Послание Василия Великого к пресвитеру Григорию Правило 88 Василия Великого

I read your writing with all patience, and I was surprised how you, when you could have briefly and easily justified yourself before me by deeds, decided to remain in what you were accused of, and are trying to heal the incurable with verbosity. We were not the first, O Gregory, and we were not the only ones who laid down the law, so that wives and husbands do not live together. Read the rule set forth by our holy fathers at the Council of Nicea, which clearly prohibits having wives cohabiting in the house. Celibacy has its own dignity in that they do not have treatment with the female sex. Thus, if anyone, presenting himself as a virgin by name, does the same deed as those who live with their wives, he reveals himself as seeking the dignity of virginity in name, but has not abandoned the ugliness of voluptuousness. It was all the more fitting for you to fulfill my demand, since you, as you say, are free from all bodily passions. For I do not believe that a seventy-year-old should live with his wife in a passionate way: and not as if I had determined what I had determined because of a lawless deed that had happened, but because I had learned from the Apostle not to lay a stumbling block for my brother or a temptation (Rom. 14:18). We know that some actions are pure, but for others they are a reason for sin. For this reason, following the order of the holy fathers, we commanded you to separate from this wife. Why do you blame the chorebishop and mention a long-standing enmity? Why are you complaining about me, as having an open ear to accept slander, and not about yourself, who does not agree to stop treating a woman? And so remove her from your house, and place her in a monastery, so that she may be with the virgins: and you have male servants, so that the name of God is not blasphemed by you. As long as you do this, the thousands of excuses that you set out in the letter will not bring you a single benefit: but you will die prohibited from the priesthood, and you will give the Lord an answer for your prohibition. If, without correcting yourself, you dare to touch the sacred rite, you will be anathema before all the people, and those who accept you will be excommunicated from the whole church. (I Om. 3; Trul. 5, 12, 13; VII Om. 18; Carth. 3, 38, 70). See interpretation of rule 3 of I Omni. Council, where the present rule or epistle to Gregory was discussed. You might be interested in: