Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
STUDIES - George Nedungatt: Who is to Administer Church Property? - The Answer of the Ecumenical Councils
132 GEORGE NEDUNGATT V. Summary and Critical Observations The disciplinary laws or canons of the ecumenical councils are obviously binding on the universal Church, unless they were made specifically for some individual Churches or persons. An example of legislation for a particular Church by a general council is the decrees of the Council in Trullo for the Armenians (cc. 32, 33, 56, 99). Obviously, no law binds till it has been promulgated. But promulgation in ancient times was different from today, when with modern mass media a new law can be made known all over the globe instantly and simultaneously. Geo-political factors also could retard or hinder effective promulgation. Closer to modern times, the decrees of the Council of Trent were not promulgated in certain countries even after decades. In the Church of the Thomaschristians in India they were promulgated only as late as the Synod of Diamper ( 1599). But since this synod was not on the whole received by the Thomaschristians, the reception of the Council of Trent itself was largely a later, slow and progressive matter, often in conflict with contrary local custom. Though the principle of the applicability of the canons or decrees of the ecumenical councils is not in question here,35 the application itself is complicated by several other factors. Though temporal goods were viewed theologically as “the property of God,” they were often used as the property of man in a very human manner. Though they are meant to serve primarily spiritual ends, the history of their use in the Church is a chiaroscuro, like the history of the Church itself: alternately darkened by the shadow cast by the ugly face of mammon and illumined by such radiant figures as St Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa. In spite of abuses in practice, the sacred canons testify to the determined will of the Church to check and prevent abuses. The general discipline decreed for the universal Church by the ancient councils had four features:1) the responsibility for the administration of temporal goods rests with the bishop in each diocese; 2) he should administer them in hierarchical communion with the metropolitan or such like Protos; 3) for the sake of transparency he should administer them not personally but through a cleric appointed as the economus or diocesan finance officer; 4) though at first laypeople were excluded from the office of economus, contrary custom obtained the silent approval of the later councils. This ecclesiastical discipline had a practical corollary in the Byzantine East, which is interesting to note by way of conclusion. In order to forestall the harm 35 J. Mattam, The Binding Force of the Papal Constitutions and the Disciplinary Decrees of Ecumenical Councils on the Orientals, in J. Vellian (ed.), The Malabar Church, (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 186), Rome 248-255.
