On the Chorepiscopi

Canon 78: Let penitents who have received the viaticum of the Eucharist during infirmity not consider themselves absolved without the imposition of hands, if they survive. In the Apostolic Constitutions, Book II, ch. 41, this ^A imposition of hands is said to be for penitents instead of baptism. But the true imposition of hands seems to have been that proper to "prostration" (ὑπόπτωσις). It was in this rank that penitents submitted themselves to the hands of the bishop: whence the term "prostration" is derived. And they did this frequently before the final absolution and reconciliation. In the Council of Laodicea, Canon 19, where the form of celebrating liturgies is prescribed: about how, first, after the homilies of the bishops and the catechumens, the prayer is to be performed; and after the catechumens have departed, the prayer of those in repentance is to take place; and after these have approached under the hand and withdrawn, thus the three prayers of the faithful are to follow. The Council of Agde, can. 15: "Let penitents, at the time they seek penance, obtain the imposition of hands and haircloth over their head from the priest, as is established everywhere." Also, Carthage IV, can. 80: "Let hands be imposed upon penitents by the priests at every time of fasting." Therefore, when they moved from "prostration" to the fourth and final rank, it is probable that by the sacramental imposition of hands, absolution was bestowed upon them. For I am not aware that the ancient canons signify that an imposition of hands was set after "reconstitution" (σύστασις), but rather they join that imposition with "prostration." If this conjecture should perchance please someone, it could be transferred and applied to certain places in the Fathers, where penance is read to have been granted to certain sinners without communion. As when Pope Innocent writes that of old, to those who requested reconciliation at the very end of their life, communion was denied, but penance was granted: for by the name of penance, sacramental absolution can be understood, which is ^B performed without the participation of the Lord's Body; Cyprian furthermore, Epist. 11: "Before penance has been performed," he says, "before the formal confession of the most grave and extreme sin has been made, before the hand has been imposed upon them by the bishop and clergy for penance." There, penance seems to be used for absolution, as it is elsewhere, passim, whenever he speaks of reconciliation, he uses these words: "hand imposed for penance." Wherefore, at the end of "prostration," perhaps the hand was imposed for penance, that is, absolution and reconciliation were given to the penitents, so that they might meanwhile abstain from the mysteries. But lest I trust too much in this conjecture, one thing makes for it, namely that the most ancient Fathers, and especially Cyprian, clearly show that after confession and the final imposition of hands, penitents did not immediately have the right to communion of the mysteries. Thus in Epist. 10 to the Clergy: "For since in lesser sins," (Cyprian's words are) "sinners perform penance for a just time, and according to the order of discipline come to confession, and through the imposition of hands of the bishop and clergy receive the right of communion, now in a raw time, with persecution still persisting, and before the peace of the Church itself has been restored, they are admitted to communion, and their name is offered, and although confession has not yet been made, and the hand has not yet been imposed upon them by the bishop and clergy, the Eucharist is given to them." He repeats the same in Epist. 11 and 12 and in six hundred other places. From which it is concluded that not unless penance has been performed, and toward the end of "reconstitution" that final imposition of hands, by which sacramental absolution was contained, did the penitents obtain it. Nothing seems to be interposed between peace and reconciliation and the right of participating in the mysteries, and both are embraced by the term "communion." Here, therefore, I refrain from asserting, and on this matter I await the judgment of doctors and men experienced in ecclesiastical antiquity.

OF THE CHOREPISCOPISM

"For as many Churches of the Catholic (Church)." That at that time there was this custom in Alexandria, or at least that it was used in a few Churches, you may conjecture from the fact that he mentions such a custom so expressly, as being peculiar to the Church of Alexandria: namely, that there were several titular churches in the same city, to each of which a priest was assigned, who would carry out the ecclesiastical functions there. But elsewhere, however, the same had long been established, as at Rome, where priests distributed by titles governed each one their own people. To them, the bishops were accustomed on Sundays to send the "fermentum," or blessed bread, as a symbol of communion. Innocent to Decentius, ch. 5: "Regarding the fermentum, however, which we send out through the titles on the Lord's Day, you have consulted me superfluously, since all our churches are constituted within the city: the priests of which, because they cannot meet with us on that day on account of the ^D people committed to them, receive the fermentum prepared by us through the acolytes, so that they may not judge themselves separated from our communion, especially on that day." That this was established by Melchiades, the *Liber Pontificalis* of Damasus hands down; the Council of Laodicea, can. 14, mentions these *eulogiae*: "Regarding the fact that the holy things are not to be sent into other parishes during the feast of Easter by way of *eulogiae*." But on this rite, see more in [i]Ecclesia ann. Baronius[/i] a. 313. I do not doubt that in the larger cities only, there were several titles within the walls, since they could not be contained within the same precincts and meet in one place: and so priests were placed over individual churches. But in smaller and less populous towns, only one church existed.

