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FORASMUCH as certain of the metropolitans, as we have heard,
neglect the flocks committed to them, and delay the ordinations of bishops the
holy Synod has decided that the ordinations of bishops shall take place within
three months, unless an inevitable necessity should some time require the term
of delay to be prolonged. And if he shall not do this, he shall be liable to
ecclesiastical penalties, and the income of the widowed church shall be kept
safe by the steward of the same Church.
NOTES
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XXV.
Let the ordination of bishops be
within three months: necessity however may make the time longer. But if anyone
shall ordain counter to this decree, he shall be liable to punishment. The
revenue shall remain with the oeconomus.
BRIGHT.
The "Steward of the Church"
was to "take care of the revenues of the church widowed" by the death
of its bishop, who was regarded as representing Him to whom the whole Church
was espoused (see Eph. v. 23 ff.). So in the "order of the holy and great
church" of St. Sophia, the" Great Steward is described as
"taking the oversight of the widowed church" (Goar, Eucholog., p.
269); so Hincmar says: "Si fuerit defunctus episcopus, ego ... visitaterem
ipsi viduatae designabo ecclesiae;" and the phrase, "viduata per
mortem N. nuper episcopi" became common in the West (F. G. Lee, Validity
of English Orders, p. 373). The episcopal ring was a symbol of the same idea.
So at St. Chrysostom's restoration Eudoxia claimed to have "given back the
bridegroom" (Serm. post redit., iv.). So Bishop Wilson told Queen Caroline
that he "would not leave his wife in his old age because she was
poor" (Keble's Life of Wilson, ii., 767); and Peter Mongus, having invaded
the Alexandrian see while its legitimate occupant, Timothy Salophaciolus, was
alive, was expelled as an "adulterer" (Liberatus, Breviar., xviij.).
This canon is found in the Corpus
Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum, Pars I., Dist. LXXV., C. ij.(1)
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