Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/Additional Canons 2/Canons/Canon XLIII

Canon XLIII.

is lawful for every Christian to choose the life of religious discipline, and setting aside the troublous surgings of the affairs of this life to enter a monastery, and to be shaven in the fashion of a monk, without regard to what faults he may have previously committed.&#160; For God our Saviour says:&#160; &#8220;Whose cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.&#8221;

As therefore the monastic method of life engraves upon us as on a tablet the life of penitence, we receive whoever approaches it sincerely; nor is any custom to be allowed to hinder him from fulfilling his intention.

Notes.

Whoever flees from the surging billows of life and desires to enter a monastery, shall be allowed to do so.

The greatness or the number of a man&#8217;s sins ought not to make him lose hope of propitiating the divinity by his penitence, if he turns his eyes to the divine mercy.&#160; This is what the canon asserts, and affirms that everyone, no matter how wicked and nefarious his life may have been, may embrace monastic discipline, which inscribes, as on a tablet, to us a life of penitence.&#160; For as a tablet describes to us what is inscribed upon it, so the monastic profession writes and inscribes upon us penitence, so that it remains for ever.