Daily penances for monks, set out by our Most Reverend Father Theodore

The authorship of the essay “Daily Penances for Monks, Set forth by Our Most Reverend Father Theodore” is attributed to St. Theodore Studitus. This is the 2nd part of the collection “Penance”, which bears obvious traces of subsequent interventions. The treatise consists of 65 disciplinary punishments associated with various violations of the monastic charter and neglect of monastic virtues. 1. Violations of a domestic and ascetic nature. Strict rules apply to eating food (secretly eating meat, fruits before blessing), drinking (water after Compline), eating outside the meal without blessing, and also satiety. Monks are prohibited from working without a robe and cap, secretly exchanging or acquiring things without the knowledge of the abbot, or wearing the clothes of another brother. Sleep (without a belt, outside the monastery) and hygiene (rubbing in the bathhouse) are regulated. 2. Discipline and obedience. The need for weekly confession of thoughts to the spiritual father is emphasized. Worldly speech, jokes, laughter during meals or worship, secret conversations, whispering, etc. are prohibited. Monks should not leave the monastery or move from workshop to workshop without permission, or change needlework without blessing. Failure to fulfill the prescribed penance leads to aggravation of the punishment. 3. Spiritual life and participation in the sacraments. Penances are imposed for being late for psalmody, missing canons, vespers or compline, absence from the church meeting at the end of the service, and careless attitude towards Communion. Rejection of the holy schema or non-compliance with monastic vows (for example, walking without a kukol) is punishable by severe excommunication from Communion. Separate paragraphs are devoted to such serious sins as kissing a woman (even a mother), fornication in a dream, malakia, lying, slander, blasphemy, and eating unclean food. Punishments vary depending on the severity of the offense: from a certain number of bows (from 30 to 1000) to dry eating (from 1 day to 40 days or longer), deprivation of wine, excommunication from Communion (from 1 week to 5 years, and in case of escaping from the monastery - up to 12 years) and excommunication from the fraternity. Some penances can be cumulative. In the event of a monk or nun escaping from the monastery, repentance and appeal to an experienced monk or priest are necessary for reconciliation with the abbots and return to the monastery. * Title of the work in Greek: Έπιτίμια; Τὰ ϰαθημερινὰ ἐπιτίμια τῶν μοναχῶν. * Title of the work in Latin: Epitimia. 1. About a monk who secretly eats meat except for illness. Whoever ate meat secretly, apart from necessity and the blessing of his father, should not eat fish, or eggs, or cheese for forty days, for it is written: And do not turn care for the flesh into lusts (Rom. 13:14). [Col. 1749] 2. About a monk who did not confess for a whole week. Anyone who has not confessed his deeds and thoughts to his father during the seven days of the week should not eat until he confesses. 3. About the one who tasted the fruit secretly, before the priest blessed them. Anyone who has eaten from any fruit before receiving a blessing from his father should not eat from it during that year. 4. That a monk should not work without a robe. Whoever does any work without a robe (μανδύου) or a cockle (ϰουϰουλλίου) must undergo penance as a contempt. 5. About the fact that one should not drink water after Compline. Anyone who drinks water after Compline or enters into conversation with someone must make one hundred bows. 6. About the one who, through negligence, does not receive communion. Anyone who has remained without Communion for more than forty days without penance must indicate the reason, and if it turns out that he did this out of negligence, he must undergo penance for forty days. 7. About bringing a gift to the monastery - precisely about what should not be demanded again. If any monk comes to the monastery and brings property either to the centinarium 1 or to one follis 2, he has no right to demand a single hair from it. 8. [If] a layman, having fallen ill, renounces [the world] and begins monastic life, his clothes and bed accessories should remain in favor of the Church. 9 . A monk who makes worldly speeches or says “I am of such and such a family” must be excommunicated for three days, bear the penance of dry eating and make fifty prostrations, for from the day on which he took the schema, he renounced his relatives according to the flesh and clung to Christ. 10. If someone does not accept someone who has returned from sin, but plunges him into sadness, he has saddened Christ, who said: “there is joy in heaven... over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). 