The Canons, and Paphnutius on Married Clergy

Eager to reform the life of those who served in the churches, the synod enacted laws, which were called canons. While they were deliberating about this, some thought a law ought to be passed that bishops and presbyters, deacons and subdeacons, should have no sexual relations with the wives they had married before they entered the priesthood. [a]

But Paphnutius the confessor stood up and spoke against this proposal. He said that marriage was honorable and chaste, and that living with their own wives was chastity. He advised the synod not to make such a law, for it would be hard to bear, and might become an occasion of lack of self-control for them and for their wives. And he reminded them that, according to the ancient tradition of the church, those who were unmarried when they were admitted to the fellowship of holy orders were required to remain so, but that those who were married were not to put away their wives. Such was the advice of Paphnutius, though he himself was unmarried. The synod agreed with his counsel and, in keeping with it, made no law on the matter, but left it to each man’s own judgment, not to compulsion.

The synod did, however, enact other laws regulating the government of the church; and these laws are easy to find, since many people have copies of them.