^A Hence the origin of parishes, a term which was transferred from rural churches to urban ones. *Paroikia* properly signifies every region which, being distant from the city, is assigned to a specific church, just as in Rome, in ancient times, the individual *pagi* (or hills) were established by King Servius Tullius as *chrêsophygeta*, or shelters and refuges to which they might protect themselves from an encroaching enemy. On these hills altars were set up… says Halicarnassus, lib. IV. Moreover, the individual *pagi* had their own overseers, whom the same author calls *episkopoi* and *peripoloi*. And to these, the *paroikiai* of Christians in the countryside were very similar. For even there, *episkopoi*—or rather, *chorepiscopoi*—presided, whom some Latin translations of the canons call vicars of the bishops; others call them regionaries or vicars, which is far more accurate than the former. Their dignity and power were, it seems, greater than that of simple priests, and equivalent to the episcopal order; for it is certain that they also appointed the lower orders. Concerning this matter, the canon of the Council of Ancyra is obscure: it prohibits priests and deacons from being ordained by chorepiscopoi.

^B They were therefore able to ordain subdeacons and minor clergy, and indeed priests and deacons, if the power were granted by the bishop. Wherefore they were something more than priests, and, if we seek the truth, they were bishops, since priests and deacons cannot be ordained by anyone other than a bishop. For it is reasonable to argue thus: since it is prescribed in the second of the Apostolic Canons that a priest, a deacon, and the remaining clergy must be ordained by one bishop, and yet chorepiscopoi were able, through the bishop’s permission, to consecrate subdeacons and the other lower orders, [and] priests and deacons, it is necessary that they were bishops. And this the Council of Antioch indicates clearly when it says: ^C *If…* Which Dionysius Exiguus translated thus: *Although they have received the laying on of hands of bishops, and have been consecrated as bishops.* But also the Council of Neocaesarea, canon 13, when it prohibited [those] (whom Dionysius interprets as *presbyteros ruris*—rural priests—or, as another edition of the canons has it, *conregionales*) from making the oblation in the city church or before the bishop or the priest of the city, and from performing sacred duties—that same canon, according to the Latin editions, or the following one, as the Greek codices have it, permits to chorepiscopoi what it had previously denied. *Non...* They were not, therefore, simple priests: otherwise they would be nothing other than [what they were], for when they are called *syllleitourgoi* (co-liturgists), a word which for the most part signifies colleagues of the bishops, they seem to have pertained to that dignity. Indeed, in the subscription lists of the councils, chorepiscopoi are sometimes counted among the bishops, as in the Council of Ephesus, p. 322, Caesarius the chorepiscopus, and in the Council of Neocaesarea, Stephanus the chor-

