The Presbyters Project

Canon 7

De praesumptione alienae dioecesis

Si quis episcopus non per scripta metropolitani episcopi aut qui cum eo sunt rogatus de alia provincia in aliam venerit, sed praesumptive inruens ad ordinationem et constitutionem clericorum qui ad illum non pertinent importunus existat, vacua sint et inania omnia quae ab eo fuerint constituta. Ipse autem digna increpatione excommunicetur et abominetur a sancto concilio.

(ed. Barlowe 1950: 127)

Canon 7

On usurping power in the diocese of someone else

If a bishop or those who are with him go from one province to another without having been summoned by a letter of the metropolitan bishop, but audaciously invading it in order to improperly ordain and install clerics who do not belong to him, these ordinations are invalid and the decisions are void. The bishop shall be excommunicated with a proper chiding and accursed by the holy council.

(trans. M. Szada)

Discussion:

Cf. canon 13 of the council of Antioch (AD 341).

Place of event:

Region

Iberian Peninsula

City

Braga

About the source:

Author: Martin of Braga
Title: Collectio orientalium canonum, seu Capitula Martini, Capitula Martini, Collection of the Eastern canons
Origin: Braga (Iberian Peninsula), Antioch (East)

In the manuscript tradition the canons of the Second Council of Braga (Iberian Peninsula) in AD 572 are followed by the Eastern canons collected and translated into Latin by Martin of Braga (Iberian Peninsula). He was using a Greek collection, impossible to identify with any of the collections known today, which gathered the canons of the several Eastern councils. Martin quotes also the canons of the First Council of Toledo AD 400. Martin dedicated his work to Bishop Nitigisius of Lugo (Iberian Peninsula). Those two bishops met on the Second Council of Braga, and possibly the collection was composed for this occasion (Barlowe 1950: 84-87).

Edition:

C. Barlowe ed., Martini episcopi Bracarensis opera omnia, New Haven 1950.

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus

Public law - Ecclesiastical

Relation with - Bishop/Monastic superior

Impediments or requisits for the office

Impediments or requisits for the office - Improper ordination

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1057, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1057