Canons of the VII Ecumenical Councils

Interpretation.

In times of old some women wearing lay garb would dedicate themselves to God, as becomes plain from what is said about this in c. XLV of the 6th, and they would agree while in full possession of their reasoning powers to remain virgins; and after being further tried and found true to their promise, they would be numbered among the other virgins (for, according to c. XVIII of Basil, any such woman used to be called a virgin. Moreover, they assumed the black habit, according to c. XLV of the 6th). Hence it is that the present Canon decrees that these virgins, and equally so monks in particular, who either as an inference justified by their keeping silent about it are inclined to celibacy, or when asked about it actually agree to remain virgins, in accordance with c. XIX of Basil, are not permitted to marry and to violate the agreements and stipulations which they have made with God. For, if the agreements which men make with one another are confirmed by the name of God being taken in the midst thereof, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, how great indeed is the danger of their being found to be violators of those agreements which they have made with God directly! And if, according to Basil the Great (Ascetic Ordinance 21) a monk, as having reaped fruit and having dedicated his body to God, no longer has control over what has been dedicated to God nor any right to have it for the use and convenience of his relatives, how much more he is unable to have it for the purpose of carnal intercourse![100] If, nevertheless, there be found some to have done this, let them be excommunicated. But let the local bishop have the power to treat them with philanthropy or kindness, and either to mitigate their punishment or to shorten the time of their penance. This does not mean that the marriage tie may remain indissoluble, but, on the contrary, it is implied that the parties to the marriage are to be divorced from each other. For, in point of fact, it is a case of fornication, or rather to say of adultery, and not a marriage that occurred, according to St. Basil the Great in his c. VI and his VIII; see alsto c. VII of the present Council.

Notes

[100] Hence it is that the same Theologian in his Epic Verses says that a chaste marriage is as much superior to that which seeks to have both virginity and marriage, as virginity is superior to marriage; consequently, says he, one ought either to remain a virgin in reality or to marry, and not to want to mix virginity with marriage, honey with gall, wine with mud, and Jerusalem with Samaria. Thus he says these things in poetical verses as follows:

“As much as virginity is prefereable to marriage,
On which account either embrace it altogether, my fine fellow,
Or make the best of marriage like a song they sing.
To shun an unyoked life, and a yoke-fellow too,
And to sacrifice unredeemed Samaria to sacred Salem.
So much is a chaste marriage better than vacillating virginity.
If any wrath and anger have stirred up in thee such virginity,
The second course is better than the first, for partaking of both
Is like mixing honey and gall, and mud wine.”

Besides, even divine Epiphanius says (Haer. 61): “It is better, therefore, to have but one sin, and not more. It is better when you have fallen from the way to take yourself a woman to wife openly and in accordance with the law, than to change your mind after many years of virginity and be introduced again into the Church.” St. Chrysostom says in his letter to Theodore that the sin which a monk commits when he marries, by marrying, is no less grievous than God is above men. St. Basil, in fact, in number 14 of his Definitions in extenso goes so far as to forbid any brother to open the door of his home to admit any monk that has broken his promise to God, even though it be cold weather and he comes in search of shelter — not out of hatred, but in order to shame him, as St. Paul advises. In his letter in regard to a fallen monk, on the other hand, he says that we must not even greet such a person. Divine Nicephorus, too, says the same things in his c. XIV. In his c. XXXIV he even declares that a monk who has married and fails to repent must be anathematized, and be compelled to don the habit (of a monk) even against his will, and be shut up for the rest of his life in a monastery. Even if he return and repent after having violated his pledge to the habit, he must don it without prayers, according to c. XIV of the same saint. As for anyone that dons the habit under compulsion, or on account of knavery and hypocrisy, as one deriding it, and afterwards when the necessity and sham have passed discards it, he is to be reprimanded, and must pass three times forty days of penance, and only thus shall he be allowed to partake (of communion), according to c. XXI of the same saint. This divine Nicephorus, in his c. XX, says: “If any nun be ravished by barbarians or disorderly men, provided that her former life was not blame-worthy, she shall be penanced for only forty days; but if she had already been polluted or defiled prior thereto, she shall be penanced as an adultress. Note that those who ravish an ascetic woman or a woman that has taken the veil, or, in other words, a sacred virgin, even those who have abetted the ravishment are liable to capital punishment, and all their property is confiscated by the (civil) ruler, and is turned over to the monastery of the one ravished, according to the second ordinance of the First Title of the Novels (Photius, Title IX, ch. 30). Likewise anyone that abducts or tries to take such a sacred virgin to wife is also liable to capital punishment, according to Book I, Title III, Ordinance 5. The woman herself, together with her things, is placed in a monastery and is securely guarded. Blastaris also adds the following fact, to wit, that even a man who has become a monk in the last days of his life and who failed to understand thoroughly what rites were administered to him when they made him a monk, cannot discard the habit and remain any longer in the world. See also the Footnote to c. VII of the 4th, and c. VII itself of the same Council, which anathematizes the monk that discards the habit and assumes some secular position of whatever worth. See also the Footnote to c. XXXIX of Nicephorus.