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

The First Council of Nicaea

Canon II

Recent converts are not to be ordained immediately; time and testing come first.

  • 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 II — conciliar text

Forasmuch as, either from necessity, or through the urgency of individuals, many things have been done contrary to the Ecclesiastical canon, so that men just converted from heathenism to the faith, and who have been instructed but a little while, are straightway brought to the spiritual laver, and as soon as they have been baptized, are advanced to the episcopate or the presbyterate, it has seemed right to us that for the time to come no such thing shall be done. For to the catechumen himself there is need of time and of a longer trial after baptism. For the apostolical saying is clear, “Not a novice; lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation and the snare of the devil.” But if, as time goes on, any sensual sin should be found out about the person, and he should be convicted by two or three witnesses, let him cease from the clerical office. And whoso shall transgress these [enactments] will imperil his own clerical position, as a person who presumes to disobey the great Synod.

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

Those who have come from the heathen shall not be immediately advanced to the presbyterate. For without a probation of some time a neophyte is of no advantage (κακός). But if after ordination it be found out that he had sinned previously, let him then be expelled from the clergy.

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

Men newly converted from paganism had been baptised and then advanced to the presbyterate or episcopate almost at once, out of necessity or under pressure from individuals. The council forbids it for the future, on the ground that a catechumen needs time before baptism and a longer trial after it.

The canon also provides that if a serious sin from before ordination comes to light afterwards and is established by two or three witnesses, the man is to cease from the clerical office.

The fourth-century problem

The Church after the persecutions was growing quickly and was short of clergy. Congregations wanted their impressive new converts ordained. The canon is the council saying no to a real and understandable pressure.

The apostolic warning it quotes — not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into condemnation — identifies the danger precisely: not incompetence but the corrosion of a soul given authority too early.

Canonical principle

Formation takes time and cannot be compressed by need. The canon subordinates institutional convenience to the good of the person being ordained and of those he would serve.

The second half establishes something procedurally important: an accusation requires two or three witnesses. The council is not creating a mechanism for rumour to remove clergy.

What kind of canon this is

  • disciplinary
  • administrative

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 principle is embedded in Orthodox practice: a period as an inquirer, then as a catechumen, then reception, and only later — if at all — any question of ordination. Canon LXXX of Trullo and other later canons return to the theme of time and testing.

Percival prints Hefele's observation that the prohibition was not new even in 325 but was being reaffirmed because it was being ignored.

  • Canon IX, on ordination without examination.
  • Canon X, on the ordination of the 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

  • The canons and Church order

    What canons are, how they are received, and why they are not an internet law code.

    Theme

  • The twenty canons of Nicaea: an overview

    What the first council actually legislated about, in one pass, before you read them one by one.

    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 II 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 II, 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.