (590-604). Pope Innocent I and Leo the Great emphasize that among the clergy marriage ought to be spiritual and not carnal; and Leo the Great in particular does not require that clerics put away their wives, but only wishes that they regard them as though they had them not (ut habeant non habeant uxores, sic habere).[8] Pelagius II speaks in this same sense, requiring the same also of subdeacons. And Pope Gregory the Great expressly says that the law of celibacy seems to him harsh and hard to carry out in every respect (durum atque incompetens omni videtur); but nevertheless he too warmly recommends that continence be observed by the clergy, without however requiring of them that they put away their wives. [9] Notwithstanding all this, the strict Siricianline on celibacy nevertheless gained ever more ground, especially after Gregory the Great, and under Popes Theodore I (642-649) and Martin I (649-653), who are known for their emphasis on the primacy of the Roman bishop over the whole Church and their effort to centralize all spiritual authority in their own hands. Meanwhile Spain and Gaul, just as they had been the first to advance the idea of celibacy at their councils at the beginning of the fourth century, continued to do so through the following three centuries as well. [10] — and thereby helped this same idea to spread and become established in the West.

In the interest of preserving in the whole Church the apostolic tradition and the canonical enactments of the ecumenical Church, in this matter as in everything else, and in the question of the marriage of clerics, the fathers of the Council of Trullo turned their attention to the anti-canonical practice in this regard which had begun to prevail in the Western Church, and in order to cut this off by the authority of an ecumenical council, they issued this (13th) canon of theirs. What this Trullan canon ordains, we have already stated. It was issued with regard to those persons who sought to enter holy orders but who did not wish, or were not able, to remain unmarried. Looking at the enactment of this canon together with the enactment of canon 6 of the same council—that whoever entered the clergy unmarried (from subdeacon upward) may not thereafter marry—it can be seen that the Eastern Church did not stand in decisive contradiction to the Western Church, which wished to bind all clerics to celibacy, nor does it ordain, in opposition to the Western Church, that all presbyters and deacons must be married. It chose a middle way between these two extremes. It ordained that the unmarried too may enter holy orders, but that after ordination they may no longer marry; while if anyone wishes to live in marriage and at the same time wishes to enter holy orders, it does not compel him to renounce marriage, and permits him to marry, but only before ordination. Everyone, therefore, is free to choose as he wishes and to whatever he is inclined, marriage or celibacy, except that the time for this choice is limited to before ordination.

Roman Catholic theologians and canonists, rising up against this (13th) canon of Trullo and defending celibacy, claim that this canon contradicts certain canons of the Council of Carthage which this same Trullan canon cites. These would be canons 3 and 4 of the Council of Carthage, which speak of the continence of clerics, and which Roman Catholics claim prescribe celibacy. Canon 3, in general, establishes that clerics must be continent in all things (ἐγκρατεῖς ἐν πᾶσιν, in omnibus continentes). Just as continence in food and drink does not consist in never eating or drinking, so continence from wives need not always mean a vow of virginity, and it can be observed within married life as well, as the fathers of the Church very often say when they speak of the chastity of marriage. Canon 4 prescribes that all who keep or serve the altar must abstain from their wives (γυναικῶν ἀπέχονται, ab uxoribus abstineant), and the canon joins this with the notion of moral purity (σωφροσύνη, temperantia); but moral purity and celibacy are not the same thing, for moral purity must be preserved also by those who live in marriage, just as by the unmarried. The same must be said of canon 25 of the Council of Carthage, which speaks of the same matter. Moreover, to grasp precisely what continence really means in the aforementioned Carthaginian canons, it is enough merely to look at what the other canons of this same council say, and it will at once be seen that there is no talk there of any celibacy. If the Carthaginian fathers had wished to establish celibacy for every cleric, what need would there have been for canon 15 of these same Carthaginian fathers, that the children of priests are not to attend worldly theatrical shows, or canon 30, that the children of clerics may not marry heretics? In the commentaries on these and other similar Carthaginian canons we speak of all this in more detail. The Council of Trullo had the enactments of the Council of Carthage before its eyes, and for this reason it refers, precisely in this canon of its own, to these same enactments, so that they should not be wrongly understood. From the words of the canon, where these enactments of the Council of Carthage are cited, the thought of the Carthaginian fathers is clearly and correctly interpreted, namely: all clerics must unconditionally preserve moral purity, while abstention from conjugal intercourse is prescribed for them only at the times appointed for them (κατὰ τοὺς ἰδίους ὅρους), that is, when they are preparing to offer the holy sacrifice; what is prescribed, therefore, is not perpetual abstention from intercourse with their lawful wives, or celibacy in the Roman Catholic sense, but only continence when the cleric in question is preparing for the sacred service.

And that the enactments of the Council of Carthage on continence must be understood in this sense is attested, apart from everything else, also by the fact that the African bishops who were present at the Council of Trullo not only did not protest against this understanding of the aforementioned enactments on the part of the Trullan fathers, but themselves signed all the canonical decisions of the council, and governed their churches according to those decisions.

One might have expected that the voice of the ecumenical Church on the question of clerical marriage—that is, the enactment of this canon of the Council of Trullo—would halt the zeal of the defenders of celibacy in the West. And indeed, at first, at least in Rome, people began to think otherwise on this matter and to abandon Siricius’s theory of unconditional celibacy. Pope Sergius (687-701), whose representatives had been present at the Council of Trullo, and after him John VII (705-707), in their acknowledgments of the ecumenical standing of the Council of Trullo, professed their submission to the canons established at that council, and, in accordance with this (13th) canon, allowed every cleric that freedom in the matter of marriage which had been established by the apostolic canons and had now been solemnly proclaimed in the Trullan canons. But, unfortunately, this lasted only a short time. Political circumstances, which had begun to raise the Roman popes to the rank of temporal rulers, and the consequent aspiration of the popes to have in the clergy men who were free, bound by no family ties, and always ready to fight for the papacy in everything—together with the efforts of the Spanish and Gallic bishops and their councils to maintain, on the question of clerical marriage, the line they had taken in past centuries—all this brought matters on this question to begin returning to their former course.

Pope Zacharias (741-752) again took up in this direction the activity of Pope Siricius. At a council held in Rome in the year 743, the earlier enactment was reasserted, that clerics could not have wives; and then, four years later, at the request of Pippin, Pope Zacharias sent into Gaul 27 capitula on ecclesiastical organization, and in the 11th capitulum issued an enactment on the necessity that the clergy live in celibacy.[11] After Zacharias, work continued systematically in the same direction.[12]

But just as the strict law of celibacy had earlier been received with difficulty, so it went with difficulty now as well. And despite the countless enactments on this matter and the threats of canonical penalties, we nevertheless find in the eleventh century a multitude of married men not only among priests and deacons, but even among bishops, and this not only in the provinces of the West, but in Rome itself.[13] This greatly irritated the Roman popes, and all the more so as the idea of universal dominion over everyone in the world developed among them. Of Pope Nicholas II (1058-1061) history relates that he forbade the people to attend a liturgy celebrated by a married priest, and thereby of course provoked unrest among the people.[14] Gregory VII, well known for his ideas absolutist in the papal sense, expressed, from his own point of view, the real reason why the celibacy of the clergy was necessary, when he said: ‘Non liberari potest ecclesia a servitute laicorum, nisi liberentur clerici ab uxoribus’ [“The Church cannot be freed from the servitude of the laity unless the clergy are freed from wives”]—and by a harsh enactment of the year 1074 he forbade every priest to have a wife, and every layman to confess to or receive communion from a married priest, under threat of anathema.[15] But that even all this did not succeed in introducing celibacy in the West is attested by the many councils which, from the twelfth century to the middle of the sixteenth, had to be held against the fact that the clergy would not acknowledge the lawfulness of celibacy, so that even in the sixteenth century we again find a multitude of clerics of every hierarchical degree living in marriage with their wives and regarding their marriage as an entirely canonical matter.[16] At last the Council of Trent (in 1562) barely managed to proclaim as a general law for the whole Roman Catholic Church that no cleric might be married, and this under threat of anathema.[17]

And without even mentioning the uncanonical character of obligatory clerical celibacy in itself, this struggle alone, which was waged in the West for twelve centuries (from the fourth to the sixteenth) against this celibacy, would be enough to show the full soundness and lawfulness of the enactment of this (13th) canon of the Council of Trullo, and how much reason the fathers of that council had to condemn the custom of the Roman Church, which had already developed in this respect in their own time. The law of the Roman Catholic Church on obligatory clerical celibacy was, afterward too, on several occasions the subject of disputes between Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, and in many ways it contributed also to the division of the Churches. Already at the very beginning of the disputes between the two Churches the question of clerical marriage had been raised. The Roman missionaries who were sent in the ninth century to Bulgaria to turn the Bulgarians away from the Church of Constantinople taught them, among other things, that they ought to abhor Orthodox priests, because they were married, and that their church service could therefore be neither lawful nor pleasing to God. Against this, Patriarch Photius, in his encyclical letter addressed to the Eastern archbishops, sharply condemned this teaching of the Roman missionaries, who by such and similar teaching turn the people away from true piety.[18] The same thing was repeated in the eleventh century, in the time of Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople and Pope Leo IX of Rome, when the well-known Cardinal Humbert, in his reply to the Studite monk Nicetas, who had risen in defense of the teaching of the Orthodox Church against the Roman innovations, called the Orthodox Church a Nicolaitan heretical society.[19] — This Humbert, however, did wrong, just as all other Roman Catholic theologians and canonists do wrong when they defend clerical celibacy with such force and endeavor to prove that celibacy is the only state befitting the sublimity of the priestly office, and that clerical married life defiles that office—we say they do wrong, because thereby they cast condemnation upon those very popes who, even after the Council of Trent, permitted certain clerics to live in marriage even after ordination. We mean here the so-called Uniate priests, whom Pope Benedict XIV permits to be freely married, for clerical marriage, says that pope,.[20]

Canon 14

Let the rule of the holy and God-bearing fathers be observed in this matter also, that a presbyter is not ordained before the age of thirty, even though he be a man worthy in all respects, but let him wait; for the Lord Jesus Christ himself was baptized in his thirtieth year and began to teach. Likewise let a deacon not be ordained before twenty-five years, nor a deaconess before forty years.

