The Canons of St Nikephoros the Confessor
Οἱ Κανόνες τοῦ Ἁγίου Νικηφόρου τοῦ Ὁμολογητοῦ
The thirty-eight canons in the received Greek division.
38 numbered canons · 38 English translations · 38 Greek transcriptions
Review in progress. Each canon shows its actual transcription and translation status. A text being present does not establish that its wording has been independently verified. Read the review policy.
Canon 1
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
If an antimension is washed through ignorance, it does not lose its consecration, nor does it become profane.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 2
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 3
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 4
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 5
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
If the Annunciation falls on Great Thursday or Great Friday, we do not sin by partaking of wine and fish at that time.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 6
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
A presbyter who has the blessing of an abbot may ordain a reader and a subdeacon in his own monastery.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 7
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 8
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 9
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
Divine Communion ought to be given to a sick person who is in danger of dying, even after he has tasted food.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 10
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 11
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
One does not sin by offering one prosphoron on behalf of three persons, or by lighting one lamp for them.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 12
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
The sign of the cross ought not to be made over the holy chalice during the prayer of the skeuophylakion.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 13
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
A presbyter ought not to celebrate the Liturgy without hot water, except under great necessity and when hot water cannot be found anywhere.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 14
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 15
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
Nuns ought to enter the holy sanctuary to light a candle or lamp, to adorn it, and to sweep it.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 16
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 17
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 18
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
For it is improper that the things done in the monastery should be made public through them.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 19
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 20
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 21
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 22
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 23
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
One ought not to receive Communion from a young hieromonk who serves nuns and imparts the Mysteries with prayers.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 24
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
An abbot ought not to remove his disciple's koukoulion and drive him away.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 25
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 26
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 27
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
A hieromonk ought not to celebrate the Liturgy without a mantle.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 28
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 29
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 30
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
If a layman confesses his own faults voluntarily, the one receiving the confession may employ economy.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 31
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
With the bishop's authorization, a presbyter also may establish a stavropegion.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 32
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
Communion ought not to be given to those who take interest, nor ought one to eat with them, while they persist in the transgression.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 33
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 34
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 35
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 36
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.'
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 37
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review worksCanon 38
Draft English · Greek source check pendingDraft English translation
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.
Source and review status
Source edition: Pedalion, Athens, 1886: open the original scan.
The exact printed page has not yet been checked and recorded.
The English translation awaits independent language and ecclesiastical review. The Greek transcription has not yet been collated against the controlling printed page.
How canon review works
Text policy
The numbered entries above contain the canon text only. Editorial summaries, commentaries, epitomes, notes, and modern interpretations are excluded. English is a new direct translation and opens by default; the received Greek remains available beside it and controls wherever wording is disputed.