To Various Metropolitans and Bishops, on Soldiers and Officials Who Wish to Become Monks

Gregory to Eusebius of Thessalonica, Urbicius of Dyrrachium, Constantius of Milan, Andrew of Nicopolis, John of Corinth, John of Prima Justiniana, John of Scoritanum in Crete, John of Larissa, Marinianus of Ravenna, Januarius of Cagliari in Sardinia, and all the bishops of Sicily. [a]

I have taken care to send your fraternity the law the most pious emperor has issued, to the effect that those who are bound by duties of military service or by public obligations may not, in any case, take on the status of clergy or become monks in order to escape the risk of being called to account. And I especially urge this on you: those who are tied up in secular duties are not to be received hastily among the clergy of the church. For while they live in the clerical state no differently from the way they lived before, they are not trying to escape secular affairs at all, but only to change them. But if any of them should even seek a monastery, they are by no means to be received unless they have first been released from their public obligations. Further, if any from the military order are eager to become monks, they are not to be received rashly, or before their life has been fully looked into. And according to the monastic rule, they ought to go through a probation of three years, and then, God granting it, take the monastic habit. And if they have been tested in this way and accepted, and are anxious, for the good of their souls, to do penance for the sins they have committed, then monastic profession should not be denied them, with a view to their heavenly life and gain. In this matter too, believe me, the most serene and most Christian emperor has been fully appeased, and he willingly allows the monastic profession of those he knows are not entangled in public obligations. The month of December, in the first indiction. [c]