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It is sacrilege to degrade a bishop
to the rank of a presbyter; but, if they are for just cause removed from
episcopal functions, neither ought they to have the position of a Presbyter;
and if they have been displaced without any charge, they shall be restored to
their episcopal dignity.
And Anatolius, the most reverend
Archbishop of Constantinople, said: If those who are alleged to have been removed
from the episcopal dignity to the order of presbyter, have indeed been
condemned for any sufficient causes, clearly they are not worthy of the honour
of a presbyter. But if they have been forced down into the lower rank without
just cause, they are worthy, if they appear guiltless, to receive again both
the dignity and priesthood of the Episcopate.
And all the most reverend Bishops
cried out:
The judgment of the Fathers is
right. We all say the same.The Fathers have righteously decided. Let the
sentence of the Archbishops prevail.
And the most magnificent and
glorious judges said:
Let the pleasure of the Holy Synod
be established for all time.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XXIX.
He is sacrilegious who degrades a
bishop to the rank of a presbyter. For he that is guilty of crime is unworthy
of the priesthood. But he that was deposed without cause, let him be [still]
bishop.
What precedes and follows the
so-called canon is abbreviated from the IVth Session of the Council (L. and C.,
Conc., Tom. IV., col. 550). I have followed a usual Greek method of printing
it.
HEFELE.
This so-called canon is nothing but
a verbal copy of a passage from the minutes of the
291
fourth session in the matter of Photius
of Tyre and Eustathius of Berytus. Moreover, it does not possess the peculiar
form which we find in all the genuine canons of Chalcedon, and in almost all
ecclesiastical canons in general; on the contrary, there adheres to it a
portion of the debate, of which it is a fragment, in which Anatolius is
introduced as speaking. Besides it is wanting in all the old Greek, as well as
in the Latin collections of canons, and in those of John of Antioch and of
Photius, and has only been appended to the twenty-eight genuine canons of
Chalcedon from the fact that a later transcriber thought fit to add to the
genuine canons the general and important principle contained in the place in
question of the fourth session. Accordingly, this so-called canon is certainly
an ecclesiastical rule declared at Chalcedon, and in so far a kanwn, but it was
not added as a canon proper to the other twenty-eight by the Synod.
From the Fourth Session of the same
Holy Synod, having reference to the matter of the Egyptian Bishops.
The most magnificent and glorious
judges, and the whole Senate, said:
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