|
IT has come to our knowledge that certain persons, contrary to
the laws of the Church, having had recourse to secular powers, have by means of
imperial rescripts divided one Province into two, so that there are
consequently two metropolitans in one province; therefore the holy Synod has
decreed that for the future no such thing shall be at-
277
tempted by a bishop, since he who
shall undertake it shall be degraded from his rank. But the cities which have
already been honoured by means of imperial letters with the name of metropolis,
and the bishops in charge of them, shall take the bare title, all metropolitan
rights being preserved to the true Metropolis.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OR CANON XII.
One province shall not be cut into
two. Whoever shall do this shall be cast out of the episcopate. Such cities as
are cut off by imperial rescript shall enjoy only the honour of having a bishop
settled in them: but all the rights pertaining to the true metropolis shall be
preserved.
BRIGHT.
We learn from this canon, there
were cases in which an ambitious prelate, "by making application to the
government" ("secular powers") had obtained what are called
"pragmatic letters," and employed them for the purpose of
"dividing one province into two," and exalting himself as a
metropolitan. The name of a "pragmatic sanction" is more familiar in
regard to medieval and modern history; it recalls the name of St. Louis, and,
still more, that of the Emperor Charles VI. the father of Maria Theresa.
Properly a "pragmatic" was a deliberate order promulgated by the
Emperor after full hearing of advice, on some public affair. We find
"pragmatici nostri statuta" in a law of A.D. 431. (Cod. Theod., xi.
1, 36); and pragmatici prioris," "sub hac pragmatica jussione,"
in ordinances in Append. to Cod. Theod., pp. 95, 162; and the empress
Pulcheria, about a year before the Council, had informed Leo that her husband
Marcian had recalled some exiled orthodox bishops "robore pragmatici
sui" (Leon., Epist. lxxvij.). Justinian speaks of "pragmaticas
nostras formas" and "pragmaticum typum" (Novel., 7, 9, etc.).
The phrase was adopted from his legislation by Louis the Pious and his
colleague-son Lothar (compare Novel. 7, 2 with Pertz, Mon. Germ, Hist. Leg.,
i., 254), and hence it came to be used both by later German emperors (see,
e.g., Bryce's Holy Roman Empire, p. 212), and by the French kings (Kitchin,
Hist. France, i. 343, 544). Augustine explains it by "praeceptum
imperatoris" (Brev. Collat. cum Donatist. iii., 2), and Balsamon in his
comment uses an equivalent phrase; and so in the record of the fourth session
of Chalcedon we have qeia grammata ("divine" being practically,
equivalent to "imperial") explained by pragmatkoustupous (Mansi,
vii., 89). We must observe that the imperial order, in the cases contemplated
by the canon, had only conferred the title of "metropolis" on the
city, and had not professed to divide the province for civil, much less for
ecclesiastical, purposes. Valens, indeed, had divided the province of
Cappadocia, when in 371 he made Tyana a metropolis: and therefore Anthimus, bishop
of Tyana, when he claimed the position of a metropolitan, with authority over
suffragans, was making a not unnatural inference in regard to ecclesiastical
limits from political rearrangements of territory, as Gregory of Nazianzus says
(Orat. xliii., 58), whereas Basil "held to the old custom," i.e., to
the traditional unity of his provincial church, although after a while he
submitted to what he could not hinder (see Tillemont, ix., 175, 182, 670). But
in the case of Eustathius of Berytus, which was clearly in the Council's mind,
the Phoenician province had not been divided; it was in reliance on a mere
title bestowed upon his city, and also on an alleged synodical ordinance which
issued in fact from the so-called "Home Synod" that he declared
himself independent of his metropolitan, Photius of Tyre, and brought six
bishoprics under his assumed jurisdiction. Thus while the province remained
politically one, he had de facto divided it ecclesiastically into two. Photius
petitioned Marcian, who referred the case to the Council of Chalcedon, and it
was taken up in the fourth session. The imperial commissioners announced that
it was to be settled not according to "pragmatic forms," but
according to those which had been enacted by the Fathers (Mansi, vii., 89).
This encouraged the Council to say, "A pragmatic can have no force against
the canons." The commissioners asked whether it was lawful for bishops, on
the ground of a pragmatic, to steal away the rights of other churches? The
answer was explicit: "No, it is against the canon." The Council
proceeded to cancel the resolution of the Home Synod in favour of the elevation
of Berytus, ordered the 4th Nicene canon to be read, and upheld the
metropolitical rights of Tyre. The commissioners also pronounced against Eustathius.
Cecropius, bishop of Sebastopolis, requested them to put an end to the issue of
pragmatics made to the detriment of the canons; the Council echoed
278
this request; and the commissioners
granted it by declaring that the canons should everywhere stand good (Mansi,
vii., 89-97). We may connect with this incident a law of Martian dated in 454,
by which "all pragmatic sanctions, obtained by means of favour or ambition
in opposition to the canon of the Church, are declared to be deprived of effect"
(Cod. Justin, i., 2, 12).
To this decision the present canon
looks back, when it forbids any bishop, on pain of deposition, to presume to do
as Eustathius had done, since it decrees that "he who attempts to do so
shall fall from his own rank (baqmou) in the Church. And cities which have
already obtained the honorary title of a metropolis from the emperor are to
enjoy the honour only, and their bishops to be but honorary metropolitans, so
that all the rights of the real metropolis are to be reserved to it." So,
at the end of the 6th session the emperor had announced that Chalcedon was to
be a titular metropolis, saving all the rights of Nicemedia; and the Council
had expressed its assent (Mansi, xii., 177; cf. Le Quien, i., 602). Another
case was discussed in the 13th session of the Council. Anastasius of Nicaea had
claimed to be independent of his metropolitan Eunomius of Nicemedia, on the
ground of an ordinance of Valens, recognising the city of Nicaea as by old
custom a "metropolis." Eunomius, who complained of Anastasius's
encroachments, appealed to a later ordinance, guaranteeing to the capital of
Bithynia its rights as unaffected by the honour conferred on Nicaea: the
Council expressed its mind in favour of Eunomius, and the dispute was settled
by a decision "that the bishop of Nicomedia should have metropolitical
authority over the Bithynian churches, while the bishop of Nicaea should have
merely the honour of a metropolitan, being subjected, like the other
comprovincials, to the bishop of Nicomedia (Mansi, vii., 313). Zonaras says
that this canon was in his time no longer observed; and Balsamon says that when
the primates of Heraclea and Ancyra cited it as upholding their claim to
perform the consecration of two "honorary metropolitans," they were
overruled by a decree of Alexius Comnenus, "in presence and with
consent" of a synod (on Trullan, canon xxxviij.).
The first part of this canon is
found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Grat Decretum, Pars I., Dist. ci., canon j.
|