Каноническое послание Василия Великого к хорепископам Правило 89 Василия Великого

I am very sick, as the rules of our fathers have been abandoned, and all severity has been expelled from the churches. And I am afraid that church affairs will fall into complete confusion when this indifference little by little continues to go its own way. According to the custom that has been established in the churches of God since ancient times, the ministers of the church were accepted after testing with all severity, and all their behavior was diligently examined: are they slanderers, are they drunkards, are they not prone to quarrels, are they instructing their youth so that they can do holy things, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14)? And the presbyters and deacons living with them experienced this, reported this to the chorebishops, and these, having received feedback from those who testified to the truth and presented it to the bishop, thus ranked the minister among the sacred ranks. And now you, having rejected us in the first place, and not even wanting to notify us, have concluded all the power in yourself. Then, having become careless about this matter, the presbyters and deacons were allowed to bring those unworthy into the church, whomever they wanted, without testing their lives, but out of bias, either from kinship, or from some other community. This is why there are many church ministers in every village, but there is no one worthy of serving at the altar: as you yourself testify, not finding people at the elections. since this matter has finally reached an incurable state, especially now, when very many, out of fear of being taken into the army, are assigned to the service of the church: then, out of necessity, I turned to the renewal of the paternal rules: and I am writing to you so that you send me a list of church ministers of each village, with evidence of who has been assigned, and what his life is like. Keep the same list for yourself, so that you can compare yours with the records I have, and so that no one can enter himself when he pleases. Thus, those who are accepted by the presbyters, after the first summer of indiction, may be converted into the ranks of the laity. Let you test them again, and if they are worthy, let them be accepted according to your decision: cleanse the church, removing those unworthy from its service. And henceforth, test and accept those worthy, but do not count them in the clergy before presenting them to me. Otherwise, know that anyone accepted into church service without my permission will be a layman. (I Om. 8; VII Om. 14; Neokes. 14; Antioch. 8, 10; Laod. 57; Theophila Alex. 7). This rule is compiled from the message of Basil the Great, sent by him in the first year after joining the Caesarea department to his chorebishops, therefore in 370. We talked about chorebishops and their significance in the church in the interpretation of the 13th rule of the Ancyra Council; in the interpretation of some other rules (see parallel rules) we saw how the chorebishops tried to appropriate to themselves some rights of city bishops that did not belong to them according to the rules. At the beginning of this rule, Saint Basil recalls the rules of the fathers (οί τών πατέρων κανόνες) about this and regrets that the chorebishops forgot about them. Having mentioned the unrest that occurs as a result of this, and noting that all this occurs mainly from the fact that persons are accepted into the clergy indiscriminately, Saint Basil further instructs the chorebishops subordinate to him to strictly test from now on all those wishing to enter the clergy, and when someone is found worthy, let them make a presentation about him, and he will decide whether this person should be accepted into the clergy or not. You might be interested in: