3.

 If some of the clergymen in any city or district have been shorn of holy orders by Nestorius and his party on account of their believing rightly, we have adjudged it right and just that they be restored to their own rank. We collectively bid the clergymen who agree in their beliefs with the orthodox and ecumenical Council not to submit in any way whatever to the Bishops who have apostatized or have deserted us.

Interpretation.

Because of the fact that when Nestorius was Patriarch of Constantinople he excommunicated and deposed those clergymen who did not agree with him, and, moreover, even the bishops in other countries who held his views did the same, therefore the present Canon judged it right for those who had been thus deposed to receive back their own rank. Accordingly, speaking generally, it ordered that those clergymen who were of the same mind as this orthodox and Ecumenical Council should take care not to submit in any way whatever to the apostate bishops.