IV Ecum. 15; Trullo 15; Neocaesarea 1; Carthage 16

Canon 15

A subdeacon younger than twenty years shall not be ordained. Whoever is ordained to any sacred order whatsoever before the established years shall be deposed.

IV Ecum. 15; Trullo 14; Neocaesarea 11; Carthage 16

— These two canons (14 and 15) of Trullo speak of one and the same subject, that is, of the age which those concerned must have attained before they can be appointed to sacred service of the Church. In the first (14th) canon, the 11th canon of the Council of Neocaesarea is repeated word for word and confirmed with regard to the years which one concerned must have in order to be ordained a presbyter. These two Trullan canons prescribe the years for a deacon, a subdeacon, and a deaconess, namely: for a deacon twenty-five years, for a subdeacon twenty years, and for a deaconess forty years; and they threaten with deposition whoever is ordained before the established years.

In the Old Testament it was prescribed that the Levites might begin service in the tabernacle from twenty-five years of age (Num. 4:3; 8:24-25); and this was a general rule for all in the Old Testament church. In the Christian Church, according to the various hierarchical degrees, a corresponding canonical age (canonica aetas) likewise had to be established, at which those concerned could be admitted to one degree or another. This was still difficult to establish in the apostolic age, because of the circumstances in which the Church found itself, being then only in its infancy. Older men were usually chosen; and if we find Timothy appointed [to episcopal office] while young (1 Tim. 4:12), this was a singular case, ordered by divine providence. Of deaconesses it is mentioned in Holy Scripture that they must be sixty years of age (1 Tim. 5:9)—and this already shows us that in that age it was generally held that only older persons could be suitable for service of the Church. In the first centuries it was left in this respect to the wisdom of the heads of the Church to receive men into the clergy and appoint them to the various hierarchical degrees according to their own discernment, with a view to the benefit of the Church; and only gradually was a fixed norm established in this matter by ecclesiastical legislation.

The first canonical enactment on this matter is found in the 11th canon of the Council of Neocaesarea, according to which no one is to be ordained a presbyter until he is thirty years old, even though he be a man worthy in every respect. And as the chief reason for this the canon points out that Jesus Christ himself began to teach in his thirtieth year. This age was, in the main, valid for a bishop as well. In the Apostolic Constitutions (II, 1) it is stated that a candidate for the episcopate must be at least fifty years old (οὐκ ἔλαττον ἐτῶν πεντήκοντα); but that this was not observed even at the very beginning of the Church, and that thirty years was considered sufficient even for the episcopate, is attested to us by many examples from Church history, although there were exceptions even to this age. Of Gregory the Theologian and his brother Athenodorus, history relates that after spending only five years studying under Origen and succeeding excellently, they were appointed bishops while still very young (ambo adhuc admodum iuvenes—“both still quite young”).[21][22][23][24] Appointed while young were also: Acholius, bishop of Antioch, Paul, bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and many others from ancient times. History does not state precisely what ages these men actually were; but for Athanasius, by comparing the relevant years, it appears that in the year 326, when he was chosen as Alexander’s successor, he could have been only [illegible] years old.

In the sixth century Greco-Roman legislation issued relevant enactments on this matter. By one of his Novels, Justinian prescribes that no one may be chosen bishop who is not at least thirty-five years old. But by another Novel he sets thirty years for candidates for the episcopate. This is what was subsequently retained, although from the ecclesiastical practice of the following centuries it can be seen that this age was regarded as a minimum, and bishops were very rarely appointed at that age, older men being regularly appointed instead.

— For a deacon, the canon (Trullo 14) prescribes twenty-five years. This had already been prescribed by the Council of Carthage in the year 401. For a subdeacon, canon Trullo 15 prescribes twenty years. Two Novels of the Emperor Leo the Philosopher also speak of these same years for candidates for the subdiaconate. For a deaconess, the canon repeats the enactment of canon 15 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, according to which only a woman of forty years may be appointed a deaconess.

— In his commentary on this Trullan canon, Balsamon also notes, referring to III, 1, 28 of the Basilica (corresponding to chapter 13 of Justinian’s Novel 123), that [illegible] can be appointed only one who is eighteen years old.

Canon 16

Since the book of the Acts of the Apostles shows that the apostles appointed seven deacons, and the fathers of the Council of Neocaesarea, in their promulgated canons, expressly declared that “according to the canon there must be seven deacons, however great a city may be, of which you will be convinced from the book of the Acts of the Apostles”—we, having compared the thought of the fathers with the apostolic words, have found that there was no word among them about men who were to serve at the mysteries, but about a service necessary at the tables. For in the book of the Acts of the Apostles it stands thus: “In those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said: It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles” (Acts 6:1–6). Expounding this, John Chrysostom, teacher of the Church, speaks thus: “It is a matter for wonder how the multitude was not torn apart in the choosing of the men, and how they did not condemn the apostles; but one must know what dignity these [deacons] had, and what ordination they received. Was it the diaconate? But that did not yet exist in the churches. Was it the office of presbyter? But there was not yet any bishop, only the apostles themselves; from which I conclude that neither the name of deacon nor of presbyter was yet known or in use.” In accordance with this we too declare that the aforementioned seven deacons are not to be taken as ministers at the mysteries, in keeping with the teaching set forth above, but that they were men to whom was entrusted care for the common needs of those who were then assembled; and these deacons give us in this an example of love of mankind and of care for the needy.

— The Council of Neocaesarea, by its 15th canon, had issued the enactment mentioned at the beginning of this canon, that there may be only seven deacons in one city, however great that city may be (κἂν πάνυ μεγάλη ᾖ ἡ πόλις, etiamsi sit magna civitas), and in confirmation this council appealed to the Acts of the Apostles (6:5). Meanwhile, by the time of the Council of Trullo, there was at various greater churches, and especially at that of Constantinople, a much greater number of deacons.[25] By one Novel of Justinian it was ordained that at the Great Church of Constantinople there should permanently be 60 presbyters, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers and 25 cantors—in all, 426 persons.[26] The Emperor Heraclius, by a Novel of the year 612, increased this number still further, and ordained that at the Great Church there should be: 80 presbyters, 150 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 70 subdeacons, 160 readers, 25 cantors and 75 church-servants (doorkeepers, πυλωρῶν, ostiariorum), in all 600 persons.[27][28] As can be seen, the enactment of the Neocaesarean canon was observed neither in the sixth nor in the seventh century. It was necessary to bring the existing practice of the Church into harmony with that canon of the Council of Neocaesarea. The fathers of the Council of Trullo, for this reason, clarify that canon of Neocaesarea, adducing Chrysostom’s interpretation of the passage from the Acts of the Apostles where the deacons are spoken of.[29]

Canon 17

Since clerics of various churches, having abandoned their own churches for which they were appointed, transferred to other bishops, and without the consent of their own bishop were established at other churches, thereby becoming disobedient—we ordain that from the month of January of the past fourth indiction no cleric whatsoever, of whatever rank he may be, has the right, without a letter of dismissal from his own bishop, to be established at another church; and whoever from now on does not observe this, but on his own authority demeans him who performed his ordination, let him be deposed—both he, and the one who unlawfully received him.

(Ap. 12, 15, 32, 33; I Ecum. 15, 16; IV Ecum. 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 20, 23; Trullo 18; Antioch 3, 6; Laodicea 41, 42; Sardica 15, 16, 19; Carthage 23, 106).

— In the commentaries on canon 15 of the First Ecumenical [Council] and canon 6 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council we have seen that presbyters and deacons were always ordained for a specific, exactly designated church, as its ministers, were entered in the roll of clergy of that church, and stood in the closest bond with their own church. By virtue of such a bond, conditioned by their ordination, they could not of themselves dissolve that bond; this could follow only by the authority of the bishop concerned, who, in consequence of the ordination, regarded them as his own clergy, members of the diocesan clergy, canonically dependent on him in every respect. Many canons on this matter had been issued in the early centuries, and this (17th) canon of Trullo only repeats those canons, ordaining that a cleric who, in consequence of his ordination, belongs to one diocese may not pass over into another diocese for service without the consent of his bishop and without a letter of dismissal (ἐκτὸς τῆς τοῦ οἰκείου ἐπισκόπου ἐγγράφου ἀπολυτικῆς, sine proprii episcopi scripta dimissoria), by which he is released from the bond with the church to which he belonged and with the clergy among whom he had previously been, and is thus dismissed from the diocese. In this way, a cleric who wishes to pass over into another diocese, and to be enrolled in the clergy of that diocese, “must,” in the words of Balsamon in his commentary on this canon, “have with him two documents from him who ordained him, namely a commendatory letter (systatikē) and a letter of dismissal (apolytikē), so that by the first he may be able to avail himself of proof that he holds the hierarchical rank which he claims in his words, and by the second he may be enrolled in the clergy of the other church without hindrance.” What a commendatory document (letter or epistle) is, we have stated in the commentary on canon 12 [illegible]. A letter of dismissal (ἀπολυτικὸν γράμμα) is a written document by which a bishop permits a certain cleric to pass over into another diocese, and thereby releases him from the canonical dependence in which he had until then stood. This canon ordains a strict penalty for those who do not observe this: namely, that the cleric who of his own will passes from his own into another diocese shall be deposed, and likewise also the bishop who receives such a cleric without a letter of dismissal from his bishop; for by such conduct, says the canon, the bishop who performed the ordination is demeaned, and the dignity and authority of the episcopate is offended. From this strict penalty it can be seen how great a transgression the fathers of Trullo consider this to be, and how great an importance they attach to it, whenever anyone dares to act against the ordinance of this canon.[30]

Canon 18

We ordain that clerics who, on account of a barbarian invasion or some other circumstance, have left their places [31] — their places, when such circumstances or the barbarian invasion on account of which they withdrew have ceased, must return again to their churches and not, without cause, remain away for long. And whoever acts contrary to this canon, let him be deposed until he returns to his church. To this same penalty let the bishop also be subject, who keeps such a cleric with himself.

(Ap. 15; I Ecum. 15, 16; IV Ecum. 5, 10, 20, 23; Trullo 17; VII Ecum. 15; Antioch 3; Sardica 15, 16, 19).

— This canon has the same purpose as canon 17, and stands in close connection with that canon. It ordains, namely, that the rule must be strictly observed that clerics may not leave their dioceses. If they were compelled to this by external circumstances, they must nevertheless return at once as soon as those circumstances cease. If they do not so act, the canon ordains that such clerics be deposed from their rank, and likewise also the bishops who keep such clerics with themselves.[32]

Canon 19

It behooves the presidents of the churches to teach all the clergy and the people, every day, and especially on the Lord’s days, with words of piety, choosing from the divine Scripture thoughts and reasonings concerning the truth, and in this holding to the boundaries already established and to the traditions of the God-bearing fathers. And when a dispute arises concerning some passage of Holy Scripture, let them by no means interpret that passage otherwise than as the luminaries and teachers of the Church have set it forth in their own writings, and let them be the more content with those writings than with the composition of their own words, lest, being perhaps inexpert in this, they depart from what ought to be observed. For when the people, through the teaching of the said fathers, come to know what is good and what ought to be striven after, and come likewise to know also what is not profitable and what ought to be shunned, they then order their life for the better, and do not fall into the misfortune of ignorance, but, heeding that teaching, they arrange themselves so that no evil may befall them, and, fearing the threatened punishments, they secure their salvation.

(Ap. 58; I Ecum. 2; Laodicea 19; Sardica 11; Carthage 71, 121, 123).

— Three things are ordained in this canon: 1, that bishops who preside over churches must teach the clergy entrusted to them, that is, must preach at all times; 2, especially on the days of the Lord’s assembly; 2, that the preaching must be founded upon Holy Scripture; and 3, that the preacher may not interpret Holy Scripture in his preaching otherwise than as the luminaries and teachers of the Church have set it forth in their own writings.

Of the first we have spoken in the commentary on Apostolic canon 58. Following the ordinance of that canon, the fathers of Trullo command the bishops that they must always teach the clergy and people piety, and especially on Sundays, “for,” says Zonaras in his commentary on this canon, “on those days men leave off the labors of their hands and gather in church to hear the divine Scripture, and the more the bishops teach on those days, the more benefit there will be for the people.”[33]

The second [ordinance] arises from the very subject of the teaching that the bishops are to preach. Holy Scripture is the word of God, which reveals to men the will of God, and bishops are called, in the first place, to teach men to do the will of God as that same word of God has revealed it. From this it follows incontestably: “it follows incontestably that we should have the word of God, that is, the books of the Old and New Testament, as the source, the foundation and the perfect rule both of holy faith and of good lawful deeds. Therefore we must search the word of God (John 5:39; Matt. 13:44–46; 1 Tim. 6:3–4; Acts 17:11; Ps. 118:2), draw the divine truths from it and teach the people (Deut. 6:6–7; Ezek. 2:7, 6:17), and support our word with the word of God.”[34]

Athanasius the Great, in his 39th Festal Letter, after he has enumerated all the books of Holy Scripture, says: “These are the fountains of salvation, that whoever thirsts may be satisfied by the words that are in them; only in these books is the teaching of piety proclaimed.”[35]

The third ordinance of this canon, that the preacher may interpret Holy Scripture only as the holy fathers, that is, the ecumenical Church, have understood it—this is one of the foundational ordinances of the Orthodox Church. “We believe,” says the 2nd article of the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, “that the divine and holy Scripture is inspired by God; therefore we must believe it without contradiction, and not just anyhow in our own way, but precisely as the Catholic Church has explained and handed it down. For the false wisdom of heretics also accepts the divine Scripture, but interprets it perversely, making use of allegorical and similar-sounding expressions and the artifices of human wisdom, mixing what cannot be mixed, and playing childishly with matters that do not admit of jest. Otherwise, if everyone were daily to interpret Scripture in his own way, the Catholic Church would not have remained, by the grace of Christ, until now such a church as, being of one mind in the faith, believes always alike and unshakably, but would be divided into countless parts and subject to heresies, and would thereby cease to be the holy church, the pillar and ground of truth, and would become a church of the malicious, that is, as must be supposed without doubt, a church of heretics, who are not ashamed to learn from the church and afterward lawlessly to reject it. Since the author of both is one and the same Holy Spirit, it is all the same whether one learns from Scripture or from the universal church. A man who speaks of himself may err, deceive and be deceived; but the universal church, since she has never spoken and does not speak of herself, but from the Spirit of God (Whom she unceasingly has and will have as her Teacher to the end of the age), can in no way err, or deceive or be deceived, but, like the divine Scripture, is infallible and has permanent authority.”[36]

— The teaching of the ecumenical Church, or the teaching of the holy fathers and doctors of the Church, has always served as the guide for preachers, just as it must always serve them as such a guide, if they wish to be true interpreters of the teaching of Holy Scripture; for the unanimous agreement of all the fathers and doctors of the Church in the teaching concerning the matters of the divine revelation or of the Christian faith—that is the true mark of truth.[37]

The need and necessity of following the teaching of the holy fathers in interpreting Holy Scripture in one’s preaching is itself borne out by the sublimity of the thoughts contained in Holy Scripture. This the fathers of Trullo recommend, by this their (19th) canon, especially to the bishops, as the chief preachers of the word of God in the Church and as teachers both of the clergy and of the people. Bishops are the supreme teachers in the Church, and as such it is entrusted to them to preach the Christian truth and to spread it everywhere (Matt. 28:19–20; John 15:16; Acts 6:4; 1 Cor. 1:17; 2 Tim. 2:15, 4:2). From them derives the authority that the priests have to preach (Acts 19:24, 27; 1 Tim. 2:2). The bishop must therefore himself be fully learned in Holy Scripture (VII Ecum. 2), and must interpret it in the sense of the ecumenical Church, so that he may be able to reveal the will of God to all those entrusted to his care. “Since [it is evident],” it is stated in the answer to the second question in the appendix to the aforementioned Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, “that in Scripture there is contained a depth and height of thoughts; therefore people experienced and enlightened by God are needed to examine it, for its true understanding, for a right knowledge in accord with all of Scripture and with its Creator, the Holy Spirit. And although the doctrine of the faith concerning the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, His sufferings, resurrection and ascension into heaven, the regeneration and the judgment, for which doctrine many gladly endured even death, is known to the regenerate, yet it is not necessary—or rather it is impossible—for all to attain what the Holy Spirit reveals only to those perfect in wisdom and holiness.”[38]

Canon 20

A bishop may not publicly teach in another city that does not belong to him. Whoever is found doing this, let him cease from the episcopate and perform the office of a presbyter.

Ap. 14, 35; I Ecum. 8, 15; II Ecum. 2; III Ecum. 8; IV Ecum. 29; Ancyra 18; Antioch 13, 29; Sardica 3, 11, 12

— Many canons speak of this, that bishops may not extend their authority over churches belonging to another, and that they may exercise that authority only in their own diocese (Ap. 34; IV Ecum. 5; Antioch 9; Carthage 58, 56, etc.). The 11th canon of the Council of Sardica determined specifically on this point, that a bishop may not go into another’s diocese and there presume to preach on his own authority. This Trullan canon repeats the ordinance of that Sardican canon, and for whoever should presume publicly to teach in some city that lies within another bishop’s diocese, without the knowledge of the diocesan bishop concerned, the canon ordains that he be removed from the episcopate and perform only the office of a presbyter.

