Appendix
The Fifteenth Canon
For the reader's constant reference, the charter of this whole book is set down here once more, entire, in the rendering of the Pedalion of Saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite. Its first half, with canons 13 and 14 of the same council, condemns separation from one's head over personal charges before a synodal verdict. Its second half, given below, is the Church's shield over those who withdraw from the open preaching of condemned heresy. The two halves are one law, and are to be read together, as this book has read them.
But as for those who, on account of some heresy condemned by holy Synods or Fathers, withdraw themselves from communion with their president, who, that is to say, is preaching the heresy publicly, and teaching it bareheaded in church, such persons not only are not subject to any canonical penalty on account of their having walled themselves off from communion with the so called bishop before any synodal verdict has been rendered, but, on the contrary, they shall be deemed worthy to enjoy the honour which befits them among Orthodox Christians. For they have defied, not bishops, but pseudo bishops and pseudo teachers; and they have not sundered the union of the Church with any schism, but, on the contrary, have been sedulous to rescue the Church from schisms and divisions.
Notes and sources
- 98.Canon 15 of the First and Second (Protodeutera) Synod of Constantinople, 861, second part, in the rendering of the Pedalion of Saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite; see the interpretation there, and the treatment in the chapter "Apoteichisis and the Fifteenth Canon."