Repentance

The early Church's discipline for grave sin was public and long: the penitential stations of weeping, hearing, kneeling and standing, with years assigned before restoration to communion. Several canons of Nicaea assign such terms.

That system did not survive unchanged, and the tradition does not pretend it did. What survives is the principle: repentance is real, it is worked out in the life of the Church, and restoration is the point of the discipline rather than punishment.

The canons that assign years of penance are among the clearest cases where the historical application has changed while the canon remains meaningful. Reading them as a tariff still in force misunderstands both the canons and the Church.

Follow this theme through the archive

• Canon XI of Nicaea

  Those who lapsed without compulsion under Licinius are to be dealt with mercifully: three years as hearers, seven as prostrators, two communicating in prayers without oblation.

  Canon

• Canon XII of Nicaea

  Soldiers who left the army for the faith and then bought their way back are to spend three years as hearers and ten as prostrators, with attention to the quality of their repentance.

  Canon

• Cyprian of Carthage

  Bishop of Carthage and martyr, whose letters and treatises are the best evidence we have for how a third-century church handled persecution, penance and schism.

  Father or writer

• Repentance and confession

  From the ancient penitential stations to the sacrament as it is practised now.

  Lesson