Folia Canonica 5. (2002)

STUDIES - Jobe Abbass: Alienating Ecclesiastical Goods in the Eastern Catholic Churches

ALIENATING IN THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES

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Congregation’s competence regarding alienation is not reserved exclusively to any other dicastery in PB 58 §2.39

Finally, whenever CCEO canons 1036-1037 call for the consent of competent authorities, their written consent is required in order for the alienation to be valid (cf. CCEO c. 1035 §1,3).

1. Eastern Church Alienation — Value between Minimum and Maximum (c. 1036 §1)

With the exception of alienation of goods of a patriarchal Church or of a patriarch’s eparchy (CCEO c. 1037), CCEO canon 1036 §1 regards all alienations of goods, which are part of a juridic person’s stable patrimony (CCEO c. 1035 § 1), in all the Eastern Catholic Churches40 if those goods’ value falls within the minimum and maximum amounts established by the synod of bishops for a patriarchal territory or by the See of Rome in all other cases.41 In these cases, CCEO canon 1036 §1 conditions the proposed alienation by requiring the consent of certain authorities for the juridic act to be valid. At the same time, CCEO canon 1039 requires the consent of those concerned for any alienation. Without such consent, the juridic act is also invalid (cf. CCEO c. 934 §2, l42). CCEO canon 1036 treats these proposed alienations in three categories.

1036 §1, 1 (Goods of an Eparchy). If the alienation concerns goods of an eparchy and their value falls within the minimum and maximum established by

39PB 58 §2 states: “However, this does not override the proper and exclusive competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and of the Causes of Saints, the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature and the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, as well as the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments with respect to the dispensation regarding a ratified and non-consummated marriage.”

40 Compare, however, Rajeh, Beni temporali (nt. 4), 134. Rajeh writes that CCEO c. 1036 §1 applies “in the eparchy of a metropolitan or sui iuris Church, if the property whose alienation is proposed is contained within the minimum and maximum sums.” Since the author obviously does not intend to distinguish metropolitan Churches from sui iuris Churches, here he must mean to say that CCEO c. 1036 §1 applies only to the four metropolitan Churches and the nine other Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris. However, it is clear that CCEO c. 1036 §1 also regards the patriarchal Churches.

41 Obviously, if the value of the goods is below the defined minimum, such alienation will come under ordinary administration or even another category of extraordinary administration which does not reach the level of restricted alienation foreseen by CCEO c. 1036.

42 CCEO c. 934 §2, 1 states: “If it is established by law that to place a juridic act an authority needs the consent or counsel of certain persons as individuals: if consent is required, the juridic act of an authority who does not seek the consent of those persons or who acts contrary to the opinion of all or any of them is invalid.”