The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

The First Council of Nicaea

Canon XIII

The dying are not to be deprived of communion; and any who recover are placed among those who communicate in prayers only.

  • Canonical normEstablished by a received canon of a council, or of a Father whose canons the Church has received. Canons are applied within the Church's pastoral and conciliar life; a canon is not a rule a reader applies to themselves or to anyone else.
  • Pastoral applicationHow a teaching is ordinarily applied in practice, under the guidance of a priest and bishop. Never a substitute for that guidance.
  • Liturgical witnessAttested in the Church's worship — in a hymn, a prayer, a rite or a commemoration. Liturgical language is theological rather than casual, but a hymn is not a canon.

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Canon XIII — conciliar text

Concerning the departing, the ancient canonical law is still to be maintained, to wit, that, if any man be at the point of death, he must not be deprived of the last and most indispensable Viaticum. But, if any one should be restored to health again who has received the communion when his life was despaired of, let him remain among those who communicate in prayers only. But in general, and in the case of any dying person whatsoever asking to receive the Eucharist, let the Bishop, after examination made, give it him.

Henry R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. XIV (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900). Public domain.

Ancient Epitome, as printed in the same edition

The dying are to be communicated. But if any such get well, he must be placed in the number of those who share in the prayers, and with these only.

A Byzantine-era summary carried in the canonical collections. It is a witness to how the canon was read, not the canon itself.

Plain-language summary — this project's words, not the canon's

Concerning the departing, the ancient canonical law is to be maintained: anyone at the point of death must not be deprived of the last and most indispensable Viaticum. If a person receives communion when their life was despaired of and then recovers, they are placed among those who communicate in prayers only.

And in general, in the case of any dying person who asks to receive the Eucharist, the bishop is to give it after examination.

The fourth-century problem

The penitential system created a hard case. A person part-way through years of penance might be dying. Did the discipline hold?

The council answers that it does not. Whatever else the canons require, nobody dies excluded.

Canonical principle

This is the canon that shows what the whole penitential system was for. Discipline exists for restoration, and at the point where restoration is about to be settled one way or the other, the discipline yields.

The provision for those who recover is not a punishment for surviving. It restores the person to the path they were on, having received what they needed.

Key vocabulary

Viaticum
Provision for a journey: communion given to the dying. The canon calls it the last and most indispensable.

What kind of canon this is

  • disciplinary
  • liturgical

Percival's edition groups the Nicene canons without formal classification. The kinds named above are this project's analysis, offered so that a reader can see which parts of a canon are principle and which are the arrangement of a particular century.

Later interpretation and reception

Percival's excursus on the communion of the sick, printed with this canon, notes that there is scarcely anything on which the ancient Church was more united than that the dying should be communicated.

The principle passes into all later Orthodox practice and into the rite for communing the sick.

  • Canon XI and Canon XII, on the penitential stations this canon overrides for the dying.

  • The First Council of Nicaea

    The council that confessed the Son to be of one substance with the Father, addressed the date of Pascha, and issued twenty disciplinary canons. It did not decide which books belong to the Bible.

    Council

  • The Eucharist

    The Church's central act, and the earliest thing outsiders noticed about Christians.

    Theme

  • Death, judgement and the age to come

    The resurrection of the body, prayer for the dead, and the reticence the tradition keeps.

    Lesson

Your notes

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Sources for this page

  1. Tier C The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church Henry R. Percival (ed.); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (series eds.) Canon XIII of Nicaea annotated edition of conciliar texts The conciliar text as archived here. Source record
  2. Tier C The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church Henry R. Percival (ed.); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (series eds.) Ancient Epitome of Canon XIII, with Percival's notes annotated edition of conciliar texts Nineteenth-century editorial apparatus and Byzantine canonists. Source record

Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.