To Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna, on a New Bishop for Cornelium

Gregory to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna. We learn from your fraternity’s letter that the sons of the church of Cornelium keep begging you to consecrate a bishop for them in place of their former bishop, who has fallen, and that you are in doubt about what should be done in the matter and are waiting for our plain command. No reason of any kind allows one who has fallen by a crime to be recalled to the place from which he fell. And the rulings of the sacred canons do not allow a church to be without a bishop for more than three months, lest, which God forbid, the ancient enemy lie in wait to tear the Lord’s flock. So your fraternity ought to grant their request and ordain a bishop in the place of the one who has fallen. For since you ought to have urged them to this by your own exhortations before they asked you, you can have no excuse for refusing them when they demand it of you, since a church of God ought not to remain long widowed of a bishop of its own. [a]