Manuscript Melbourne 1975.0096

St Gregory the Great
Letter III. 7 Gregory to the Bishop of Larissa

English version by John R C Martyn

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Our brother Hadrian, Bishop of the city of Thebes, came to the city of Rome complaining tearfully that he had been condemned over some points of law by your fraternity and by John too, Bishop of Prima Justiniana, neither legitimately nor according to Church rules. And when after a long period of time we saw no person come here of the opposite party,] who should have replied to his objections, by necessity, with regard to learning the truth, we handed over those things which were done in your house to be studied again. From which we have learnt that the deacons John and Cosma were dismissed from their proper office, one for bodily corruption and the other for fraud concerning Church property, and from pecuniary and criminal points of law, they advised our most pious commanders against him. Who through their orders, while preserving of course the difficulty of the law and Church rules, wanted to test you, in such a way that you would rightly pass a firm sentence on pecuniary sins, but for criminal ones, you would appeal to their clemency, with a more minute examination being held. But if your fraternity had accepted such righteous orders with righteous minds also, it would never have removed men from their proper office because of their aberrations, nor heedlessly undertaken the accusation of its own Bishop, now with a hostile mind, especially when the deceit was even detected from the suggestion brought to the holiest of their lords, that they admitted making their suggestion against their own Bishop with the consensus of all the priests.

But after this, so that I may briefly and summarily run through some things which were done in your place, the first legal point raised within your fraternity was against Stephen, deacon of Thebes, whom Bishop Hadrian had not deprived of the honour of his order, although he knew that the deacon's life was utterly depraved. And not one of the witnesses brought forward said that this point had come to the notice of Bishop Hadrian, except that Stephen alone is said to have confessed to an infamous life, to be condemned by his own admission. The second point against him seems to be a proposal concerning infants, prohibited by his order from undertaking holy baptism and thus dying in darkness with the sordidness of sin not washed away. But not one of the witnesses brought forward against him claimed that he knew that anything of the sort had come to the attention of Hadrian. But they said they have learnt of it from the mothers of infants, whose husbands had been removed because of their crimes and were outside the Church, as they say. But they admitted that those unbaptized had not come near the time of death, as the invidious suggestion of the accusers had implied, although in the city of Demetrias it was established that they were baptized. This covers the criminal charges.

But concerning the pecuniary ones, a most holy inquiry of men deputed by the Emperor gave evidence how it was judged by you, at the command of our most serene Emperor. For when the oft-mentioned Hadrian had held up your sentence with an appeal, we have learnt from the depositions of four witnesses brought forward before John, Bishop of Prima Justiniana, that he was forced by your fraternity, while held down firmly by a guard, to produce a document in which he would confess the charges brought against him. Indeed by handing over that document on pecuniary matters, he is found to have agreed with your opinion. But he ran through the criminal matters with some middle and doubtful path, so that your intention would be frustrated by some obscure subjects, and that he himself furthermore would retreat very far from his confession into the obscurity of perplexing locution. And when the appeal put forward through his men and the other things which were done in your fraternity were brought to our most holy leaders, a deputation sent as we have said by Honoratus, deacon of our seat and secretary to the most glorious Sebastian, and when they had all been examined minutely, he was acquitted by the most serene orders of all of them. But by some carefully contrived machinations, another principle order was again elicited, that John, Bishop of Prima Justiniana, should inquire and carefully judge on all the aforesaid charges. In whose judgement all the clergy of Bishop Hadrian and the deacon Demetrius under torture admitted that all of this calumny against Bishop Hadrian was made up by a machination of your fraternity. And none of the chapters themselves, which had been brought against Bishop Hadrian as criminal charges in your hearing, were proved to be true. But another cruel and deceitful discussion arose among his deacon Demetrius and other persons against the canons and laws, in which nothing was discovered in depth, over which Hadrian was often named and legally ought to have been condemned, but whereby he could rather have been absolved. But concerning John, chief-priest of the city of Prima Justiniana, and his very wicked and damnable judgement, we shall deal with it elsewhere, with God's help. But we have found that Bishop Hadrian both suffered from your hatred for sacerdotal customs, and was condemned over pecuniary charges by the sentence of your fraternity contrary to law.

Since therefore even when placed by the aforesaid John, Bishop of Prima Iustiniana, against the law and canons, he could not be without a degree of his honour, we decided that he be reformed in his own Church and recalled with the rank of his proper dignity. And although you ought to have been deprived of the Communion of our Lord's body because of that, in that after the admonition of my predecessor of holy memory, through which he removed him and his Church from your jurisdiction, you presumed to keep some jurisdiction for yourself again in those matters, yet we, making a more humane decision and preserving for a while the sacrament of communion for you, decree that from this your fraternity and your Church should keep all the power of the jurisdiction held before, but following the writings of my predecessor, if any case involving faith or crime or fraud was able to eventuate against the aforesaid Hadrian, our fellow priest, either through those who are or were our respondents in the royal city if a trivial inquiry should be examined, or it is brought here to the apostolic seat if it is a serious one, as far as the sentence of our audience decides. But if, contrary to what we have established, you attempt to come at any time at all, with whatever excuse or deception, we decree that you be deprived of Holy Communion and do not receive it, except in the final hours of your life, unless with a confirming order of the Bishop of Rome. For with a definition consonant with the holy fathers we ordain this, that one who does not know how to obey holy canons should not be worthy to administer or take communion at holy altars. But let your fraternity restore to him without any delay the goods of that Church, whether sacred or otherwise movable or immovable, which it is said to have retained until now, for which we attach a note to the present letter which we wrote. Concerning this, if any question arises among you, we want it to be aired in the royal city with our response.