Folia Theologica 17. (2006)

Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi: The importance of the councils of Toledo of the 6th-8th centuries in the Spanish and in the universal canonical discipline of the Church

FOLIA THEOLOGICA 17 (2006)

227

Szabolcs Anzelm SZUROMI

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COUNCILS OF TOLEDO OF THE 6th - 8th CENTURIES IN THE SPANISH AND IN THE UNIVERSAL CANONICAL DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH*

Introduction

On May 27th, 1917, Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) promulgated the first Codex Iuris Canonici, as a unique and universal canonical source of the discipline of the Catholic Church. But this first codification of ecclesiastical discipline was not intended to make new law in the Church, but only to systematize, simplify, and promote the general suitability of the former law. Therefore, the knowledge of the origin of the single canons has been still helpful for the interpretation and also for the administration of the law.* 1 However, behind the Code, which showed the hard and highly qualified work especially of Card. Pietro Gasparri and Jusztinian Serédi, there still existed the "corpus" of ecclesiastical discipline (Corpus iuris canonici) as a stabile theoretical, juridical and interpretative background. This "corpus" developed from those sources which arose in the different epochs of church history back to the first centuries. From the second half of the 2nd century, the institution of a council came to hold an important position in the activity of the Church. This type of the meeting of bishops originally dealt with various heretical teachings and some liturgical questions. The majority of councils

* This article was presented in the Congress of International Medieval History, Leeds (12th July, 2006). This publication is supported by OTKA T 048584/2004 research program.

I GASPARRI, P., The History of the Codification of Canon Law for the Latin Church, in Acta Congressus Iuridici Internationalis VII saeculo a Decretalibus Gregorii IX et XIV a Codice Iustiniano promulgatis (Romae 12-17 Novembris 1934), IV. Roma 1937. 1-10. KONDRATUK, L., Le Code de 1917: Entre nécessité technique et catholicisme intransigeant, in Revue de Droit Canonique 51 (2001) 305-321, especially 306-310.