Letter 7042: Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We find from the information given in your Fraternity's letter that the sons of the Church of Cornelium are continually supplicating you to consecrate a bishop for them in place of their former bishop who has lapsed, and that you are in doubt as to what should be done in the matter, and await our plain c...
Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna.
Your Fraternity's letter informs me that the people of the church of Cornelium keep petitioning you to consecrate a new bishop, since their former bishop has lapsed [fallen into serious sin or heresy]. You write that you are unsure what to do and await my clear instruction.
The answer is straightforward. No reasonable argument allows someone who has departed in disgrace to be restored to the position from which he fell. And the sacred canons do not permit a church to go without a bishop for more than three months -- otherwise the ancient enemy may find an opening to scatter the Lord's flock.
Your Fraternity should grant their request and ordain a new bishop to replace the one who lapsed. Frankly, you should have urged them to do this before they even asked. You have no grounds to refuse them now. A church of God must not remain widowed of its own bishop any longer than necessary.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
On the arrival here of a certain man of Ravenna, I was smitten by most grievous sorrow for that he told me of your Fraternity being sick from vomiting of blood. On this account we have caused enquiry to be made carefully and severally of those here whom we know to be well-read physicians, and have sent in writing to your Holiness their several o...
Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We wonder why the discernment of your Fraternity should have been so changed in a short time that it does not consider what it asks for. On this account we grieve, since you afford manifest proof that the words of evil counsellors have availed with you more than the study of divine lore has profited you.
Great infirmity constrains us, dearest brother, from which if we were free, we should seem justly blamable. But since, while we are in this fragile body, we cannot subsist but by subservience to its weaknesses, we ought not to blush for what necessity imposes on us. And so, since physicians all say that to those who suffer from eruption of blood...
Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. It has for some time reached us from the report of many that the monasteries constituted in the district of Ravenna are everywhere aggrieved by the domination of your clergy; so that — grievous to be said — under the pretext of government they take possession of them as if they were their own. Condoling ...
Gregory to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna. We have received by the deacon Virgilius the letter of your Fraternity, in which you inform us that certain of the clergy and people have cried out that it is contrary to the laws and canons that the cause between your Church and the abbot Claudius should be examined and decided here. But, had they paid ...