Pope: Interpretation and capacity of the petrine ministry divides us from the orthodox

Asia News ^ | 29-06-05 | Staff

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Referring to the Council of Elivra and the three Sundays rule, Kolo, you wrote:

The East, by the way, never accepted this council as authoritative.

I had forgotten this, but this specific Canon law was restated by the Council in Trullo and thus universalized in the East. The Council of Sardica also has a similar Canon.

Canon 80. IF any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or any of those who are enumerated in the list of the clergy, or a layman, has no very grave necessity nor difficult business so as to keep him from church for a very long time, but being in town does not go to church on three consecutive Sundays--three weeks--if he is a cleric let him be deposed, but if a layman let him be cut off. (Council in Trullo)

Canon 11. Bishop Hosius said: This also we ought to decree, that1 when a bishop comes from one city to another city, or from one province to another province, to indulge boastfulness, ministering to his own praises rather than serving religious devotion, and wishes to prolong his stay [in a city], and the bishop of that city is not skilled in teaching, let him [the visiting bishop] not do despite to the bishop of the place and attempt by frequent discourses to disparage him and lessen his repute (for this device is wont to cause tumults), and strive by such arts to solicit and wrest to himself another's throne, not scrupling to abandon the church committed to him and to procure translation to another. A definite limit of time should therefore be set in such a case, especially since not to receive a bishop is accounted the part of rude and discourteous persons. Ye remember that in former times our fathers decreed that if a layman were staying in a city and should not come to divine worship for three [successive] Sundays [that is], for three [full] weeks, he should be repelled from communion. If then this has been decreed in the case of laymen, it is neither needful, nor fitting, nor yet even expedient that a bishop, unless he has some grave necessity or difficult business, should be very long absent from his own church and distress the people committed to him.
All the bishops said: We decide that this decree also is most proper. (Council of Sardica)

Dismissing this as Roman legalism is dismissing your own Canons.

[Kolokotronis]

"Dismissing this as Roman legalism is dismissing your own Canons."

Hermann, that's not what my post was about. It was about a Council which preached heresy. As for missing Liturgy three Sundays in a row meaning big trouble, well, I think it should. I honestly can't remember when I missed three Sunday Liturgies in a row,(I can't remember missing two as a matter of fact) at least since I grew up (I suspect I did in college and law school!). Like I said, we Greeks are great sinners.