11. If a monk kisses 3 any woman, he must remain without Communion 4 forty days; even on the very day of the Resurrection of the Lord, he should not kiss his mother 5. 12. Whoever rejects the holy schema must remain without Communion for three years. 13. Who fasts on Holy Pentecost and Great [Col. 1752] Thursday allows [fasting] under the pretext of difference, which dishonors the entire holy Pentecost 6. 14. If the antimension were washed out of ignorance, it would not be desecrated, for sanctification is found in it, and the sacred is not made unclean. 15. [When] a priest vomited after the Liturgy, and if he suffered this due to satiety, then he must spend sixty days without Communion, fast and make a thousand bows every day; and if this happened due to illness, then he must perform penance for seven days and make twenty-five bows. 16. If anyone is not present during the canon, he must spend one day in dry eating and make a hundred bows. 17. If anyone leaves Vespers or Compline, he must not drink wine for one day and make fifty bows. 18. Anyone who carelessly leaves during the distribution of the blessing [antidora] must fast until evening and make fifty bows. 19. If anyone leaves the monastery without the permission of the abbot, he must remain without Communion for one week, making forty bows [a day]. 20. If anyone acquires an item without [the knowledge of] the abbot, he must remain without Communion for fifteen days, taking dry food at the ninth hour and making fifty bows. 21. If anyone conspires with another or secretly leaves the monastery, he must remain without Communion for thirty days, indulging in dry eating and making a hundred bows. 22. If anyone receives penance from the abbot and does not fulfill it, he must be excommunicated from the fraternity for one week, indulging in dry eating and making one hundred bows daily. 23. If anyone begins to wear his brother’s clothes or anything else without his permission, he must perform the penance of dry eating for three days, making one hundred bows. 24. If anyone is seen in a secret conversation with another, or changes his place in the bedroom, or remains outside [it] without the permission of the abbot, he must be excommunicated for one week, bear the penance of dry eating and make seventy bows. 25. If a brother changes his needlework, while the abbot did not allow this, he must carry out the penance of dry eating for forty days, making eighty bows. 26. If anyone exchanges his property from another without the knowledge of the abbot, or acquires it on his own, or takes it from someone else, he must be excommunicated for twelve days, making eighty bows. 27. If anyone eats outside the meal without the blessing of the abbot or in addition to illness, he must carry out the penance of dry eating for three days, making two hundred bows. 28. If anyone is seen eating food after Compline, he must carry out the penance of dry eating for one week, and if he is seen laughing, he must make two hundred bows. [Col. 1753] 29. If anyone speaks or laughs during a meal, he must immediately get up and make a hundred bows. 30. If anyone causes grief to his brother and, having neglected, does not reconcile, but remains angry, he must be excommunicated for two weeks, performing the penance of dry eating and making fifty bows. 31. If anyone did not receive communion on the day of the Liturgy, he must indicate the reason, and if he does not indicate, then he must fast until the evening, making fifty bows. 32. If someone, out of affection for one brother, begins to whisper to him, then both should be excommunicated until they distance themselves from each other, making a hundred bows. 33. Anyone who is late for the start of any psalmody, other than for official business or a necessary reason, must make one hundred bows. 34. Whoever, through carelessness, omits the canon, or vespers, or other psalmody, must carry out the penance of dry eating for one day, making a hundred prostrations. 35. Whoever, through negligence, does not sit at meals with the brethren must then fast until the evening. 36. Whoever unnecessarily gets up from a meal before others should not drink wine for three days while making a hundred bows. 37. Whoever talks idle talk or speaks humorously should not drink wine on that day, making forty bows. 38. If anyone begins to justify any of those punished for guilt, he must perform the penance of dry eating for one week, making one hundred bows a day. 39. If anyone is overcome by fornication, he must perform the penance of dry eating for forty days, but if the struggle does not stop, then he must bear this penance until the struggle disappears, making three hundred bows day and night. 