A bishop is forbidden to preach in another’s diocese without the knowledge of the bishop concerned, and this, as the 11th canon of the Council of Sardica says, when done with intent to shame and humiliate the ruling bishop, who may perhaps not be the most skilled in teaching—that is, done with evil intent. But, adds Balsamon in his commentary on this (Trullan) canon, a bishop will not fall under condemnation who does this with the knowledge (μετὰ γνώμην) of the diocesan bishop concerned, for he may indeed also serve without any reproach in another’s diocese, if the bishop who governs that diocese has expressed a wish to that effect; and here Balsamon adduces as proof the examples of Gregory the Theologian and of John, metropolitan of Elis, and Apostolic canon 14.[39] — It is further forbidden to a bishop to preach publicly (δημοσίᾳ, publice) in another’s diocese, but he will not sin, says Zonaras in his commentary on this canon, if someone from another diocese approaches him privately with some question, and he privately answers and instructs him on it (διδάσκων καθ’ ἑαυτόν, teaching for himself alone), as the 11th canon of the Council of Sardica determines in detail on this matter. — This same Zonaras, in the same place, turns his attention to the penalty that this canon prescribes, and notes that there may seem to some a contradiction between the 29th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council, which says that it is sacrilege to reduce a bishop to the rank of presbyter, and this canon of this council, which ordains that a bishop who transgresses its ordinance be removed from the episcopate and perform the office of a presbyter—and he answers: “there, that is, in the 29th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council, it speaks of deposition, whether lawful or unlawful (κατὰ λόγον ἢ παραλόγου); for if a bishop has been deposed from the episcopate for some grave accusation and sin, in such a case he cannot be even a presbyter; but if he has been deposed from the episcopate without fault (ἀναιτίως), then he cannot be reduced to the rank of presbyter, but remains a bishop still; here, however, that is, by the 20th canon of the Council of Trullo, the bishop has not committed such a sin as would prevent him from belonging to the priesthood, but he has sinned in vainglory (φιλοδοξία, ambitio) and in a craving for praise, and therefore, that he may undergo the penalty corresponding to that sin and be taught humility, he is removed from the episcopate and set in the rank of presbyters.”[40] Archimandrite Ioann says the same thing briefly and clearly in his commentary on this canon. Speaking of the aforesaid penalty, he says: “This does not mean that a bishop who transgresses the ordinance of this canon is to be transferred from the episcopal rank to the rank of presbyter (for that would be contrary to the other canons of the Church, IV Ecum. 29), but it means that such a bishop is deprived of episcopal authority (or more precisely, of the episcopal see), and is placed among the subordinate clergy.”[41]

Canon 21

Those who have been accused of canonical transgressions, and on that account have been subjected to final and perpetual deposition and driven into the rank of laymen—if they turn of their own free will to repentance, and cast off the sin on account of which they were deprived of grace, and wholly cure themselves of it, let them cut their hair after the manner of the clergy; but if they do not incline to this of their own good will, let them wear their hair as laymen, since they preferred worldly enjoyment rather than the heavenly life.

Ap. 5, 62, 87, 88; I Ecum. 9, 12; II Ecum. 9; IV Ecum. 7; Neocaesarea 9; Carthage 36; Protodeutera 16; Basil the Great 3, 70; Cyril of Alexandria 3

— In this canon the subject is those sacred persons who have committed a grave canonical transgression (ἔγκλημα, crimen), and on account of that transgression have been finally and forever deposed (παντελεῖ καὶ διηνεκεῖ καθαιρέσει ὑποβαλλόμενον), and have lost the grace (τῆς χάριτος ἐκπεπτώκασι, a gratia exciderunt) of which they were accounted worthy at their ordination, and have been placed in the position of laymen (ἐν τῷ τῶν λαϊκῶν ἀπωθούμενον τόπῳ, in laicorum locum detrusi sunt), the position they held before ordination. It speaks, then, of the gravest penalty to which a sacred person can be subjected, after which he ceases to belong to the clergy and passes into the rank of laymen. The rite of deposition itself is performed solemnly in church, by a special ceremony, in which the bishop who performs this sorrowful rite says, among other things, to the one deposed: “You, who today for the last time are named a priest of our God, are from now deprived of the grace of the priesthood that you had until now, and lose that mantle of priestly grace with which you have until now adorned and honored yourself in human society… Today there is taken from you that consecration which you received from heaven by episcopal ordination, and you are returned to the simple laity …”10 From that hour the deposed man steps out of the priestly communion in which he had until then stood, and enters the communion of the laity (κοινωνία τῶν λαϊκῶν, communio laica); formally, therefore, he is excluded from the clergy, ceases to be a member of the clergy both in fact and in law, his name is struck from the roll or catalogue of the clergy (κατάλογος ἱερατικός, Ap. 51; κατάλογος τῶν κληρικῶν, Ap. 15; κανών, I Ecum. 16, 17, 19; ἅγιος κανών, Antioch 1), and he becomes a layman. — If a priest so deposed repents of the sin he committed and for which he was deposed and deprived of grace, and wholly cures himself of that sin, the canon permits him to wear the outward mark of the priesthood—but only this, and nothing more. If he does not repent, even this is forbidden him, “so that the former priest or deacon may feel the shame of having been driven out into the laity (ὡς εἰς λαϊκοὺς ἀπωσθεὶς ὁ πρὶν ἱερεύς, ἢ διάκονος)”, as Zonaras says in his commentary on this canon. [42][43]

In consequence of a deposition pronounced by the competent ecclesiastical court for the canonical transgression concerned, the priest in question is deprived, wholly and forever, of the right to perform any priestly act, is deprived of the name and honor of the priesthood, ceases to belong to the clergy, and becomes a layman, as he was before ordination. [44][45]

… to halt here, all the more since the matter is controverted, and the same question receives both a positive and a negative answer, both in theory and in practice. The positive answer to this question is that the priest concerned is permitted to seek to have the priestly rank removed from him and to pass into the laity, and it is held that such a request, if the grounds are well founded, the competent church authority not only may but must grant. The negative answer to the same question holds that neither in the canons of the Orthodox Church, nor in the canonical ordinances issued after the closing of the canon, is anything ever ordained on this subject, and that therefore no one is permitted to seek to have the priestly rank removed from him, and consequently the church authority may not, nor may it dare, entertain such a request, since it is uncanonical. As can be seen, these views are diametrically opposed; and yet both are not only maintained in theory by their respective proponents, but both are also put into practice today. The first view—namely, that the person concerned may seek and obtain permission to cease being a priest and to become a layman—prevails in the Russian Church, and has found legal expression in article 86 of the Statute of the Ecclesiastical Consistories (1883 ed.), which article speaks of how there occurs the “снятие священнослужительскаго сана и сложение монашества, по прошению” [“the removal of holy orders and the laying aside of monasticism, upon petition”]. The second view, namely, that no one may seek, and consequently may not obtain, upon his own petition, that he no longer be a priest but a layman—this view prevails and has practical application in all the rest of the Church. How that view on this question came to be formed in the Russian Church, and how the present-day practice there became established, has been written about at sufficient length. [46] As to the canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church, however—we must say at once—only the lawful ecclesiastical court, in consequence of canonical transgressions committed by a priest, can depose such a priest from the priestly rank and place him in the rank of laymen; in no way, however, can a priest (or any sacred person whatever) himself, for his own personal reasons, leave the priestly rank, or for those reasons seek that the church authority remove that rank from him and that he obtain this from the church authority. This is the canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church, as we shall at once see.

