Canonical Letter · §11 · Gregory Thaumaturgus

The stages of penance

A description, probably added to the letter later, of the stages of public penance, from weeping outside the church to sharing in the holy things.

Weeping takes place outside the gate of the house of prayer. There the sinner must stand and beg the faithful who are going in to pray for him. Hearing takes place inside the gate, in the narthex. There the one who has sinned must stand until the catechumens leave, and go out from there; for, it says, “When he has heard the Scriptures and the teaching, let him be put out, and let him not be admitted to prayer.” Kneeling means that he stands inside the door of the church itself and goes out with the catechumens. Standing together means that he stands with the faithful and does not go out with the catechumens. Last comes sharing in the holy things.

Greek

Ἡ πρόσκλαυσις ἔξω τῆς πύλης τοῦ εὐκτηρίου ἐστίν, ἔνθα ἑστῶτα τὸν ἁμαρτόντα, χρὴ τῶν εἰσιόντων δεῖσθαι πιστῶν, ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ εὔχεσθαι. Ἡ ἀκρόασις ἔνδοθι τῆς πύλης ἐν τῷ νάρθηκι, ἔνθα ἑστάναι χρὴ τὸν ἡμαρτηκότα ἕως τῶν κατηχουμένων, καὶ ἐντεῦθεν ἐξέρχεσθαι, ἀκούων γάρ, φησί, τῶν Γραφῶν καὶ τῆς διδασκαλίας, ἐκβαλλέσθω καὶ μὴ ἀξιούσθω προσευχῆς. Ἡ δὲ ὑπόπτωσις, ἵνα ἔσωθεν τῆς πύλης τοῦ ναοῦ ἱστάμενος, μετὰ τῶν κατηχουμένων ἐξέρχηται· ἡ σύστασις ἵνα συνίσταται τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ μὴ ἐξέρχηται μετὰ τῶν κατηχουμένων. Τελευταῖον, ἡ μέθεξις τῶν ἁγιασμάτων.

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About this text

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Canonical Letter: his rulings for a fellow bishop after the Gothic raids on Pontus, on captives who ate the raiders' food, women taken by force, Christians who looted or joined the invaders, and the stages of penance. A fresh English translation of all eleven canons.

Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213–c. 270) was a Christian bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, in what is now northwest Turkey. He wrote this letter to a bishop whom he addresses as a holy pope, a title used for a senior bishop rather than the Bishop of Rome. He wrote in response to a Gothic invasion of Pontus that brought violence, captivity, and moral confusion to the Christian community.

The letter answers pastoral questions about Christians taken captive by the barbarian invaders. Gregory addresses whether food placed before captives by their captors defiles them, and how to treat women who suffered sexual violation at the hands of the barbarians. He then rules on Christians who profited from the invasion: those who seized other people's goods, kept what they found or what the invaders left behind, held escaped captives by force, joined the raiders against their own people, or broke into houses, and he sets the penance for each. A closing canon, probably added later, describes the stages of public penance.

A reader should know that the surname Thaumaturgus means wonder-worker, a title given to Gregory because of miracles he was said to have performed. The term holy pope here means a bishop, not the Bishop of Rome. Gregory quotes the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and refers to the book of Deuteronomy.

Fresh English translation from the Greek of the Documenta Catholica Omnia Canones GR typed print, read from the page images (pages 1–3) and matched against its text layer. Vossius' Latin notes (1684) were checked where they bear on the wording; they hold no running Greek of the canons, and PG 10 was not in hand. ANF was consulted only as a sense check.

Printed text used

Translated from Documenta Catholica Omnia Canones GR (Greek)
Translated from Greek Canon I (Greek)
Also checked Vossius 1684 DjVu extract (Latin/Greek mixed machine-read text)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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