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

The First Council of Nicaea

Canon XIV

Catechumens who lapsed are to be hearers for three years, and then pray with the catechumens.

  • 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.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-08-29

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Canon XIV — conciliar text

Concerning catechumens who have lapsed, the holy and great Synod has decreed that, after they have passed three years only as hearers, they shall pray with the catechumens.

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

If any of the catechumens shall have fallen for three years he shall be a hearer only, and then let him pray with the catechumens.

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

Catechumens who have lapsed are, after three years as hearers only, to pray with the catechumens.

The fourth-century problem

The catechumenate was a defined stage of Church life with its own place in the liturgy, and catechumens were sometimes required to sacrifice along with everyone else.

The canon gives them a shorter and lighter discipline than the baptised who lapsed, which is the point: they had not yet received what the baptised had received.

Canonical principle

Responsibility is proportioned to what a person has been given. The canon does not treat the catechumen as if they had apostatised from the full life of the Church, because they had not yet entered it.

It also assumes that a lapsed catechumen remains a catechumen. The relationship is not ended by the failure.

What kind of canon this is

  • disciplinary

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

The canon is evidence for how structured the catechumenate was in the fourth century: a person could be demoted within it and restored, which implies defined stages.

Cyril of Jerusalem's catechetical lectures, archived here, show the same structure from the inside.

  • Canon XI, on the baptised who lapsed.

  • 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

  • Cyril of Jerusalem

    Bishop of Jerusalem whose catechetical lectures to candidates for baptism are the fullest picture we have of how the fourth-century Church taught the faith.

    Father or writer

  • Baptism, chrismation and entry into the Church

    How a person becomes an Orthodox Christian, and what the fourth-century sources show us about it.

    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 XIV 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 XIV, 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.