Church Discipline

Quote from Letter 5,18 to Constantius, bishop of Milan. November 594

But as for the ex-priest Vitalian, about whom you write that he should be strictly guarded, we shall have him sent to Sicily, so that, with the hope of escape from there removed, he can at least restrict himself then to the laments of penitence. We also decreed that Jobinus, one-time deacon and abbot in Porto Venere, should be deprived of his office, and wrote that another deacon should be ordained in his place. Similarly we also decreed that the three sub-deacons who had lapsed, as reported by your Fraternity, should be deprived and without their office forever, and be provided with Holy Communion as if they were lay people. However, we have ordered the ex-priest Saturninus to make a sworn statement that he will never presume to apply for a ministry of holy orders. And we want him to remain in the same island in which he was deprived of holy orders, allowing him to have and show care and concern for the monasteries there, since we believe that, even from his lapse, he had been more cautious, and is guarding the monasteries entrusted to him now with even more concern.



Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, translated by John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMPS, 2004), II, 336