In the commentary on the 7th canon of the Council of Chalcedon we have seen how there has always existed in the Christian Church the thought of the close bond between a priest and the ecclesiastical service that he received through the mystical consecration at the holy altar, and how that consecration binds a man to the Church for his whole life, for he received that same consecration according to his own inward calling and solemnly accepted it, and therefore he cannot, nor may he, renounce the service that he voluntarily took upon himself and to which he solemnly vowed fidelity unto the grave, and give himself to another service that is not a service to God and the Church, without becoming anathema, as that same canon of Chalcedon says. This thought of the Church is founded on divine law. In Holy Scripture we read the commandment that a priest must be faithful (πιστός) unto the grave to his service, for this very thing God himself requires of the stewards of the mysteries of God and the servants of Christ (1 Cor. 4:1–2). On divine law, therefore, are founded the church canons that speak on this subject, and which condemn unfaithfulness to the Church on the part of Christ’s ministers and performers of the mysteries of God, who thereby become breakers of the oath sworn before God and betrayers of the Church. Moreover, the very significance of the priesthood and of the priestly rank itself presupposes a close bond between the Church and its minister, who has become such through mystical consecration. The priestly rank would lose that significance if it were permitted to everyone to lay it aside at will and without penalty, for worldly reckonings and earthly advantage, and through frivolity and inconstancy of soul. And besides, how much scandal in society would arise from men who until yesterday were consecrated persons and mediators, through the mystery of the holy altar, before God, and today have already become mere laymen? In the church canons there is no mention of such causes as might somehow compel individual sacred persons to leave the priestly rank—for instance, such infirmities of soul as might hinder the successful performance of priestly service. The canons do not even presuppose such causes, which in any case lose their significance of themselves the moment attention is turned to the words of the Savior himself concerning the taking upon oneself of priestly service and the performance of that service (Luke 9:62, 14:28–30). And if anywhere, it is especially in the holy service of the altar, by reason of its very importance, that there is needed not only great circumspection and self-examination upon entering that service, but also the firmest constancy, even to self-sacrifice and to death itself, in the performance of priestly duties. Faithfully interpreting the ordinance of Holy Scripture, the church canons decisively condemn every priest who abandons priestly service and enters worldly service. Apostolic canon 62 subjects to severe condemnation a cleric who renounces his name, even if he did so at the greatest peril to his life. Apostolic canon 81 likewise subjects to condemnation a bishop or presbyter who gives himself to worldly service. So too Apostolic canon 83. In these last two canons, it is true, the subject is such sacred persons as wish to perform, at one and the same time, both priestly and some worldly service—it does not, therefore, speak of the abandonment of the priestly rank—but the principle is nonetheless brought out, that one who has consecrated himself to priestly service can no longer take up worldly offices. Of the abandonment of the priestly rank and entry into worldly service the 7th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council already speaks, and it ordains that those who dare do this and do not return, in repentance, to that which they chose for God’s sake, be anathema—subjecting them, therefore, to the gravest ecclesiastical penalty. What the ordinances of the Greco-Roman civil authority were on this matter we have stated in the commentary on that same canon. But where the willful abandonment of the priesthood and the tendering of a resignation from priestly service are most decisively and most clearly condemned is in the letter of the III Ecumenical Council to the Council of Pamphylia concerning Metropolitan Eustathius, who had submitted a written resignation from his office—which letter we have adduced as the 9th canon of the III Ecumenical Council—and, further, this is condemned in the 3rd canon of Cyril of Alexandria. Of the first, that is, of the 9th canon of the III Ecumenical Council, we have spoken sufficiently in our commentary on that same canon. The canon (3rd) of Cyril of Alexandria resolves our question in the clearest and simplest way. It condemns the case where a sacred person tenders a resignation from his office, or, in other words, seeks to be released from priestly service, on account of some threat from certain persons, or out of fear and some necessity; and it adds that even were none of this the case, it is still not in accord with the church’s institutions that written resignations from priestly service be tendered, “for if they are worthy to serve, let them remain in that; if they are not worthy to serve, let them not withdraw by resignation, but let them be condemned by their own deeds” (μὴ ἀπὸ παραιτήσεως ἐξέτωσαν, κατεγνωσμένοι δὲ μᾶλλον ἐπὶ πράγμασιν, nec per renuntiationem exeant, sed rebus ipsis potius condemnati). This is clear and plain: no sacred person may seek to be released from priestly service, whatever the reason that might move him to this, for this is contrary to the church’s institutions (οὔτε τοῖς τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀρέσκον θεσμοῖς, ecclesiasticae consuetudini non placet); if he is worthy to serve, he must remain in that service; if he is not worthy, that is, if there is found in him some canonical transgression, as the 21st canon of the Council of Trullo says, then the competent church court will condemn him and subject him to the penalty he deserves—therefore, if need be, not only to deposition from rank, but even to anathema, as the 7th canon of the Council of Chalcedon says. [47]

On the voluntary (πεποιηκώς, sponte) abandonment of priestly service, Balsamon speaks in his commentary on Apostolic canon 62, and speaks of it also in his commentary on the 44th canon of Basil the Great; and on that basis it might be held that in the twelfth century there was a departure from the canonical practice of earlier centuries, and that it was therefore permitted to sacred persons to seek and to obtain from the church authority to be released from the priestly rank. But if we pay attention to the sense in which Balsamon speaks there, and note that he mentions only those sacred persons who, out of fear of the enemy, renounced the priestly name (Ap. 62), and deaconesses who committed fornication with a heathen (Basil the Great 44), then it becomes at once perfectly clear what that voluntary abandonment of priestly service, of which Balsamon speaks, means. In this same sense must also be understood what Justinian says, in his relevant law, of a cleric who voluntarily abandons priestly service.

The conclusion on the question whether a priest (or any sacred person whatever) may seek to be released from the rank he received by ordination is plain from what we have said so far, and is expressed briefly in the words: canonically he may not. And that even in the Russian Church, where this is today permitted by article 86 of the Statute of the Ecclesiastical Consistories, it is regarded as something having no canonical basis whatever, is attested to us by a learned Russian canonist, in an article printed in the “Pravoslavnoe Obozrenie” for the year 1875, under the title: “Общiя начала, которыми руководствуется св. синодъ въ приложенiи правилъ древней церкви” [“The General Principles by which the Holy Synod Is Guided in Applying the Canons of the Ancient Church”]. In that article the Russian canonist, having said that, when there is no explicit canon on a given subject, the Holy Synod, among the various courses open to it, appeals to canons that bear only a distant relation to the subject and touch only one or another side of it, adds: “thus the Holy Synod proceeds in the greater part of its rulings on the petitions of clergy who leave the priestly rank in order to enter a second marriage. It is well known that among the canons of the ancient Church there are no such canons as would permit the rank to be laid aside on the ground that one wishes to enter a second marriage. Yet present-day Russian church practice, and the ukase of 30 April 1724, permit this. And the Holy Synod, wishing to found its permission also upon the canons of the ancient Church, adduces as a basis such canons as touch the subject only distantly and confirm only one part of the general thought. It adduces, for example, Apostolic canon 26: readers and cantors who came [to the clergy] before marriage, if they wish, may marry. The inference drawn from this canon for the point in question is, however, very far-fetched. Or again, it adduces canon 6 of the Council of Trullo, which likewise gives no proper inference: one who, having been ordained, marries, must be deposed, for he ought to have married before ordination if he wished to. Often, in support of these same rulings, the teaching of the Apostle Paul in the 7th chapter of 1 Corinthians on second marriage is adduced together with the aforesaid canons. But there is not a word there about the second marriage of clergy—it speaks only, in general, of a second marriage being permitted. Somehow, when all these canons are taken together, the desired conclusion concerning permission for a second marriage upon leaving the priesthood can be drawn—for example thus: among those who entered the clergy unmarried, only readers and cantors are permitted to marry; and if anyone marries after ordination, he must be deposed and thus pass into the rank of laymen, to whom, by the teaching of the Apostle Paul, a second marriage is already permitted. But this requires a wholly special piece of reasoning to arrive at, and it is necessary in every individual such case that all these canons be expressly adduced. Yet examples of this being done are rare. On the contrary, very often a single canon is adduced, usually canon 6 of the Council of Trullo, and the ruling is issued: on the basis of this canon, permission is granted to lay aside the rank and to enter a second marriage. — There are even examples of such rulings as this: that when some priest seeks to be released from his rank so that he may enter worldly service, with no mention of a second marriage, the Holy Synod issues a ruling on the question of release from rank on the basis of the teaching of the Apostle Paul in chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians and canon 6 of the VI Ecumenical Council. Synodal rulings of 14 May 1809 and 15 December 1816” (Pravosl. Obozr., 1875, II, 199–200). — What this Russian canonist says best illustrates what has been said above in the commentary on this canon, namely, that it cannot canonically be permitted to a priest, or to a deacon, to seek to be released from the rank he received by ordination—and that, in connection with this, it cannot canonically be permitted to him to marry a second time either, as we have already said in the commentary on canon 6 of this council.

Canon 22

Those who have been appointed for money, and not by reason of examination and because they chose the priestly life—whether they be bishops or other clerics of whatever kind—we ordain that they be deposed; and likewise let those be deposed also who appointed them.

Ap. 19; Sardica 2; Basil the Great 90; Gennadius’ Encyclical; Tarasius’ Encyclical

— Of simony, which this canon condemns, we have already spoken in the commentaries on Apostolic canon 29 and canon 2 of the IV Ecumenical Council. “Countless canons speak of this,” says Zonaras in his commentary on this canon, “but the evil nonetheless continued to gnaw at the Church like a cancer (ὡς γάγγραινα τὰς ἐκκλησίας ἐνέμετο, ecclesias velut gangraena depascebatur), so that the fathers of this sixth council, too, had to issue such a canon.” The canon ordains that not only he who has been appointed simoniacally to some hierarchical rank be deposed, but also he who appointed such a person, determining that ordination is to be performed not for money, but after examination and by reason of the choice of the priestly life. By this the fathers of the Council of Trullo declare their conviction that in an ordination performed for money there was, or in general could be, neither the canonical examination nor the necessary election to the priestly life, nor the necessary regard for the corresponding merits—and that, accordingly, many unworthy servants of the Church were being accepted and ordained, while worthy and deserving men were passed over, and thereby the interests of the Church suffered, and the very repute of the Church itself suffered.[48]

Canon 23

Let no bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, when giving the most pure communion, exact from the one whom he communicates money or anything else. For grace is not for sale, nor do we distribute the sanctification of the Spirit for money, but the holy communion is to be given to those who are worthy of that gift, without any view to gain. But if it be found that any cleric exacts anything from the one to whom the most pure communion is given, let him be deposed, as a zealot of the error and wickedness of Simon.

