This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars II., Causa II., Quest. VII., canon xlix., in Isidore's first version.
Canon XXII.
IT is not lawful for clergymen, after the death of their bishop, to seize what belongs to him, as has been forbidden also by the ancient canons; and those who do so shall be in danger of degradation from their own rank.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXII.
Whoever seizes the goods of his deceased bishop shall be cast forth from his rank.
It is curious that the Greek text which Zonaras and Balsamon produce, and which Hervetus translated, had instead of toij palai kanosi , toij paralambanousin . Van Espen thinks that the Greek commentators have tried without success to attach any meaning to these words, accepting the arguments of Bp. Beveridge (which see). The reading adopted in the text does not lack ms. authority, and is the one printed by Justellus in his "Codex of the Canons of the Universal Church."
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars II., Causa XII., Quest. II., canon xliii., in Isidore's version.
Canon XXIII.
IT has come to the hearing of the holy Synod that certain clergymen and monks, having no authority from their own bishop, and sometimes, indeed, while under sentence of excommunication by him, betake themselves to the imperial Constantinople, and remain there for a long time, raising disturbances and troubling the ecclesiastical state, and turning men's houses upside down. Therefore the holy Synod has determined that such persons be first notified by the Advocate of the most holy Church of Constantinople to depart from the imperial city; and if they shall shamelessly continue in the same practices, that they shall be expelled by the same Advocate even against their will, and return to their own places.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIII.
Clerics or monks who spend much time at Constantinople contrary to the will of their bishop, and stir up seditions, shall be cast out of the city.
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars II., Causa XVI, Quaest. I., canon xvij. but with the last part epitomized, as the Roman correctors point out.
Canon XXIV.
Monasteries, which have once been consecrated with the consent of the bishop, shall remain monasteries for ever, and the property belonging to them shall be preserved, and they shall never again become secular dwellings.And they who shall permit this to be done shall be liable to ecclesiastical penalties.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIV.
A monastery erected with the consent of the bishop shall be immovable. And whatever pertains to it shall not be alienated. Whoever shall take upon him to do otherwise, shall not be held guiltless.
Joseph Aegyptius, in turning this into Arabic, reads: "And whoever shall turn any monastery into a dwelling house for himself ... let him be cursed and anathema." The curious reader is referred on this whole subject to Sir Henry Spelman's History and Fate of Sacrilege, or to the more handy book on the subject by James Wayland Joyce, The Doom of Sacrilege.
Bright.
The secularization of monasteries was an evil which grew with their wealth and influence. At a Council held by the patriarch Photius in the Apostles' church at Constantinople, it is complained that some persons attach the name of "monastery" to property of their own, and while professing to dedicate it to God, write themselves down as lords of what has been thus consecrated, and are not ashamed to claim after such consecration the same power over it which they had before. In the West, we find this abuse attracting the attention of Gregory the Great, who writes to a bishop that "rationalis ordo" would not allow a layman to pervert a monastic foundation at will to his own uses (Epist. viii., 31). In ancient Scotland, the occasional dispersion of religious communities, and, still more, the clan-principle which assigned chieftain-rights over monasteries to the descendants of the founder, left at Dunkeld, Brechin, Abernethy, and elsewhere, "nothing but the mere name of abbacy applied to the lands, and of abbot borne by the secular lord for the time" (Skene's Celtic Scotland, ii., 365; cf. Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian Times, p. 235). So, after the great Irish monastery of Bangor in Down was destroyed by the Northmen, "non defuit,"says St. Bernard, "qui illud teneret cure possessionibus suis; ham et constituebantur per electionem etiam, et abbates appellabantur, servantes nomine, etsi non re, quod olim exstiterat" (De Vita S. Malachioe, vj.). So in 1188 Giraldus Cambrensis found a lay abbot in possession of the venerable church of Llanbadarn Vawr; a "bad custom," he says, "had grown up, whereby powerful laymen, at first chosen by the clergy to be "oeconomi" or "patroni et defensores," had usurped "forum jus," appropriated the lands, and left to the clergy nothing but the altars, with tithes and offerings (Itin. Camb. ii., 4). This abuse must be distinguished from the corrupt device whereby, in Bede's later years, Northumbrian nobles contrived to gain for their estates the immunities of abbey-lands by professing to found monasteries, which they filled with disorderly monks, who lived there in contempt of all rule (Bede, Ep. to Egbert, vij.). In the year of his birth, the first English synod had forbidden bishops to despoil consecrated monasteries (Bede, iv., 5).
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici , Gratian's Decretum , Pars II., Causa XIX., Quaest. III., canon iv.
Canon XXV.
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