How to read a canon

The single most common error with the canons is treating them as a legal code that a reader may look up and apply — to themselves, or to someone else. They are not that, and reading them that way produces confident nonsense.

A canon is a judgement of the Church about how its life is to be ordered, received into a collection, interpreted by later councils and canonists, and applied by bishops within a living pastoral situation. Canon II of the Council in Trullo is the index of which collections the Orthodox Church receives.

Six questions

1. What is the text, and in which translation? Every canon on this site is printed in a public-domain translation, named on the page, in a container that cannot be confused with editorial summary.
2. What problem was it addressing? Almost every canon answers something concrete. Canon XVII of Nicaea forbids clergy to lend at interest in a world where rates could ruin a household. Knowing the problem is most of knowing the canon.
3. What kind of canon is it? Dogmatic, moral, disciplinary, administrative, liturgical, or a mixture. These do not age in the same way.
4. What principle is it protecting? The principle usually outlasts the specific arrangement.
5. How has it been received and interpreted since? The Byzantine canonists — Balsamon, Zonaras, Aristenus — are printed alongside the canons in the archived edition, and they frequently disagree with each other.
6. What is its status today, and who decides that? A bishop, within the Church's pastoral life, using akribeia and oikonomia. Not a reader with a website.

Kinds of canon

Dogmatic

Expressing the faith. Canon I of Trullo confirms the faith of the six preceding councils.

Moral

Concerning conduct, such as the canons on usury or on violence.

Disciplinary

Concerning penance and restoration, such as the Nicene canons on the lapsed.

Administrative

Concerning structure: provinces, metropolitans, synods, the movement of clergy.

Liturgical

Concerning worship, such as canon XX of Nicaea on standing to pray.

Key Scripture

• Acts 15:28-29 — The apostolic decree — the earliest canon, and already a pastoral judgement rather than a code.
• 1 Corinthians 14:40 — All things done decently and in order.

On Scripture references. References are given so you can read the passage in the translation your parish uses. This site does not reproduce a modern copyrighted Bible text.

Council and canon connections

• Canon II of Trullo is the canonical index of the Orthodox tradition.

Why this matters in lived Orthodoxy

For most Orthodox Christians the canons operate invisibly: they are why the parish has a bishop, why the bishop was ordained by others, why a synod meets, and why the priest handles a pastoral question the way he does. They surface directly only when something has gone wrong or when a question of standing arises — and then they are handled by clergy, not by the person concerned.

Review

Going deeper

• All twenty canons of Nicaea, each with a study page.
• The 102 canons of Trullo, the backbone of the Orthodox canonical tradition.