Recently the Preachers Institute quoted some canons from Saint Basil. A few of them are below:
Canon 3. A deacon who commits fornication after his appointment to the diaconate is to be deposed. But, after he has been rejected and ranked among the laity, he is not to be excluded from communion. For there is an ancient canon that those who have fallen from their degree are to be subjected to this kind of punishment alone.
Canon 26. Fornication is not wedlock, nor yet the beginning of wedlock. Wherefore it is best, if possible, to put asunder those who are united in fornication. If they are set on cohabitation, let them admit the penalty of fornication. Let them be allowed to live together, lest a worse thing happen.(2nd Canonical Letter, Epistle 199)
Canon 59. The fornicator will not be admitted to participation in the sacrament for seven years; weeping two, hearing two, kneeling two, and standing one: in the eighth he will be received into communion.
Canon 69. The Reader who has intercourse with his betrothed before marriage, shall be allowed to read after a year’s suspension, remaining without advancement. If he has had secret intercourse without betrothal, he shall be deposed from his ministry. So too the minister. (3rd Canonical Letter, Epistle 217)
I am always impressed by the pastoral insight shown by various of the Early Church Fathers. These canons by Saint Basil show several ways of dealing with someone engaging in fornication. There is not one way of dealing with them, but several, depending on the circumstances.
The ones that interests me most are the last canon, Canon 69, and the second canon, Canon 26. Notice the common sense approach of both canons. Canon 26 speaks directly to the situation in which we find ourselves on today’s society. It does not matter what a couple claims. Living together is not either wedlock or the beginning of wedlock. It is simply fornication. But look at the solutions given.
The first solution is the one most pastors would try to apply. That is, you try to convince the couple to stop living together until they are married, or get married. This is considered the best option according to the canon. But, notice the pastoral sensitivity that is expressed in the rest of the canon. If they do not wish to live apart, then bring them to a realization of their state. I assume that this is to bring them to marriage. But, then the Saint says to let them keep on living together! Why would he say that?
All of us involved in pastoral care know that there are worse options than living together. The worse option is the possibility of abandonment, particularly by the male partner in the arrangement. Even today, once cohabitation stops, it becomes all too easy to break off any future arrangement. In fact, if it is too easy to get a couple to stop cohabiting, it may mean that the couple was not as fully committed to each other as they thought. Back in those days, this would leave a woman alone, despoiled, often without options of moving back home, and without good “job” prospects. No, letting them continue to live together is often the best pastoral option, as you bring them to confess their sin, and to be married in the Church.
Canon 69 addresses only the Reader. Why only him? Because it is assumed that a deacon or priest will have been married before they are ordained. This canon made me grin, although fornication is a serious subject. You see, the canon differentiates between fornication after betrothal, and simple fornication with a woman with which the Reader has no other relationship. The treatment of the Reader who is betrothed is breathtakingly light. Let him be apart from the ministry for a year is giving him just enough time to finish the betrothal period, be married, and to have a couple of months of marriage under his belt. You can almost hear Saint Basil sigh about betrothed couples who could not wait. There is an almost charming pastoral approach to this.
However, notice in that canon and the other canons, that should a Reader, a Deacon, or a “minister” be involved in fornication outside a betrothal, they are deposed and removed for life. They are still allowed to receive communion, as their deposition is already such a severe punishment that to also remove them from communion would be too harsh. Nevertheless, there is no give in Saint Basil when he writes about fornication outside of either cohabitation or betrothal. Note that the person cohabitating may still serve a multi-year penalty, but it is not a lifetime or prohibitive penalty. I say "may still serve” a penalty because it is not fully clear (without more study on my part) as to whether Saint Basil would have treated the cohabiting couple more like the Reader and his betrothed or more like a simple fornicator.
The person who serves the least penalty is he who commits fornication with his betrothed. And his only penalty is to not be allowed to serve “up front” until after his marriage. Most of us today would agree with that very light approach toward engaged couples who fall into that particular type of sexual sin. It is not that we approve of fornication in any way. Rather, it is with a sigh and a recognition of how often (even back when) an engaged couple gave in to temptation. It obviously happened often enough, even among those ordained to minor orders, to need a canon written about it.
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