Distinction XCIV

GRATIAN. Part I. Even to a subdeacon the supreme patriarch can commit his vicariate. Hence Symmachus says:

We have perceived it to be exceedingly necessary that, just as it was the judgment of our predecessors, so we commit all things to one and the same person, and that where we cannot be present, our authority be represented through him whom we command. Therefore, with God’s aid, we have committed our vicariate within the province of Sicily to Peter, subdeacon of our see. For we cannot doubt the acts of one to whom, with God’s aid, we are known to have committed the whole patrimony of our Church. Part II. GRATIAN. But whoever impedes a legate of the apostolic see is to be excommunicated until satisfaction. Hence Alexander, [Pope Alexander I, epistle II to all the Bishops]:

But if anyone impedes a legation, he turns aside the advancement not of one but of many; and just as he harms many, so he is to be reproved by many and deprived of the fellowship of the good. And because he impedes the cause of God and disturbs the state of the Church, he is therefore to be kept from her thresholds. Accordingly, all are to beware of such a man, and he is not to be received into the communion of the faithful until satisfaction.

Part III. GRATIAN. Archdeacons also, although by their office they ought to investigate the life of clerics by diligent examination and report to the bishop the things which they find in need of correction, are nevertheless prohibited from exercising dominion over them and exacting tribute from them. Hence it reads in the Council of Chalon, [c. 15]:

It has been said that in very many places archdeacons exercise a certain dominion over parish priests and exact tribute from them, something which pertains more to tyranny than to the form of rectitude. § 1. For if, according to the saying of the Apostle, bishops ought not to be lords over the clergy, but to be made a form for the flock from the heart, much less ought these men to do this. Accordingly, let them be content with regular disciplines and keep their proper measure; and let them strive to exercise throughout the parishes what is enjoined upon them by the bishops, presuming nothing through cupidity and avarice.