Ap. 4, 29; IV Ecum. 2; Trullo 23; VII Ecum. 4

— A zealot of the error and wickedness of Simon (τῆς Σίμωνος ζηλωτὴς πλάνης καὶ κακουργίας, Simonis erroris et malitiae aemulus)—thus the canon calls a bishop, presbyter, or deacon who gives the holy communion for money, thereby regarding such an act as simony, exactly like ordination for money, and ordains that every one who is caught at this be deposed. The canon adduces, as the ground for this its ordinance, that grace is not for sale, nor is the sanctification of the Holy Spirit to be distributed to the faithful for money, but is given to everyone who is worthy of it, without any regard to material gain. Sacred persons receive the gifts of grace as a gift, and must therefore give them as a gift to everyone who is worthy of them (Matt. 10:8). By mentioning grace, the canon thereby shows that all the holy mysteries are to be understood here, among which the mystery of the holy communion, which the canon mentions, occupies the chief place; and thus this canon forbids and condemns the exacting of money, or of any reward whatever, for all the holy mysteries. — Sacred persons do, of course, have the right to live from the altar, when they serve the altar (1 Cor. 9:14), and have a right to offerings from the faithful, as we have mentioned in the commentary on Apostolic canon 4; “but the kind and the amount of such offerings in favor of the clergy,” we read in Archimandrite Ioann’s commentary on this canon, “must in every case be left entirely to the free devotion of the faithful, nor could it be reconciled with the spirit of the gospel law and with the nature of the spiritual gifts of grace, were the clergy themselves to demand compulsorily that they be paid for the holy mysteries, before or after; for nothing would be capable of degrading the sanctity of these gifts and the priestly rank so much as such an exacting of payment.”[49] And after this wise remark the learned Russian canonist adduces, in confirmation, Gregory the Theologian, who, in his discourse on baptism, states that for a priest the highest reward is when the faithful approach the holy mysteries with a clear conscience and duly prepared.[50]

Canon 24

No one who belongs to the priestly rank or is a monk may go to horse races, or attend theatrical plays. Likewise, if a cleric be invited to a wedding, as soon as the plays that are wont to be performed begin, let him rise and depart from the place, for so the teaching of our fathers commands. And whoever is caught in this, let him either cease, or be deposed.[51]

Trullo 51, 62, 65; Laodicea 54; Carthage 15, 45, 63

— Let a priest or a monk be deposed who goes to horse races (ἱπποδρομίας, equorum cursibus), or attends theatrical plays (θυμελικῶν παιγνίων, scenicos ludos), or remains at weddings when the plays (παιγνία, ludi) begin. From such a penalty it may readily be understood how incompatible the fathers of this council considered such amusements to be with the priestly and the monastic estate. All these amusements, which existed in the age when the Council of Trullo was held, derived from the pagan age of the Roman state and bore that character which we have described at length in the commentary on Apostolic canon 71. Horse races, however inhuman they were and however they roused savage and bloody feelings in the spectators, together with the various performances that were joined with these races, presented, as Balsamon says in his commentary on this canon, only things that caused spiritual disquiet and clamor (θορυβώδη καὶ ταραχώδη), amid shameless words (ἀναιδῆ ῥήματα) that accompanied these games. Theatrical plays lagged not a whit behind the horse races in this. Of the tragedy that was performed, Cyprian says that nothing else takes place there but the depiction of ancient examples of parricide or fornication, so that with the passing of time the ancient evils should not be forgotten. To all it was there vividly shown that what had once been shameful could again become so anew, so that it hindered vice from vanishing with the years, hindered transgression from ceasing with time, hindered shameful deeds from passing into oblivion. What had once been a crime served as an example. [52]

As to the games, too, which the mimes (μῖμοι) performed on the stage, which are spoken of in the 51st canon of this council, the picture cannot be blacker than the one given to us by the fathers and teachers of the older Church.[53] These were games whose whole aim was to present to the spectators everything most immoral conceivable, and capable of nourishing in mature persons the most disgusting vices, and of teaching the young how to indulge in the most refined debauchery. The watching of such games and the taking part in theatrical performances the Church was of course bound to forbid, not only to sacred persons, but also to the lay faithful. And indeed we find already, in the first half of the fourth century, a canon (54) of the Council of Laodicea forbidding sacred persons to watch stage performances; and from the end of the fourth century we have a canon [54] that forbids even the children of clergy to go to worldly theaters, adducing as ground that in those theaters nothing but blasphemy (βλασφημία) takes place. In the same sense there are several ordinances also of Greco-Roman civil legislation, which stress the unsuitability, for sacred persons, of watching such various games and theatrical performances, and strictly forbid this to them.[55][56]

The Council of Trullo, having before its eyes what horse races together with the various public games and theatrical performances were, in its own day, and adopting and confirming the existing ordinances on this matter, both of the church and of the civil authorities, issued this its canon, decreeing deposition for every cleric who dares transgress these ordinances. The same is decreed also for monks—meaning here only monks, not hieromonks, who as such already belong to the clergy.

In the second half of the canon the ordinance of canon 54 of the Council of Laodicea is repeated and confirmed, and the penalty of deposition is prescribed for clerics (both those in holy orders and lower church servants) if, being invited to some wedding, they remain there when the usual mimic games customary at weddings of that time begin. The canon does not mention monks, for, in the words of Balsamon in his commentary on this canon, the fathers of the Council of Trullo considered this already self-evident, on account of its being altogether unbecoming (διὰ τὸ πάντῃ ἀπρεπές, quod id sit nimis indecorum).

Canon 25

Together with the rest we also repeat that canon which enjoins that in every diocese the parishes that are in villages or hamlets must belong unchangeably to the bishops in whose authority they are, especially if they have held and administered them without dispute for thirty years. But if any dispute concerning them has arisen, or should arise, before the thirty years have elapsed, it is permitted to those who consider themselves wronged to bring an action concerning it before the diocesan council.

— By this their canon the fathers of the Council of Trullo repeat the 17th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council, the interpretation of which canon we have already set forth, and which holds good also for this Trullan canon.

Canon 26

A presbyter who, through ignorance, has entered into an unlawful marriage, let him keep the presbyter’s seat, according to what we have enacted in the sacred canon, but let him abstain from other functions, for it is enough that such a one be thus far forgiven. It is not fitting that one who must heal his own wounds should bless another; and to bless is to give sanctification; and he who lacks this, on account of a transgression committed through ignorance, how shall he give it to others? Let such a one, therefore, neither bless publicly nor privately, nor distribute the Lord’s body to others, nor perform any other service; but, content with holding his seat before others, let him with tears beseech the Lord to forgive him the sin that he committed through ignorance. It is of itself plain that such an unlawful marriage must be dissolved, and the husband shall in no way be permitted any longer to have intercourse with her on whose account he was deprived of the holy service.

Ap. 17; IV Ecum. 14; Trullo 8, 6, 21; Neocaesarea 9; Basil the Great 27

— By this canon the 27th canon of Basil the Great is repeated and confirmed; that canon’s interpretation should be compared in this edition. The fathers of the Council of Trullo add a concluding clause to this canon, namely, that the marriage in question, which was unlawfully contracted, must be dissolved, and that the presbyter may no longer have intercourse with her on whose account he was deprived of the holy service. Should that presbyter be unwilling to do this, then not only will he have no right to enjoy the mercy that the canon grants him, but he, and likewise she with whom he unlawfully joined himself, will be expelled from the Church, and their unlawful marriage will be dissolved by the civil authority.

Canon 27

Let no cleric wear clothing that does not befit him, whether he abides in the city or goes upon a journey, but let him wear the garments already appointed for those who belong to the clergy; and whoever does otherwise, let him be excommunicated for one week.

— This canon is plain. Just as, in the age of the Council of Trullo, the garments that sacred persons were to wear were fixed, so this is likewise fixed today by the corresponding legislation of the local churches, and this must strictly bind everyone who belongs to the clergy—otherwise, by this canon, he is liable to excommunication for one week.

Canon 28

Since we have learned that in certain churches, by some established custom, grapes are offered at the altar, and the ministers, having mixed these together with the bloodless sacrifice of the offering, distribute both together to the people—we find it necessary to ordain also this, that no priest shall henceforth do this, but let him distribute to the people, for life and for the forgiveness of sins, the pure offering; and the grapes, receiving them as first-fruits and blessing them separately, let him distribute to those who ask for them, in token of thanksgiving to the Giver of the fruits, through which our bodies grow and are nourished, by God’s ordinance. And whatever cleric acts contrary to this institution, let him be deposed.

— In the commentary on Apostolic canon 3 we have said as much as is needed on this subject, and that should also serve as the commentary on this Trullan canon. [57]

Canon 29

The canon of the Carthaginian fathers ordains that the holy service of the altar be performed by none but persons who are fasting, except on one day of the year, when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, and such an institution those holy fathers then established, it may be, on account of certain reasons useful for the Church in those places. But since nothing moves us to abandon this pious strictness, following the apostolic and patristic traditions, we ordain that it is not permitted, even on the Thursday of the last week of the Forty Days, to break the fast, and thereby to dishonor the whole of the Forty Days.

