To Anastasius of Thessalonica, on Abusing His Authority

Leo, bishop of the city of Rome, to Anastasius, bishop of Thessalonica.

Brother, if you truly understood all that has been committed to you by the authority of the blessed apostle Peter, and all that has also been entrusted to you by our favor, and if you weighed it fairly, we would have great reason to rejoice at the zeal with which you carry out the responsibility laid on you. [a]

My predecessors delegated their authority to yours, and following their example, I too have delegated my authority to you, beloved. I did it so that you, imitating our gentleness, might help us in the care that, by divine appointment, we owe first of all to all the churches, and so that you might to some degree make up for our absence in visiting the provinces that lie far from us. By regular and well-timed inspection it would be easy for you to tell which matters, and in which cases, you could settle by your own influence and which you should reserve for our judgment. You were free to hold back the more important matters and the harder questions while you waited for our opinion, so there was no reason and no need for you to go out of your way to decide what was beyond your powers. You have many written warnings from us, in which we have often instructed you to be moderate in all you do, so that by loving encouragement you might stir the churches of Christ committed to you to a healthy obedience. It is true that among careless or lazy brothers there are, as a rule, things that call for a strong hand to set them right. Yet the correction ought always to be applied in such a way that love is kept unbroken. [b]

That is why the blessed apostle Paul, instructing Timothy on how to govern the church, says: “Do not rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as a father; treat the young men as brothers, the older women as mothers, the younger women as sisters, in all purity.” If, by the apostle’s command, this moderation is owed to each and every one of the lower members, how much more should it be shown without offense to our brothers and fellow bishops? Things do sometimes happen in the persons of priests that must be reprimanded. Even so, with those who are to be corrected, kindness should do more than severity, encouragement more than alarm, love more than power. But those who “seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” easily depart from this law. They find more pleasure in lording it over those under them than in looking after their good. They swell with pride in their position, and so what was provided to keep harmony is made to serve harm.

It grieves us greatly that we must speak this way. For I feel myself drawn to some extent into the blame, now that I have found that you have departed so far from the rules handed down to you. If you cared nothing for your own reputation, you ought at least to have spared my good name, so that what your own mind alone prompted would not seem to have been done with our approval. Brother, only read our letters carefully, and go through all the letters sent to your predecessors by those who have held the Apostolic See. You will find that either I or my predecessors gave instructions on the very matter in which, we learn, you have presumed.

Our brother Atticus, the metropolitan bishop of Old Epirus, has come to us with the bishops of his province. With tears and pleading he complained of the undeserved insult he has suffered. He did so in the presence of your own deacons, and they, by offering no contradiction to these sad complaints, showed that what was pressed on us did not lack truth. We also read in your letter, which those same deacons of yours brought, that brother Atticus had come to Thessalonica and had also sealed his agreement in a written statement. From this we could only understand that he had come of his own will and free devotion, and that he had written out his promise of obedience himself. Yet the very mention of this written statement betrayed a sign of wrong done to him. For there was no need to bind a man in writing who was already proving his obedience by the very dutifulness of coming of his own accord. So these words in your letter bore witness to his laments, and his frank account has laid bare what had been passed over in silence. The prefecture of Illyricum had been approached. The highest official among the powers of the world had been set in motion to expose an innocent bishop. A company of men was sent to carry out the dreadful deed, and they were to enlist all the public officers in carrying out their orders. A priest charged with no crime, or at best with a false one, was dragged from the holy sanctuary of the church. No pause was granted him in view of his serious illness or the cruel winter weather. He was forced to make a journey full of hardship and danger through snows where there was no road. The task was so exhausting and so dangerous that some of those who went with the bishop are said to have died. [e]

I am utterly astonished, beloved brother, and deeply grieved too, that you allowed yourself to be stirred so savagely and violently against a man about whom you had reported nothing more than this: that when summoned to appear, he put it off and excused himself on the grounds of illness. All the more so because, even if he had deserved such treatment, you ought to have waited until I had answered the letter in which you consulted me. But, as I see it, you knew my habits only too well, and you foresaw very accurately how fair an answer I was likely to give in order to keep harmony among priests. So you hurried to carry out your measures openly, for fear that once you had received a letter of our forbearance directing another course, you would no longer be free to do what has now been done. Or perhaps some crime had reached your ears, and, metropolitan bishop that you are, the weight of some new charge pressed hard on you? But you yourself make it clear that this does not fit the facts, since you bring nothing against him. Yet even if he had committed some serious and intolerable offense, you should have waited for our opinion, and decided nothing by yourself until you knew our wishes. For we made you our deputy, beloved, on the understanding that you were called to share our responsibility, not to take full power on yourself. [h]

So while the things you attend to with devout care please us greatly, your wrongful acts grieve us deeply. After experience in many cases we must use greater foresight and more careful precaution, so that through the spirit of love and peace every cause of offense may be removed from the Lord’s churches, which we have entrusted to you. The pre-eminence of your bishopric is to be kept in the provinces, but all your usurping excesses are to be cut away.

Therefore, in keeping with the canons of the holy fathers, which were framed by the spirit of God and are hallowed by the reverence of the whole world, we decree that the metropolitan bishops of each province over which your care extends, brother, by our delegation, are to keep untouched the rights of their position handed down to them from ancient times. But this is on condition that they do not depart from the established rules through any carelessness or arrogance.