40. If someone gives another his old himation 7 without the permission of the abbot, he must carry out the penance of dry eating for one week, making sixty bows. 41. If anyone is guilty of fornication in a dream, he must be without Communion that day, making forty bows and saying the fiftieth psalm and “Lord, have mercy” a hundred times. 42. Anyone guilty of malakia must be without Communion for forty days. 43. A liar must remain without Communion for forty days. 44. Slanderer also - forty days 8. 45. He who blasphemes in any way and in any way must not speak for forty days, making fifty bows daily. 46. If anyone voluntarily eats something unclean, he must be without Communion for five years, and if he did it through violence, forty days. 47. If a monk of great schema is subjected to voluptuousness, he must remain without Communion for five years, and if a monk of little schema - two years; the same definition should apply to nuns. [Col. 1756] 48. If a monk gets drunk and falls into fornication, then he must be without Communion for two years. 49. If he laughs in front of the people, he must remain without communion for forty days. 50. If he vomits due to satiety, then he must also be without Communion for forty days. 51. If a great schema-monk begins to walk without a kukol, then he must be without Communion for forty days, for such a person has no right to work, or sleep, or go anywhere without the signs of the holy schema. 52. If anyone contradicts his superior or any of his brothers, he must be without Communion for forty days 9. 53. If a monk feasts with the laity, he must be without Communion for forty days. 54. If a monk or nun runs away from their monastery, then as penance they are deprived of Communion for twelve years; If they are damaged in soul and secretly leave the monastery, then it is necessary that they find an experienced monk and tell him a little out of many things to correct the cause of the matter, so that, with the help of the prudence of the priest, they can be reconciled with their abbots and return to their monasteries when their spiritual errors are corrected. 55. A monk who has eaten or drunk before the end of the meeting [worship] must make fifty bows during the meal. 56. If a monk is present in a church meeting, but by the end of [the service] he is not there, except by the command of an elder or except by great necessity, then he must make forty bows and say: “Lord, have mercy” forty times. 57. If any monk arranges a party agreement (φρατρίαν) with other monks for some business, then he must make one hundred bows and carry out the penance of dry eating for two days until the evening. 58. If any monk sleeps on his bed without a belt, he must make fifty prostrations. 59. If any monk does rubbing (χρίσμα) in the bath, he must make three hundred bows, and a layman - one hundred, and both must remain excommunicated for one week. 60. A monk who sleeps for one evening in the countryside or in a monastery without the blessing of the abbot must stand the whole night and make 150 bows. 61. A monk who laughs in a [liturgical] assembly must make forty bows. 62. A monk or layman who is not under penance and, due to his negligence, does not begin Communion for forty days, must be excommunicated from the Church for [one] year. 63. A monk who falls with a nun, after the cessation of sin on their part, must have as penance deprivation of Communion for three years. 64. A lay priest who performed divine services and vomited on that day due to satiety must undergo [Col. 1757] penance - not performing sacred acts for forty days. 65. If anyone, having been attacked by the devil, goes astray (ἀποσϰιρτήσει) and converts again, he will bear penance for one year. If he repents at the hour of his death, God will accept him, for Christ had mercy on him, saying: “there is joy in heaven... for one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). One hundred pounds of gold, 7200 gold denomination. 1 follis – copper coin, 1/288 gold nomism. – Ed. The custom of kissing at a meeting was widespread in Byzantium. – Ed. The penance of leaving without Communion (ἀϰοινώνητος) is never directly mentioned in the “General Rules”, but often in the “Daily Rules”. See: Dobroklonsky. Rev. Theodore... T. 1. P. 539. – Ed. The same is in one of the rules of Nikephoros of Constantinople (Pitra J.B. Spicilegium Solesmense. T. 4. P. 402. N 101). See Canon 29 of the Trullo Council. – Ed. According to the 3rd “Rule of Confession” (see above), slander is punishable by a year of repentance and 4 months of dry-eating penance and 100 bows per day. According to Basil the Great, the slanderer is excommunicated (Cf.: Set. Basil the Great. Rules briefly stated, 26 // St. Basil the Great. Creations. T. 2. P. 233). – Ed. The same punishment is in one of the rules of Nikephoros of Constantinople (Pitra J.B. Spicilegium Solesmense. T. 4. P. 405. N 121).