15.

 Let no one be ordained a Subdeacon if he is less than twenty years old. If anyone should be ordained in any sacerdocy whatever without having reached the years decreed, let him be deposed from office.

Interpretation.

As for a subdeacon (says the present Canon), let no one be ordained such when he is less than twenty years of age. If anyone has been ordained in any of the four classes in question, outside the age specified, let him be deposed from office.

Concord.

According to c. XIX of Carthage a young man could be ordained an Anagnost (or Reader) when he reached the age of adolescence, or, more explicitly, the fourteenth year of his life. But according to Novel 123 of Justinian (recorded in Book III of the Basilica, Title I, ch. 28) he had to be eighteen. (For the Novel purporting to ordain him when eight years of age was omitted when the laws were purged, and was not entered in the Basilica; and consequently it fell into desuetude). As for how old one must be in order to be ordained a bishop, see the Interpretation of Ap. c. I. Inasmuch as the civil law bids like to be judged by like, of course both an Anagnost and a Bishop when ordained before the fixed time, are to be deposed from office like the others, in accordance with the present Canon of the Sixth.[145]