To Romanus the Defensor, on Returning a House to the Orphan Calixenus

Gregory to Romanus, and so on. [a]

The law rightly does not allow things that have come into the church’s possession to be given away. Yet sometimes the strictness of the rule should be softened where regard for mercy invites it, especially when there is so much that the giver is not burdened, and the poverty of the one who receives is considerably relieved. Stephania, who brings this letter, has come here with her little son Calixenus, whom she says she bore to her late husband Peter; she says too that she has suffered extreme poverty. With pleading and tears she has asked us to have restored to this Calixenus the possession of a house in the city of Catania, which Ammonia, her late mother-in-law and the grandmother of Calixenus, had offered to our church as a gift. She claims that Ammonia had no power to give it away, and that it belonged entirely to her son Calixenus. Our most beloved son Cyprian the deacon, who knew the case, contradicted this claim. He said that the woman’s complaint had no just ground to go forward, and that she could not reasonably claim the house or seek to recover it in her son’s name. [b]

But so that we may not seem to leave this woman’s tears without result, and to follow the way of severity rather than take up the plea of pity, we command you by this order to restore the house to Calixenus, together with Ammonia’s deed of gift for this same house, which is known to be there in Sicily. For, as we have said, it is better in doubtful cases not to enforce strictness, but rather to lean to the side of kindness, especially when the church is not burdened by giving up a small thing, and help is mercifully given to a poor orphan. Given in the month of November, in the second indiction. [c]