Quote from Letter 7,40 to Marinianus, bishop of Ravenna. August 597
For some time news had reached us, through the reports of many people, that the monasteries founded in the district of Ravenna are being heavily oppressed in every way by the domination of your clergy, so much that, with that excuse of governing them, as it were, they possess them, which is dreadful to relate, as if they owned them (...).
And since, as we have found out, there has been no progress in correcting this matter, we have decided to direct this letter to you once more. And so, we exhort you to put aside any delay and any excuse, and to be keen to relieve the monasteries themselves fro a heavy burden of this sort, in such a way that thereafter the clergy, and thos appointed to holy orders, should have no freedom of entry in them, for anything other that for the sake alone of having prayers, or if perhaps they have been invited to cnduct the sacred mysteries of Mass.
For some time news had reached us, through the reports of many people, that the monasteries founded in the district of Ravenna are being heavily oppressed in every way by the domination of your clergy, so much that, with that excuse of governing them, as it were, they possess them, which is dreadful to relate, as if they owned them (...).
And since, as we have found out, there has been no progress in correcting this matter, we have decided to direct this letter to you once more. And so, we exhort you to put aside any delay and any excuse, and to be keen to relieve the monasteries themselves fro a heavy burden of this sort, in such a way that thereafter the clergy, and thos appointed to holy orders, should have no freedom of entry in them, for anything other that for the sake alone of having prayers, or if perhaps they have been invited to cnduct the sacred mysteries of Mass.
Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II, 495
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