Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/Additional Canons 1/Synod of Laodicea/Canons/Canon XXVII

Canon XXVII.

they of the priesthood, nor clergymen, nor laymen, who are invited to a love feast, may take away their portions, for this is to cast reproach on the ecclesiastical order.

Notes.

A clergyman invited to a love feast shall carry nothing away with him; for this would bring his order into shame.

Van Espen translates:&#160; &#8220;no one holding any office in the Church, be he cleric or layman,&#8221; and appeals to the fact that already in early times among the Greeks many held offices in the Church without being ordained, as do now our sacristans and acolytes.&#160; I do not think, however, with Van Espen, that by &#8220;they of the priesthood&#8221; is meant in general any one holding office in the Church, but only the higher ranks of the clergy, priests and deacons, as in the preceding twenty-fourth canon the presbyters and deacons alone are expressly numbered among the &#7985;&#949;&#961;&#945;&#964;&#953;&#954;&#959;&#8150;&#962; and distinguished from the other (minor) clerics.&#160; And afterwards, in canon XXX., there is a similar mention of three different grades, &#7985;&#949;&#961;&#945;&#964;&#953;&#954;&#959;&#8055;, &#954;&#955;&#951;&#961;&#953;&#954;&#959;&#8055;, and &#7936;&#963;&#954;&#951;&#964;&#945;&#8055;.

The taking away of the remains of the agape is here forbidden, because, on the one hand, it showed covetousness, and, on the other, was perhaps considered a profanation.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian&#8217;s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. XLII., c. iij.