Ap. 69; Trullo 89; Laodicea 50; Carthage 41, 47; Timothy of Alexandria 16

— By this their canon the fathers of Trullo amend the corresponding ordinance of canon 41 of the Council of Carthage, and ordain that a sacred person must be fasting, on whatever day he celebrates the holy liturgy.

Canon 30

With the intent of ordering all things for the advancement of the Church, we have resolved to regulate as is fitting the domestic relations also of those priests who are in churches among the barbarians. Accordingly, if they hold that they must act beyond the apostolic canon, which ordains that a man is not to put away his own wife under the pretext of piety, and that they must do more than what has been established, and consequently, having agreed with their wives, abstain from mutual intercourse—we ordain that, in such a case, they shall in no way any longer live together with their former wives, that they may thereby give us full proof of their promise. But this we permit them for no other reason than because of their faint-heartedness and the strange and as yet unsettled character of their customs.

Ap. 5; I Ecum. 3; Trullo 12, 13, 48; Gangra 1, 4, 9

— By this canon the fathers of the Council of Trullo, making allowance for the circumstances of the places concerned, permit an exception from the general canons of the Orthodox Church concerning clerical marriage. In the commentaries on Apostolic canon 5 and on canon 13 of this council we have mentioned the general law of the Orthodox Church on this matter, and that law must hold good for all times and for all local churches. By Apostolic canon 5 sacred persons are forbidden to put away their lawful wife under the pretext of piety—which piety, with respect to clerical marriage, was a false, heretical piety, as we have seen in the commentary on that Apostolic canon. Meanwhile, in certain local churches that lay outside the borders of the Greco-Roman state, among peoples who were not of Greco-Roman origin, and whom the canon calls βάρβαρον (barbari, foreigners), there prevailed, regarding clerical marriage, a notion of piety understood in a stricter, and not a heretical, sense; and accordingly the priests in those churches, having agreed with their wives, ceased all further carnal intercourse with them. Of this the fathers of Trullo learned, and, with the intent, as they say in this canon, of ordering all things for the advancement of the Church, they resolved to permit an exception for the priests of the aforesaid churches, and to grant them leave to follow the custom established among them; and this they permit them “for no other reason than because of their faint-heartedness (μικροψυχία) and the strange and as yet unsettled character of their customs,” and also because, among them, the faith was as yet weak and unsettled, as Balsamon observes in his commentary on this canon;[58] and consequently, as soon as that faith became settled among them, they too would have to follow the general laws that hold good for all others concerning clerical marriage. In permitting this to the priests of the aforesaid churches, the canon requires that these same priests may never again have any intercourse whatever with their wives, nor may they live together with them, so that they may thereby convince everyone that they have not vowed to God, in pretense, but truly and out of genuine piety, that they will live in continence. — Balsamon quite fittingly raises, in connection with this canon, the question: what is to be done if the wife is unwilling to be separated from her husband, since this, by this canon, depends upon her own free will? To this he at once also answers, saying that it would be unjust to compel the wife to separate from her husband, for this would be contrary to Apostolic canon 5 and to the corresponding Novel of Justinian, which forbids the dissolution of marriages by mutual consent (κατὰ συναίνεσιν, consensu)[59] — this being the 117th Novel of Justinian, of the year 542, and another, the 134th Novel, of the year 556.[60]

Canon 31

As for clerics who celebrate the liturgy, or baptize, in oratories that are found in private houses, we ordain that they must do this only with the consent of the local bishop. Accordingly, whatever cleric does not observe this, let him be deposed.

Ap. 31; IV Ecum. 18; Trullo 34, 59; VII Ecum. 7, 10; Carthage 40, 60; Ap. 48, 54; Trullo 9, 59; VII Ecum. 22; Laodicea 24, 58; Gangra 6; Antioch 5; Protodeutera 12; Carthage 10

— The celebration of the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, exactly like that of the sacrament of baptism, can by canon take place only in a church that has been consecrated by the proper bishop.[61] There priests could freely perform these sacraments by virtue of the general authorization which they received from the bishop through ordination. In other places, that is, outside churches consecrated by a bishop, this was strictly forbidden them, for this was already regarded as schism, or at least as a tendency toward schism (Ap. 31 and parallel canons). Besides the public, episcopally-consecrated churches, there existed—as canon 6 of this council itself calls them—“catholic churches (καθολικῶν ἐκκλησιῶν),” and also domestic churches, or “oratories (εὐκτήρια),” in which the holy Eucharist and baptism could likewise be celebrated. About such domestic churches the earliest Christian Church already speaks.[62] It is these domestic churches that this canon mentions, and, permitting an exception from the 58th canon of Laodicea, it ordains that priests may celebrate the holy service and baptize in them, but only with the consent of the local bishop (ὑπὸ γνώμην τοῦ κατὰ τόπον ἐπισκόπου); otherwise, if any priest presumes to do this without the consent of the competent bishop, he is to be deposed (καθαιρεῖσθαι), for he thereby transgresses, besides this Trullan canon, also Apostolic canon 31, canon 34 of this council, canon 18 of the IV Ecumenical Council, and many other canons besides, which, among other things, prescribe that all the churches in the district concerned, whether public or domestic, must be under the oversight and authority of the competent bishop, exactly as must all the clergy (both those in holy orders and the lower church servants) of that district.

These domestic oratories, or, as it is put in the commentary on this canon in the Slavonic Kormchaia, “little churches,”[63] were not consecrated by a bishop, and consequently there had been no laying, in the foundation of the altar of these oratories, of the prescribed relics of holy martyrs, since, according to the established rite, the bishop himself lays the holy relics there when consecrating a church. Meanwhile, by the ordinance of canon 7 of the VII Ecumenical Council, no church may be without holy relics, and only when the relics of some saint have been laid, by a bishop, in the foundation of the altar of a church, can the eucharistic sacrifice be offered in that church; otherwise, never and in no way. With regard to these domestic oratories, or “little churches,” in which this (31st) Trullan canon permits the eucharistic sacrifice to be offered, but which are meanwhile not consecrated by any bishop, and in which, therefore, there are no prescribed holy relics—in the opinion of Balsamon, in his commentary on this canon, “antimensia were devised (ἐπενοήθησαν τὰ ἀντιμίνσια, excogitata sunt mensalia), which the local bishops prepare, so that these antimensia might be laid upon the holy tables of the oratories concerned (τῶν εὐκτηρίων), and would in every respect take the place of the things belonging to the holy altar (θυσιαστήριον) and the boards of the holy table (τῆς ἁγίας τραπέζης); in other words, they would take the place of the very rite of the consecration of a church, while at the same time serving as proof that the holy service is performed in the oratory in question by episcopal permission (κατ’ ἐπιτροπὴν ἐπισκοπικήν, ex episcopi permissione).”[64] By this, in general, it has been stated in what the episcopal permission consists by which a sacred person may serve the holy service in domestic oratories, and it has also been stated what the significance is of the holy antimensia. Of the significance of these holy antimensia we are told, at the beginning of the ninth century, by the patriarch of Constantinople, Nicephorus the Confessor, who, in his 1st canon, speaks of their high sanctity and of how that sanctity cannot be separated from them.[65] As such, the holy antimensia could serve as substitutes, just as in fact they substituted for churches consecrated by a bishop. On the question put by Archbishop Constantine Cabasilas concerning antimensia, John, bishop of Kitros (of the twelfth century), among other things, answers: “if a church has not been consecrated according to rite, what it thereby lacks the holy antimension supplies; and accordingly, in a temple not consecrated (by a bishop) the sacrifice can never be offered without an antimension (οὐδὲ ἔξεστιν ἐν ἀκαθιερώτῳ ναῷ χωρὶς ἀντιμηνσίου ἱερουργίαν γενέσθαι).”[66] And the patriarch of Constantinople, Manuel II (1243–1255), to the corresponding question whether antimensia are needed in every church, answers: “antimensia are not to be placed upon every holy table, but upon those concerning which it is not known whether they have been consecrated or not; for antimensia stand in the place of consecrated holy tables, nor are they needed where it is known that consecrated tables exist (καθ’ ἔνθα εἰσὶ γνώριμον καθιερωμέναι τράπεζαι, οὐ χρεία ἀντιμηνσίων ἐκεῖ).”[67] Blastares, in his Syntagma, says: “antimensia are properly laid upon those tables that have not been consecrated by the rite of consecration (κυρίως δὲ ἐπ’ ἐκείνων τῶν τραπεζῶν τίθενται τὰ ἀντιμίνσια, ὧν καθιέρωσις οὐκ ἐγένετο).”[68] Furthermore, from the earliest times, and especially from the eighth century, when the iconoclasts introduced the consecration of churches without holy relics,[69] in order to forestall, once and for all, the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice upon a table on which there are no holy relics, it was established that, even in churches that have been consecrated by a bishop and in which holy relics have been laid in the holy table, there should always be a holy antimension, as is shown by the corresponding passages in the Book of the Rites of Archiereal Consecrated Service, in which, at all three rites of the holy liturgy, it is prescribed that, at the exclamation “that we with them may all together glorify,” the antimension is to be unfolded.[70]