-^Aepiscopus of Cappadocia. In the eighth canon of the Council of Antioch, it is conceded to chorepiscopi that they may grant letters of peace. Lastly, Pope Leo, in his eighth epistle dealing with the same, says: "For although," he says, "there is a large measure of common ministry with the bishops, nevertheless, they know that some things are forbidden them by the authority of the old law, some by the new, and by ecclesiastical regulations, such as the consecration of presbyters and deacons, or of virgins; such as the setting up of the altar, and blessing, or anointing, etc." Although in this same Epistle, Leo reduces chorepiscopi to the order of presbyters, when he speaks thus: "[they] appointed chorepiscopi (who according to the canons of Neocaesarea, or according to the decrees of other Fathers, are the same as presbyters) or presbyters." Unless, perhaps, these things, which are enclosed in parentheses, were later inscribed in the margin by some idle person and crept into the text: which I believe is true. For even if in the 43rd [sic] canon of the Council of Neocaesarea it was decreed that chorepiscopi were instituted after the example of the Seventy, yet the same canon, which we mentioned above, taught that they differ greatly from presbyters, and rank above them. There exists among the Decretals of the pontiffs an epistle of Damasus V, concerning chorepiscopi, in which he vehemently attacks that order, and denies entirely that it differs in any respect from presbyters. But there are many things that make the authenticity of that epistle suspect to men of discerning judgment; for not to speak here of the style itself and the manner of writing, is it not completely false that which is reported therein, that chorepiscopi were abolished ^B by the Roman See as well as by the bishops of the whole world, and forbidden the ministry? Or the epistle of Leo alone, which we cited just now, can be proof that not only were chorepiscopi not suppressed by the Roman pontiff, but they were accepted and bound by a certain discipline: when they are ordered to keep within their own boundaries, and not to usurp those functions which are proper to pontiffs. "Although," he says, "there is a large measure of common ministry with the bishops." As regards the rest of the bishops of the whole world, by whom it is said they were forbidden, it is so far from being true that, in the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, they are numbered among the clergy, can. 2: "If any bishop shall have performed an ordination for money, etc., and shall have ordained for money a bishop, or a chorepiscopus, or presbyters, or deacons, etc.," and in the Council of Ephesus, as we have said, the chorepiscopus Caesarius subscribed as a bishop. Moreover, in the Capitularies of Emperor Charles, ch. 9, it is inserted concerning chorepiscopi from the Antiochene and Ancyran synods, so that it is apparent that even then there were chorepiscopi in Gaul. For Pope Leo had also written to the Gallican bishops concerning the same. It is no less false that the supposititious Damasus affirms there, that it was not permitted for chorepiscopi to ordain subdeacons, contrary to the canon of the Antiochene council, and the epistle of Leo, which takes away only the consecration of presbyters and deacons. But that those bishops were not indeed at that time ^C is shown by arguments there. First, that they are ordained by one bishop, when it is the edict of the Fathers that those who are ordained by one or two bishops should not be called bishops. Next, that ecclesiastical sanctions forbid consecrating a bishop in a village, or in a castle, or in any small little town. But, he says, a chorepiscopus is a village-bishop. Therefore, the institution of chorepiscopi is against the authority of the canons. But as far as the ordination of chorepiscopi is concerned, whether they were consecrated by only one bishop, in whose diocese they were, or by many, nothing sufficiently explicit occurs to us in the whole memory of antiquity. But if we believe that Damasus, not only were they bishops then, but they were also ordained by many bishops. Which he affirms from the words of the Antiochene canon, because it is written thus: *El kai cheirotesian eien episkopon eiletphotes* (If they had received the laying on of hands of bishops). "It seems to me," he says, "that then they were not ordained by one, but by many, because it would in no way say 'of bishops' if the ordination of such were done by one, since it is stated in the plural, 'of bishops'." But Latin interpreters took that genitive *episkopon* otherwise, so that *cheirotesia episkopon* might not be that imposition of hands which many bishops perform, but that by which they become bishops. Wherefore if it is true, what that epistle narrates, chorepiscopi were not consecrated by one alone. Yet it speaks very confusedly and perplexedly, when it asserts those same men were then bishops, and I know not by what pact immediately denies that they were bishops. But the authority of the Antiochene canon is opposed, the clause of which is: *Chorepiskopon de ginesthai hypo tou tes poleos he hypokeitai episkopou*; "A chorepiscopus, however, is to be ordained by the bishop of the city to which he is subject." Hinc illae lacrimae (Hence those tears). Yet when it orders him to be ordained by the bishop to whom he is subject, it does not exclude others who might lay on hands together, but it decrees only this, that the one in whose jurisdiction he serves should be the president and moderator of the ordination, so that at his urging and invitation others are employed, so that without his consultation, and finally without his order, a chorepiscopus is not made. Balsamon declares what the meaning of this canon is, when he says that the arrogance of chorepiscopi was restrained by this appendix, who, despising their own bishops, wished to be ordained by the metropolitan or patriarch, so that they would be less in the power of their own. Therefore it was constituted that they be consecrated by their own bishop. For it seems like a very similar thing to when it is said that all provincial bishops are to be ordained by the metropolitan; from an old canon, which in the Council of Chalcedon, Act 13, p. 389, is conceived thus: *"Hoste en mia hekaste ton eparchion to kyros echein ton tes metropoleos, kai auton kathistan pantas tous hypo ten auten eparchian episkopous"* (So that in every province the metropolitan has the authority, and he himself appoints all the bishops under the same province). Thus it is said that to the archbishop, by the decree of the Council of Constantinople, it was granted, as is noted in Act 16 of the same council, that the metropolitans of the Pontic, Asian, and Thracian dioceses alone by him are to be cons—

^Atituted:

That the metropolitans of the aforementioned dioceses are to be ordained by the Archbishop of Constantinople

The other matter proposed in that epistle of Damasus, that it was cautioned that bishops should not be appointed in villages or country districts, confirms our opinion to a greater degree. For there is Canon 57 of the Council of Laodicea: "That it is not permitted to establish bishops in villages, and in country districts, but rather chorepiscopi (visitators); yet those who have already been appointed must do nothing without the consent of the bishop in the city." That it is not fitting for bishops to be appointed in hamlets and in fields, but rather visitators. Furthermore, those already appointed should do nothing without the knowledge of the city's bishop. ^B It seems to prescribe concerning chorepiscopi, whom it acknowledges as bishops, but forbids this to be encroached upon further, nor for bishops to be chosen in those places thereafter. That this sanction was, in fact, not at all observed is sufficiently demonstrated by those things which we have brought forth from the Council of Antioch and the decrees of other Fathers.

