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Outlying or rural parishes shall in every province remain
subject to the bishops who now have jurisdiction over them, particularly if the
bishops have peaceably and continuously governed them for the space of thirty
years. But if within thirty years there has been, or is, any dispute concerning
them, it is lawful for those who hold themselves aggrieved to bring their cause
before the synod of the province. And if any one be wronged by his
metropolitan, let the matter be decided by the exarch of the diocese or by the
throne of Constantinople, as aforesaid. And if any city has been, or shall
hereafter be newly erected by imperial authority, let the order of the
ecclesiastical parishes follow the political and municipal example.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XVII.
Village and rural parishes if they
have been possessed f or thirty years, they shall so continue. But if within
that time, the matter shall be subject to adjudication. But if by the command
of the Emperor a city be renewed, the order of ecclesiastical parishes shall
follow the civil and public forms.
BRIGHT.
The adjective egkwrious is probably
synonymous with agroikikas (" rusticas," Prisca), although Dionysius
and Isidorian take in as "situated on estates," cf. Routh, Scr.
Opusc., ii., 109. It was conceivable that some such outlying districts might form,
ecclesiastically, a border-land, it might not be easy to assign them
definitively to this or that bishopric. In such a case, says the Council, if
the bishop who is now in possession of these rural churches can show a
prescription of thirty years in favour of his see, let them remain undisturbed
in his obedience. (Here abiastws may be illustrated from biasamenos in Eph.
viii. and for the use of oikonomein see I. Const., ij.) But the border-land
might be the "debate-able" land: the two neighbour bishops might
dispute as to the right to tend these "sheep in the wilderness ;" as
we read in Cod. Afric.,
281
117, "multae controversiae
postea inter episcopos de dioecesibus ortae aunt, et oriuntur" (see on I.
Const., ij.); as archbishop Thomas of York, and Remigius of Dorchester, were at
issue for years "with reference to Lindsey" (Raine, Fasti Eborac., i.
150). Accordingly, the canon provides that if such a contest had arisen within
the thirty years, or should thereafter arise, the prelate who considered himself
wronged might appeal to the provincial synod. If he should be aggrieved at the
decision of his metropolitan in synod, he might apply for redress to the eparch
(or prefect, a substitute for exarch) of the "diocese," or to the see
of Constantinople (in the manner provided by canon ix.). It is curious
"that in Russia all the sees are divided into eparchies of the first,
second, and third class" (Neale, Essays on Liturgiology, p. 302).
This canon is found in the Corpus
Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum, Pars II., Causa XVI., Quaest. iii., can.
j., in Isidore Mercator's version. (1)
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