In cities whose rulers have died, let this procedure be followed in filling their place. The man to be ordained, even though his good life has not been attested, must not be a layman, nor a recent convert, nor the husband of a second wife, nor a man who has had only one wife, or has her still, but married a widow. For the choice of priests is of such surpassing importance that things which are not blameworthy in other members of the church are nevertheless held unlawful in them. [i]

Those who are not within the ranks of the clergy are free to enjoy the companionship of marriage and the begetting of children. Yet to display the purity of complete self-control, even subdeacons are not allowed the bodily union of marriage, so that “those who have may be as though they had not,” and those who have not may remain single. If this is right to observe in this order, which is the fourth from the head, how much more must it be kept in the first, second or third? No one is to be reckoned fit for the duties of a deacon, or the honored position of a presbyter, or the pre-eminence of a bishop, who is found not yet to have reined in his desires toward a wife. [k]

So when the choice of a chief priest is taken in hand, let the man whom the unanimous consent of clergy and people asks for be preferred above all others. But if the votes happen to be divided between two people, the metropolitan in his judgment should prefer the one who is supported by the greater weight of votes and merits. Only let no one be ordained against the express wishes of the place, so that a city does not despise or hate a bishop it did not choose, and sadly fall away from religion because it was not allowed to have the man it wanted.

However, the metropolitan bishop should refer to you, brother, about the man to be consecrated bishop and about the consent of the clergy and people, and he should inform you of the wishes of the province, so that the proper celebration of the ordination may be strengthened by your authority as well. But it will be your duty to cause no delay or hindrance to right choices, so that the Lord’s flocks are not left too long without their shepherd’s care.

Moreover, when a metropolitan has died and another must be chosen in his place, the bishops of the province must meet together in the chief city of the province. There, after the wishes of all the clergy and all the citizens have been examined, the best man is to be chosen from the presbyters or the deacons of that same church. The priests of the province are to tell you his name, and they will carry out the wishes of those who support him once they learn that you agree with their choice. For while we want proper elections to be held up by no delays, we still allow nothing to be done presumptuously without your knowledge. [m]

Concerning councils of bishops we give no instructions other than those the holy fathers laid down for the health of the church: that two meetings are to be held each year, at which judgment is to be given on all the complaints that commonly arise between the various ranks of the church. But if, as may happen, a case concerning one of the greater sins should arise among the rulers themselves (God forbid), such as cannot be decided by a provincial trial, the metropolitan is to take care to inform you, brother, of the nature of the whole matter. And if, after both parties have come before you, the matter is not settled even by your judgment, whatever it may be, let it be transferred to our jurisdiction. [n]

If any bishop looks down on the smallness of his city, schemes to govern a more populous place, and by whatever means moves himself to a larger flock, he is first to be driven from the chair he has usurped, and he is also to be deprived of his own. So he will preside neither over those he coveted in his greed nor over those he spurned in his arrogance. Let each man, then, be content with his own bounds, and not seek to be raised beyond the limits of the post he holds.

Let no bishop accept or invite a cleric from another diocese against the wishes of his own bishop, but only when the one who gives him and the one who receives him agree on it by friendly arrangement. For a man does a serious wrong who dares either to lure away from a brother’s church, or to keep back from it, someone of great use or high value. So if this happens within the province, the metropolitan is to compel the deserting cleric to return to his church. But if he has gone farther away, he is to be recalled by your command and authority, so that no opening is left for either the desire for gain or scheming.

In summoning bishops to come to you, we want you to show great restraint, so that you do not seem, under a show of great diligence, to take delight in the injuries of your brothers. So if some larger case arises for which it is reasonable and necessary to call a meeting of the brothers, it will be enough, brother, for two bishops to attend from each province, whichever ones the metropolitans think fit to send. And this is on the understanding that those who answer the summons are not kept longer than fifteen days from the time fixed.

But if, in a matter you believed must be discussed and settled with the brothers, their opinion differs from your wishes, let everything be referred to us, with the minutes of your proceedings attested, so that every uncertainty may be removed and what is pleasing to God may be decided. For we direct all our desires and efforts to this end: that what serves our harmonious unity and the protection of discipline may be spoiled by no quarrel and neglected through no laziness. Therefore, dearly beloved brother, we urge and warn both you and those brothers of ours who are offended at your excessive conduct (though the cause of complaint is not the same for all) not to disturb by any wrangling what has been rightly ordained and wisely settled. As the apostle says, let no one “seek his own interests, but those of others.” “Let each of you please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” For our unity cannot be firmly cemented unless we are bound by the bond of love into one solid whole that cannot be divided, because “as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and all of us members of one another.” The joining together of the whole body makes all alike healthy and all alike beautiful. This joining together requires the unanimity of the whole body, but it especially demands harmony among the priests. [o]

Though priests share a common dignity, they do not all have the same rank. For even among the blessed apostles, alike as they were in their honored standing, there was a certain distinction of power. While all of them were chosen equally, it was given to one to take the lead over the rest. From this model a distinction between bishops has also arisen, and by an important ordinance it has been provided that not everyone should claim everything for himself. Instead there should be one in each province whose opinion would have first place among the brothers. And again, certain men appointed in the greater cities should take on a fuller responsibility, so that through them the care of the universal church would come together at Peter’s one seat, and nothing anywhere would be separated from its head. So let the man who knows he has been set over some others not take it badly that someone has been set over him. Let him give the obedience he demands of them himself. And just as he does not want to carry a heavy load of baggage, let him not dare to lay on another’s shoulders a weight that cannot be borne. For we are disciples of the humble and gentle Master, who says: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And how will we experience this unless we also remember what the same Lord says: “The one who is greater among you will be your servant. But whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”