Decretum Synodi

DECREE OF THE SYNOD, Promulgated in the Roman Council on the third day before the Kalends of March in the year of Christ 610. How it is permitted for monks with the priestly office to minister anywhere. There are some, supported by no teaching, most audaciously indeed, inflamed more by the zeal of bitterness than by love, asserting that monks, because they are dead to the world and live for God, are unworthy of the power of the priestly office, and that they can neither grant penance nor baptism, nor absolve through the divinely enjoined power of the priestly office; but they are utterly mistaken. For if from this cause the ancient rivals spoke the truth, the most blessed Gregory, peer of the apostolic see, flourishing in the monastic habit, would by no means have ascended to the highest pinnacle. Since indeed this power of administering, binding, and loosing at the threshold is granted by the highest God. Likewise Augustine, the disciple of that same most holy Gregory, the distinguished preacher to the English, and the most blessed Martin of Pannonia, whose fame for sanctity, spread far and wide, resounds throughout the whole world; also many others, most holy, shining in the most precious monastic habit, would by no means be constrained by the pontifical ring, if because they were monks they were prohibited from using the aforesaid. For neither was Benedict, the nourishing teacher of monks, in any way a prohibitor of such a thing; but he decreed only that they should be without part in secular affairs.

This is indeed commanded by the apostolic documents and the institutions of all the holy Fathers, not only to monks but also to canons, with the greatest urgency. For no one serving God involves himself in secular affairs. For both, moreover, it is commanded by the clear examples of the aforementioned Fathers, on every side, with the most evident reasoning, that they be dead to the world. Therefore, instructed by the examples of so many Fathers, to whom it is most dangerous to oppose, we believe that the office of binding and loosing is administered by priest-monks, at God's command, not unworthily, if they happen to be worthily raised to this ministry. This is affirmed without hesitation by anyone who clearly considers the state, habit, and authority of monks. For example: angel in Greek is called messenger in Latin. Therefore, priest-monks and canons, who daily announce the holy precepts of God, are called angels, not without reason. But each angelic order, the more closely it contemplates the brightness of God, is affirmed to be the more sublime in dignity. For, as it were, cherubim, monks are veiled with six wings. Two indeed are shown by plausible assertions in the hood with which the head is covered. That part of the tunic, moreover, which extends to the arms, we say are two wings; and finally that part with which the body is covered is asserted to most certainly complete the number of six wings.

Therefore, we command in every way that presbyters of the monastic profession who strive to restrain the office of priestly power be restrained from such nefarious audacities in the future, because the higher one is, the more powerful he is.