No Communion

Letter 3,7 - to John, bishop of Larissa. October 592

"Nevertheless, making a more humane decision, and preserving for the time being the sacrament of communion for you, we have decreed that from this point on your Fraternity and your church should abstain from all power of your former jurisdiction. Yet following the writings of my predecessor, if any case involving faith or crime or fraud should rise against the aforesaid Hadrian, our fellow priest, whether through those who are or were our respondents in the royal city, in the event of a trivial inquiry being examined, or it is brought here to the apostolic see, in the event that is is a serious one, let it be decided according to the sentence of our audience.
But if, contrary to what we have established, you should attempt to come at any time at all, with whatever excuse or deception, we have decreed that you be deprived of Holy Communion and you do not receive it, except in the final hours of your life, unless with the concession of an order of the Bishop of Rome. For with a prescription consonant with the holy fathers, we considered that one how does not know how to obey the holy canons should be unworthy to administer of take communion at holy altars."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 240.