In summary, chorepiscopi were bishops of the country, which was once properly called the diocese (paroikia), and were placed over rustic churches. Concerning their institution, Balsamon discusses it thus at Canon 14 of the Council of Neocaesarea: "Bishops have succeeded to the place of the twelve apostles, to whom the power of binding and loosing has been given. But since the apostles were not in the least sufficient for the preaching of the Gospel and for performing other functions, certain men were taken into their fellowship who were called disciples of the Lord, who indeed lacked the power of forgiving sins. To the likeness of these, chorepiscopi were substituted, to distribute ecclesiastical monies to the poor. Whence they can neither ordain presbyters and deacons, nor forgive sins, just as the seventy disciples could not." These are roughly the words of Balsamon. Where he denies the power of forgiving sins to chorepiscopi and attributes it only to bishops, he explains a little later in what sense this is said: "That priests cannot receive accounts ^C nor remit sins unless they have been authorized in these matters by the bishop." Priests, just as chorepiscopi, cannot hear confessions nor remit sins unless they have first obtained the power from the bishop. And this must be understood especially concerning the public reconciliation of penitents, which the canons prescribe to be granted by the bishop: as in the Council of Carthage III, canon 32: "That a presbyter shall not reconcile a penitent without consulting the bishop." Pope Leo also, in epistle 88, among those things which he says are granted to the bishop alone and denied to the chorepiscopus, recounts this very thing: "Nor, he says, may they publicly reconcile any penitent in the Mass." Which Damasus, along with other things, transferred into his epistle from that of Leo.

To me, however, the origin of the chorepiscopi seems to have flowed from the same causes for which Epiphanius writes that the divisions of the Laurae, or Churches, were instituted at Alexandria, and likewise the Christian populace at Rome was distributed into titles. For since the bishops, occupied in ruling and feeding the urban populace, could less easily travel out into the fields and bestow ecclesiastical duties and sacraments upon rustic men, they appointed vicars as chorepiscopi for the same; into whom they transferred a great part of their own law and power, some things, of course, being excepted and reserved to themselves, the use and function of which was less ^D pressing; which things are commemorated by Leo and that Damasus. For which reason the institution of chorepiscopi must be most ancient, and indeed older than that other division of titles in cities. For initially one bishop could be sufficient for all the townspeople. Hence it is that in Canon 13 of Neocaesarea, mention is made of only one "Lord's house" (kyriakon) of the city, in which it is not permitted for village presbyters, when city presbyters are present, to perform sacred rites. And this observation by Epiphanius, so accurate regarding the many churches of the Alexandrian Church, demonstrates that the matter was not elsewhere widespread, nor had it been once used and accepted. But that at first in the fields the separations of parishes and churches were instituted, no prudent man will deny. For the administration and governing of which, chorepiscopi, as bishops of the countryside, were set over them, with most ample authority formerly, as we have seen, and the best of laws. Which power the bishops afterwards thought should be constrained, and tempered with certain conditions: until, deprived first of episcopal dignity and consecration, they were subsequently entirely abrogated. For in their place the Council of Laodicea decreed that "visitators" (periodeutai) be created: whom the Latin interpretation calls visitators: you could call them circuitors or lustration-officers; as it is in the Old Glossary. Balsamon on that 57th Canon of Laodicea: "The visitators are those who are today put forward by the bishops as exarchs. For these travel around and oversee spiritual lapses and set the faithful right." In the Council of Chalcedon, Act 4, "the most reverend presbyter and visitator, Alexander." Likewise in Act 10, in the libel offered by the Edessene clergy against Ibas: "A certain Valentius, an abominable man, whose fellow villagers condemned him in writing and orally for adultery and sodomy, he ordained as presbyter and visitator." The Latin interpreter translates this as agent in one place, elsewhere as circuitor. The visitator was therefore a presbyter, and indeed substituted in the villages for the chorepiscopus. But since ecclesiastical wealth and monies, which were for the most part spent for the uses of the poor, were also contained in rustic estates, I judge it happened from there that the oversight of those things was mandated to the chorepiscopi. Wherefore this peculiar function of theirs was, as Canon 13 of Neocaesarea admonishes, to which Balsamon notes that the Lord's monies and the poor's funds are dispensed by them. Zonaras also: "For they were obligated to spend the revenues of the churches over which they presided upon the poor, and to provide for them." Then indeed...