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Rh determines that a bishop shall be judged by the other bishops of his province, but "if a deposed bishop thinks he has good cause to demand a new inquiry he shall, out of reverence for the blessed Apostle Peter, write to Rome to Pope Julius, so that he may set up another tribunal from among bishops living near the province and himself appoint a judge." Canon 4 forbids the other bishops to fill his see in this case until the Pope has pronounced his sentence. Canon 5 provides that the Pope shall appoint as judge either a neighbouring bishop or a legate sent from Rome. Hosius of Cordova presided at this synod, and its Canons were often joined to the Canons of Nicaea drawn up eighteen years earlier, so that they were sometimes quoted as Nicene. One hundred and seventy-three bishops sat at Sardica; but it was not an oecumenical council. It was a legitimate and orthodox provincial synod of Eastern bishops recognizing the right of appeal with special reference to the action of St. Athanasius.

In 404 Theophilus of Alexandria unjustly deposed St. John Chrysostom from his See of Constantinople. St. John then appealed to Pope Innocent I (401–417), who received his appeal, refused to sanction the deposition, and made it a condition of communion with Alexander of Antioch that he should have "fulfilled all conditions in the cause of the blessed and truly worthy Bishop John." Pope Boniface I (418–422), Innocent's successor, settled a dispute in Greece by giving an unpopular bishop another and a better see. Socrates says: "Peregrinus had been ordained Bishop of Patras. But since the inhabitants of that town would not have him, the Bishop of the City of Rome ordered him to be appointed to the metropolitan See of Corinth, since the bishop of that Church was dead." After Boniface I came St. Celestine I (422–432). He writes to the Illyrian bishops: "You shall notice that, amid the other cares and various business that always