The Canons of St Nikephoros the Confessor

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If an antimension is washed through ignorance, it does not lose its consecration, nor does it become profane.

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One who marries a second time is not crowned and is also placed under penance not to partake of the immaculate Mysteries for two years; one who marries a third time, for five years.

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One who, from necessity, stays for a short time in the narthex of a church is not condemned. But if he remains there for a long time, he himself is to be expelled with penances, while the temple is to recover what belongs to it.

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Benefactions made on behalf of those who die without making a testament ought to be accepted, provided that while living they had intended that such benefactions be performed.

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If the Annunciation falls on Great Thursday or Great Friday, we do not sin by partaking of wine and fish at that time.

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A presbyter who has the blessing of an abbot may ordain a reader and a subdeacon in his own monastery.

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If anyone lived in dissipation until twenty years of age or beyond, and afterwards appears to perform works of virtue, he ought not to be ordained; for what is sacred must be undefiled.

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Children born of a concubine, or of those married a second or third time, may be ordained if they show a life worthy of the priesthood.

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Divine Communion ought to be given to a sick person who is in danger of dying, even after he has tasted food.

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One may bend the knee on the Lord's Day and throughout Pentecost in order to offer a reverence, but one ought not to make the customary prostrations.

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One does not sin by offering one prosphoron on behalf of three persons, or by lighting one lamp for them.

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The sign of the cross ought not to be made over the holy chalice during the prayer of the skeuophylakion.

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A presbyter ought not to celebrate the Liturgy without hot water, except under great necessity and when hot water cannot be found anywhere.

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A monk who rejected the habit and afterwards returned ought to be clothed again in the monastic garment which he removed, without the appointed prayers.

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Nuns ought to enter the holy sanctuary to light a candle or lamp, to adorn it, and to sweep it.

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During the Great Forty Days monks ought not to undertake agricultural work and, under that pretext, relax the fast to wine and oil; for these are practices of gluttony.

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For three reasons a monk is permitted to leave his own monastery: if the abbot is a heretic; if women are admitted into the monastery; and if secular children are taught in the coenobium.

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For it is improper that the things done in the monastery should be made public through them.

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Monks who are under penance ought to eat and pray together with the others, and also to partake of the blessing—that is, the broken bread—together with their confession.

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During the Fast of the Holy Apostles and that of Saint Philip, monks who remain in the monastery ought to eat once, toward evening, on Wednesday and Friday; those who work may take food after the sixth hour and eat supper in the evening.

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If a nun is violated by barbarians or disorderly men, and her former life was blameless, she is placed under penance for forty days. But if her former life was defiled, she is to fulfil the penance for adultery.

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One who put on the monastic habit through fear of military service or through some other deceit, thus treating it with contempt, and then laid it aside after the necessity or pretence had passed, is placed under penance for three periods of forty days and thereafter approaches Holy Communion.

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One ought not to receive Communion from a young hieromonk who serves nuns and imparts the Mysteries with prayers.

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An abbot ought not to remove his disciple's koukoulion and drive him away.

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One ought neither to receive under one's roof nor to greet a person who has rejected the holy habit and does not correct himself.

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If anyone is ill and seeks holy Baptism or the holy habit, it ought to be given without delay, and the grace ought not to be withheld.

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A hieromonk ought not to celebrate the Liturgy without a mantle.

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The one who receives the confession of persons confessing hidden offences ought to bar them from Communion, but not to prevent them from entering the church, nor to expose their deeds. Rather, he is to admonish them with gentleness to persevere in repentance and prayer, and to administer the fitting penances according to each person's disposition.

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Adulterers, those guilty of bestiality, murderers, and persons of this kind, if they confess of their own accord their lawlessness which is still unknown to the many, are barred from Communion and receive the penances, but when they enter the church they stand until the prayer for the catechumens. If their offences are public, they then fulfil the penances according to the ecclesiastical ordinance.

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If a layman confesses his own faults voluntarily, the one receiving the confession may employ economy.

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With the bishop's authorization, a presbyter also may establish a stavropegion.

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Communion ought not to be given to those who take interest, nor ought one to eat with them, while they persist in the transgression.

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Monks ought to fast on the Wednesday and Friday of Cheesefare Week and, after the dismissal of the Presanctified Liturgy, to eat cheese wherever this custom prevails, in refutation of the doctrine of Jacob and the heresy of the Tetradites.

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If anyone who keeps a concubine is willing neither to leave her nor to have the union blessed and to keep her with the Church's rite, the offerings he brings to the Church ought not to be accepted, since by his deeds he contemptuously insults her divine ordinances.

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If a monk lays aside the holy habit, eats meat, and takes a wife, then, if he does not return, he ought to be placed under anathema, clothed in the monastic garments even against his will, and confined in a monastery.

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One who has committed fornication even once ought not to be ordained, even if he has departed from the passion; for Basil the Great says: 'Even if such a man raises the dead, he shall not become a priest.'

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When the Apostle says, 'If anyone who is called a brother is a fornicator, do not even eat with such a one,' he does not mean one whom this or that person considers to be committing fornication, but one who is so called—that is, known to everyone. For offences committed shamelessly draw a greater punishment upon themselves.

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If, after a woman has given birth, the infant is in danger at three or five days old, let the infant be baptized, and another woman who is baptized and clean ought to nurse it. Its mother is neither to enter the chamber in which the infant lies nor to touch it at all until forty days have passed, so that she may be fully purified and receive the prayer from the priest.