Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
STUDIES - George Nedungatt: Who is to Administer Church Property? - The Answer of the Ecumenical Councils
130 GEORGE NEDUNGATT So, if any bishop or metropolitan, contrary to this directive of ours, confiscates any property from anyone, thinking he is protecting his own Church, let him be suspended by his patriarch for a time, having first restored what he took away. If he persists in his disobedience to the decision of this holy universal synod, he must be completely removed from office?0 After the rupture of union between the Churches of the East and the West, both preserved the disciplinary patrimony established already by the common councils. According to the ecclesiological conviction of the Orthodox Byzantine East, only with the reunion of the East and the West can there be a new ecumenical council. On the contrary, the West has held general councils and has regarded them as ecumenical councils, at least unofficially. We shall mention three such councils dealing with the subject of administration of Church property. The First Lateran Council (1123), devoted to the reform of the Church and the correction of abuses like simony and clerical concubinage, enacted in canon 4 as follows: Absolutely no archdeacon, archpriest, provost or dean may grant to anyone the care of souls or prebends in a church without the decision or consent of the bishop. Rather, as it is constituted by the holy canons, let the care of souls and the dispensing of ecclesiastical affairs remain in the decision and power of the bishop.. .30 3I 32. The First Lateran Council deals with lay persons who violated the long standing Church discipline and arrogated to themselves the management of the temporalities of the Church. It condemned also lay persons who subtracted offerings from churches or converted churches into fortresses. Significant is the citation of the “apostolic canons”: Canon 8. We further resolve, in accordance with the statute of the most blessed pope Stephen, that lay persons, however religious they may be, have no power to dispose of any ecclesiastical business; but following the apostolic canons, let the bishop have the care of all ecclesiastical matters, and let him manage them as in the sight of God. Therefore, if any prince or other lay person should arrogate to himself the disposition or donation of ecclesiastical things or possessions, let him be regarded as sacrilegious. In accordance with the canons of the holy fathers, we absolutely forbid and prohibit the laity, under the penalty of anathema, to remove the offerings from the most sacred and revered altars of Blessed Peter and of the Saviour and of St Mary Rotunda and of St Nicholas of Bari, of St Giles, or from the altars or crosses of all the other churches. By apostolic authority we forbid the fortification or taking hold of churches by lay persons?2 30 Tanner, (ed.), Decrees (nt. 3), 181; JOANNOU, Discipline (nt. 21), 329—330. 31 Tanner, (ed.), Decrees (nt. 3), 190. 32 Tanner (ed.), Decrees (nt. 3), 191, 192.
