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

Canon XXVIII.

is not permitted to hold love feasts, as they are called, in the Lord&#8217;s Houses, or Churches, nor to eat and to spread couches in the house of God.

Notes.

Beds shall not be set up in churches, nor shall love feasts be held there.

Eusebius (H. E., Lib. IX., Cap. X.) employs the expression &#954;&#965;&#961;&#953;&#945;&#954;&#8049; in the same sense as does this canon as identical with churches.&#160; The prohibition itself, however, here given, as well as the preceding canon, proves that as early as the time of the Synod of Laodicea, many irregularities had crept into the agape.&#160; For the rest, this Synod was not in a position permanently to banish the usage from the Church; for which reason the Trullan Synod in its seventy-fourth canon repeated this rule word for word.

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