The Fourth Council of Constantinople
forbids the act of separating from one’s Patriarch, based on allegations of a
crime, prior to a judgment from the proper ecclesiastical authorities. This clearly demonstrates the mind of the Church,
which requires that such judgments be rendered by the proper authorities, and
not by private judgment. The Council also forbids removing one’s
Patriarch’s name from the Mass, based on allegations of a crime, prior to a judgment
by the Church.
The Council considered these acts to be so
serious that it formally decreed that if any bishop or priest violates the
teaching, they are immediately suspended; and if layperson and monk violated
the teaching, they incur excommunication.
The Following is Canon 10 from the
Fourth Council of Constantinople:
“As divine
scripture clearly proclaims, ‘Do not find fault before you investigate, and
understand first and then find fault,’ and does our law judge a person without
first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? Consequently this holy and universal synod justly and
fittingly declares and lays down that no lay person or monk or cleric should
separate himself from communion with his own patriarch before a careful enquiry
and judgment in synod, even if he alleges that he knows of some crime
perpetrated by his patriarch, and he must not refuse to include his patriarch's
name during the divine mysteries or offices.
“In the same way
we command that bishops and priests who are in distant dioceses and regions
should behave similarly towards their own metropolitans, and metropolitans
should do the same with regard to their own patriarchs. If anyone shall be found defying this holy synod, he is to be debarred
from all priestly functions and status if he is a bishop or cleric; if a monk
or lay person, he must be excluded from all communion and meetings of the
church [i.e. excommunicated] until he is converted by repentance and reconciled.”
