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FOLLOWING in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers,
and acknowledging the canon, which has been just read, of the One Hundred and
Fifty Bishops beloved-of-God (who assembled in the imperial city of
Constantinople, which is New Rome, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius of
happy memory), we also do enact and decree the same things concerning the
privileges of the most holy Church of Constantinople, which is New Rome. For
the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it
was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops,
actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges (isa presbeia) to the
most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured
with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old
imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is,
and rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the Asian, and the Thracian
dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of the Dioceses
aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by the aforesaid most
holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople; every metropolitan of
the aforesaid dioceses, together with the bishops of his province, ordaining
his own provincial bishops, as has been declared by the divine canons; but
that, as has been above said, the metropolitans of the aforesaid Dioceses
should be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, after the proper
elections have been held according to custom and have been reported to him.
NOTE.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XXVIII.
The bishop of New Rome shall enjoy
the same honour as the bishop of Old Rome, on account of the removal of the
Empire. For this reason the [metropolitans] of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace,
as well as the Barbarian bishops shall be ordained by the bishop of
Constantinople.
VAN ESPEN.
It is certain that this canon was
expressly renewed by canon xxxvi. of the Council of Trullo and from that time
has been numbered by the Greeks among the canons; and at last it was
acknowledged by some Latin collectors also, and was placed by Gratian in his
Decretum, although clearly with a different sense. (Pars I., Dist. xxii., C.
vj.)
BRIGHT.
Here is a great addition to the
canon of 381, so ingeniously linked on to it as to seem at first sight a part
of it. The words kai wste are meant to suggest that what follows is in fact
involved in what has preceded: whereas a new point of departure is here taken,
and instead of a mere "honorary pre-eminence" the bishop of
Constantinople acquires a vast jurisdiction, the independent authority of three
exarchs being annulled in order to make him patriarch. Previously he had
proedria now he gains prostasia. As we have
288
seen, a series of aggrandizements
in fact had prepared for this aggrandizement in law; and various metropolitans
of Asia Minor expressed their contentment at seeing it effected. "It is,
indeed, more than probable that the self-assertion of Rome excited the jealousy
of her rival of the East," and thus "Eastern bishops secretly felt
that the cause of Constantinople was theirs" (Gore's Leo the Great. p.
120); but the gratification of Constantinople ambition was not the less, in a
canonical sense, a novelty, and the attempt to enfold it in the authority of
the Council of 381 was rather astute than candid. The true plea, whatever might
be its value, was that the Council had to deal with a fait accompli, which it
was wise at once to legalize and to regulate; that the "boundaries of the
respective exarchates ... were ecclesiastical arrangements made with a view to
the general good and peace of the Church, and liable to vary with the
dispensations to which the Church was providentially subjected," so that
"by confirming the ek pollou krathsan eqos" in regard to the
ordination of certain metropolitans (see Ep. of Council to Leo, Leon. Epist.
xcviij., 4), "they were acting in the spirit, while violating the letter,
of the ever-famous rule of Nicaea, ta arkeia eqh krateito (cp. Newman, Transl.
of Fleury, iii., 407). It is observable that Aristenus(1) and Symeon,
Logothetes reckon this decree as a XXIXth canon (Justellus, ii., 694, 720).
After the renewal of this canon by
the Council of Trullo, Gratian adds "The VIIIth Synod held under Pope
Hadrian II., canon xxj." (Decretum Pars I., Diet. xxij., C. vii.) "We
define that no secular power shall hereafter dishonour anyone of these who rule
our patriarchal sees, or attempt to move them from their proper throne, but
shall judge them worthy of all reverence and honour; chiefly the most holy Pope
of Old Rome, and then the Patriarch of Constantinople, and then those of
Alexandria, and Antioch, and Jerusalem."
Some Greek codices have the
following heading to this canon.
"Decree of the same holy Synod
published on account of the privileges of the throne of the most holy Church of
Constantinople."
TILLEMONT.
This canon seems to recognise no
particular authority in the Church of Rome, save what the Fathers had granted
it, as the seat of the empire. And it attributes in plain words as much to
Constantinople as to Rome, with the exception of the first place. Nevertheless
I do not observe that the Popes took up a thing so injurious to their dignity,
and of so dangerous a consequence to the whole Church. For what Lupus quotes of
St. Leo's lxxviij. (civ) letter, refers rather to Alexandria and to Antioch,
than to Rome. St. Leo is contented to destroy the foundation on which they
built the elevation of Constantinople, maintaining that a thing so entirely
ecclesiastical as the episcopate ought not to be regulated by the temporal
dignity of cities, which, nevertheless, has been almost always followed in the
establishment of the metropolis, according to the Council of Nicea.
St. Leo also complains that the
Council of Chalcedon broke the decrees of the Council of Nice, the practice of
antiquity, and the rights of Metropolitans. Certainly it was an odious
innovation to see a Bishop made the chief, not of one department but of three;
for which no example could be found save in the authority which the Popes took
over Illyricum, where, however, they did not claim the power to ordain any
Bishop.
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