To Leo, Bishop of Catania, on Married Subdeacons

Gregory to Leo, bishop of Catania. We have learned from the reports of many that a custom has long held among you allowing subdeacons to have intercourse with their wives. That anyone should presume to do this any longer was forbidden by the servant of God, the deacon of our see, on the authority of our predecessor, in this way: those who were joined to wives at that time were to choose one of two things, either to abstain from their wives, or on no account whatever to presume to exercise their ministry. And, so it is reported, Speciosus, who was then a subdeacon, withdrew himself for this reason from the office of his ministry. Up to the time of his death he did indeed hold the office of a notary, but he gave up the ministry a subdeacon should have carried out. After his death, we have learned, his widow Honorata was sent away to a monastery by your fraternity for having joined herself to a husband. So if, as is said, her husband had withdrawn himself from his ministry, the fact that she has made a second marriage ought not to count against this woman, especially if she had not been joined to the subdeacon with the intention of abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh. [a] So if you find the truth to be as we have been told, it is right for you to release this woman altogether from the monastery, so that she is free to go back to her husband without any fear. But for the future, let your fraternity be extremely careful, with anyone who may be promoted to this office, to see to it with the utmost diligence that, if they have wives, they have no freedom to have intercourse with them. And you must still strictly order them to observe all things after the pattern of the Apostolic See.