Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/The Seventh Ecumenical Council/Canons/Canon IX

Canon IX.

That none of the books containing the heresy of the traducers of the Christians are to be hid.

the childish devices and mad ravings which have been falsely written against the venerable images, must be delivered up to the Episcopium of Constantinople, that they may be locked away with other heretical books.&#160; And if anyone is found hiding such books, if he be a bishop or presbyter or deacon, let him be deposed; but if he be a monk or layman, let him be anathema.

Notes.

If any one is found to have concealed a book written against the venerable images, if he is on the clergy list let him be deposed; if a layman or monk let him be cut off.

What here is styled Episcopium was the palace of the Patriarch.&#160; In this palace were the archives, and this was called the &#8220;Cartophylacium,&#8221; in which the charts and episcopal laws were laid up.&#160; To this there was a prefect, the grand Chartophylax, one of the principal officials and of most exalted dignity of the Church of Constantinople, whose office Codinus explains as follows:&#160; &#8220;The Chartophylax has in his keeping all the charts which pertain to ecclesiastical law (that is to say the letters in which privileges and other rights of the Church are contained) and is the judge of all ecclesiastical causes, and presides over marriage controversies which are taken cognizance of, and proceedings for dissolution of the marriage bond; moreover, he is judge in other clerical strifes, as the right hand of the Patriarch.&#8221;

In this Cartophylaceum or Archives, therefore, under the faithful guardianship of the Chartophylax, the fathers willed that the writings of the Iconoclasts should be laid up, lest in their perusal simple Catholics might be led astray.