Canon 32

We have learned that in the region of Armenia, at the holy table, they offer only wine, not mixing it with water, when they offer the bloodless sacrifice, and for their justification they adduce this, that the teacher of the Church, John Chrysostom, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, says: “Why did the Lord not drink water when he arose, but wine? To root out, with the very root, an impious heresy. For since there were some who used water at the mystery, the saint thus shows that when the Lord delivered the mystery, and also after the resurrection, when he set forth a simple table without the mystery, he used the fruit of the vine (Matt. 26:29), and the vine bears wine, and not water”—and from this the Armenians infer that this father, too, denied the use of water at the holy sacrifice. Accordingly, and that they may not remain in ignorance henceforth, we here set forth the Orthodox understanding of this father’s words. There existed of old the evil heresy of the hydroparastatae, who at their sacrifice used water alone instead of wine. In refuting the lawless teaching of this heresy, and in showing how the hydroparastatae thereby go against apostolic tradition, the God-bearing Chrysostom made use of the above-mentioned discourse of his. And to his own church, moreover, over which his pastoral care was entrusted, he handed down that water must be mixed with wine when the bloodless sacrifice is to be offered, showing thereby the union of the blood and water that flowed from the most pure side of our Redeemer and Savior Christ God, for the giving of life to the whole world and for the redemption from sins. And in every church where the lights of the Spirit have shone, this God-delivered order is kept. Thus also James, the brother in the flesh of Christ our God, to whom first was entrusted the throne of the church of Jerusalem, and Basil, archbishop of the church of Caesarea, whose fame has spread through the whole world, who delivered to us in writing the mystical service of God, established that at the divine liturgy there must be, in the holy chalice, both water and wine. Likewise also the holy fathers gathered at Carthage have precisely stated these same words: that nothing else is to be offered in the holy mystery than the body and blood of the Lord, as the Lord himself delivered it, that is, bread and wine mixed with water. If, then, any bishop or presbyter does not act according to the order delivered by the apostles, mixing water with wine, and, without water, offers the most pure sacrifice on wine alone, let him be deposed, as one who performs the mystery incompletely and who introduces innovations into that which has been delivered.

Ap. 3, 4; Trullo 81; Carthage 37

— The Armenians, with their various peculiarities in church life, gave the fathers of the Council of Trullo occasion to issue several canons (besides this canon, also canons 33, 56, and 99). The Armenians received Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century, through the preaching of Gregory, who was afterward surnamed “the Illuminator,” and whom Leontius, bishop of Caesarea, appointed in the year 302 as the first metropolitan of Armenia. At first the Armenians were strictly Orthodox—and this lasted until the sixth century, when Monophysitism began to creep in among them. Little by little they began to depart from Orthodox belief and to introduce their own peculiar church customs, until finally, in the year 596, at a council held at Dvin, in the time of their patriarch Abraham, the Armenians solemnly rejected the decisions of the IV Ecumenical Council (against Monophysitism), inserted into the Trisagion the addition “who was crucified for us,” and pronounced an anathema against Kyrion, the metropolitan of Iberia, who had acknowledged the IV Ecumenical Council, and thereby separated themselves from the Orthodox Church. Various attempts were made to reunite the Armenians with the Orthodox Church. The Emperor Maurice (582–602) made a serious attempt; likewise, in the year 622, the Emperor Heraclius, together with the Patriarch of Constantinople Sergius I, attempted the union of the Armenians with the Orthodox Church. All these attempts remained, nevertheless, without success. The Armenians remained by the decisions of their council of the year 596, and, moreover, began to introduce yet other innovations into their religious community. The following points are chiefly mentioned against the Armenians: 1, that they confess Monophysitism and do not acknowledge the last four ecumenical councils (IV, V, VI, and VII); 2, that they follow the teaching of the Aphthartodocetae (incorrupticolae), or Phantasiasts, who held that Christ had only an apparent body, and that as such this body could not be subject to corruption (φθορά); 3, that by their addition to the Trisagion hymn they hold the teaching of the Theopaschites and the Sabellians; 4, that they do not use water with the wine at the holy communion; 5, that they do not acknowledge many of the feasts of the Orthodox Church; 6, that they reject many passages from Holy Scripture; 7, that they omit the anointing with oil at baptism; 8, that they do not prepare the holy chrism according to the prescription of the Church, and so forth. [71]

In the second half of the seventh century, when this sixth (Trullan) council was held, the Armenians were an object of concern for the church of Constantinople, and since, at that time, all those mistaken points of doctrine that later developed and were brought into a system had not yet developed among them, an effort was made, through persuasion, to bring them into the unity of the Church, and for that reason the Council of Trullo turns its attention to them in several of its canons. Among these canons this (32nd) canon is the first.

The fathers of Trullo turn their attention to the custom of the Armenians, of using at the holy table only wine, without mixing it with water, when they offer the bloodless sacrifice, a custom which they justified by a passage from John Chrysostom’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (26:29). Against this custom the fathers of Trullo speak, in this (32nd) canon of theirs, and set forth in it the Orthodox belief on the matter. They state, namely, how Chrysostom came to speak the words in question, in refuting the hydroparastatae (followers of the Gnostic Tatian of the second century, who, among other things, taught that Christians must abstain from strong drink, and accordingly commanded that the Eucharist be performed with water instead of wine) [72], and consequently how there is no sense in appealing to the words of Chrysostom to prove that water need not be used at the Eucharist. They state further how Chrysostom himself commanded the celebration of the Eucharist on bread and wine mixed with water; how James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, and Basil the Great commanded this same thing in the corresponding rites of the liturgy; how the fathers of the Council of Carthage commanded this same thing by their 37th canon; and finally how this is observed in all the Orthodox churches throughout the whole world. Having stated all this, the fathers of the Council of Trullo ordain that every bishop or presbyter be deposed who dares to offer the holy sacrifice on wine alone, not mixed with water, for he thereby performs the mystery incompletely, and moreover “introduces innovations (καινοτομῶν, innovans) into that which has been delivered.”

Canon 33

Since we have learned that in the region of Armenia only those are admitted to the clergy who are of priestly descent, whereby those who so act show that they follow Jewish customs, and that among them some are even appointed, without tonsure, as sacred cantors and readers in the divine temple—we establish that henceforth those who wish to admit someone into the clergy need not have regard to the descent of the one they appoint, but, having examined whether the one concerned is worthy, according to what is set forth in the sacred canons, to be received into the clergy, let them appoint such a one for church service, whether he descend from priestly forebears or not. But let no one read the divine words to the people from the ambo in the manner of those who belong to the clergy, unless he has been accounted worthy of the priestly tonsure and has received the blessing of his pastor according to the canons. Whoever is found to act contrary to what is here prescribed, let him be excommunicated.

Ap. 76; VII Ecum. 14; Laodicea 15

— By this canon two uncanonical customs are corrected, which existed among the Armenians—the first of which is that there they admitted into the clergy only those who were of priestly descent. The fathers of Trullo condemn this custom, which is not in accordance with the teaching of the Christian Church, but is a Jewish custom. Among the Jews, in the Old Testament church, there existed a law by which only the descendants of the tribe of Levi could be chosen for service at the tabernacle. This was established in the Old Testament church in exchange for the firstborn, who at first, by law, all had to be consecrated to the service of God (Exod. 28:1; Num. 3:9–13, 8:19, 18:7). In the New Testament church this law lost its significance—we have mentioned the relevant passages of Holy Scripture in the commentary on Apostolic canon 76. In the New Testament church it is commanded that, in choosing persons for the priestly service, regard is to be had not to the family origin of the person concerned, but to his personal qualities. Those concerned must be examined—this canon ordains—to see whether they are worthy, according to the ordinances of the sacred canons, to be received into the clergy, and then they are to be appointed (προχειρίζεσθαι) for church service, without any regard whatever to whether or not they descend from priestly forebears. This has held good in the Christian Church from the beginning of its establishment, and this must hold good always.

The second custom that the fathers of Trullo observed among the Armenians is that they admit, as sacred cantors (ἱεροψάλτας) and readers in the church, persons who have not received the church tonsure (μὴ ἀποκειρομένους, non tonsos). This the Armenians did in connection with their first custom mentioned above, namely: holding that the sons of priests already, as such, belong to the service of the Church, they permitted them to perform in church the services of reader and cantor without any need to be specially ordained to this in church, and consequently without any need to have received the church tonsure that is joined with the appointment of a church reader and cantor. [73] This canon condemns this custom as uncanonical, since it is contrary to the order established already in the fourth century by canon 15 of the Council of Laodicea, and ordains that the divine words may be read from the ambo only by those who have been accounted worthy of the priestly tonsure (ἱερατικῇ κουρᾷ, sacerdotali tonsura) and who have received the blessing (τὴν εὐλογίαν, benedictionem) of their pastor according to the canons. For those who act contrary to what is prescribed in this canon, the penalty of excommunication is ordained.

Canon 34

Seeing that the sacred canon clearly teaches also this, that “conspiracy, or confederacy, as a transgression, is strictly forbidden also by the external laws, and that it is the more necessary to prevent this, that it not exist in the church of God”—we also will that it hold good, that “if any clerics or monks be found either to have formed a conspiracy, or to have entered into a confederacy, or to be plotting snares against bishops or fellow clerics, let such be wholly cast down from their rank.”

(Ap. 31; IV Ecum. 18; Antioch 5; Carthage 10; Protodeutera 13, 14, 15).

— By this canon the 18th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council is repeated.