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

The First Council of Nicaea

Canon XVII

Clergy who lend at interest are to be deposed and struck from the clergy list.

  • 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.
  • 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 XVII — conciliar text

Forasmuch as many enrolled among the Clergy, following covetousness and lust of gain, have forgotten the divine Scripture, which says, “He hath not given his money upon usury,” and in lending money ask the hundredth of the sum [as monthly interest], the holy and great Synod thinks it just that if after this decree any one be found to receive usury, whether he accomplish it by secret transaction or otherwise, as by demanding the whole and one half, or by using any other contrivance whatever for filthy lucre’s sake, he shall be deposed from the clergy and his name stricken from the list.

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 anyone shall receive usury or 150 per cent, he shall be cast forth and deposed, according to this decree of the Church.

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

Many of the clergy, following covetousness and love of gain, had forgotten the Scripture that says he has not given his money upon usury, and were lending at the hundredth — that is, at one per cent a month — and by other contrivances.

The council directs that anyone found taking interest after this decree, whether by secret transaction or by demanding the whole and a half or by any other device for filthy lucre's sake, is to be deposed and his name struck from the list.

The fourth-century problem

The rates named in the canon and in Percival's notes were ruinous. Lending at one per cent a month compounds to something a labouring household could not escape, and the practice was one of the ordinary mechanisms by which poor people lost everything.

The canon is not addressing modern banking. It is addressing clergy participating in a system that destroyed the people they served.

Canonical principle

A cleric may not profit from another's necessity. The canon's list of evasions — secret transactions, demanding the whole and a half, any other contrivance — shows the council anticipating that the rule would be dodged, and closing the routes.

The principle is about the direction of the transaction, not about money as such.

What kind of canon this is

  • moral
  • 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

Percival prints an excursus on usury, quoting Van Espen's definition and tracing how the Church's teaching on interest changed as economies changed. It is a long note and a candid one.

Later canons extended the prohibition, in some cases to the laity. The eventual Western and Eastern accommodations to commercial lending are part of the reception history and are not concealed.

  • Later canons extending the prohibition, including to the laity.

  • 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

  • Christian conduct

    Almsgiving, wealth, forgiveness and the shape of Christian conduct.

    Theme

  • John Chrysostom

    Preacher at Antioch and archbishop of Constantinople, exiled for preaching against the powerful, whose homilies on Scripture and on the care of the poor are the largest body of pastoral writing from the ancient Church.

    Father or writer

  • The moral life

    Wealth, forgiveness, honesty and the shape of Christian conduct in the earliest sources.

    Lesson

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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 XVII 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 XVII, 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.