Canons, Grace, and Economy

Canons, along with everything else, are being attacked as useless. All over we hear the cry, “get rid of the canons.” This forthcoming, so-called Ecumenical Council they’re going to have has on its agenda the revamping of the canons, what canons can be done away with and how new ones can replace them. And of course, as someone observed, the canons they’re going to get rid of are the canons that they cannot interpret to their own advantage. What canons are they going to keep? The canon that says no bishop can bother another bishop, or something like that; the administrative ones where their prerogatives can’t be touched and the bishop becomes the effendi and the priest and everyone else becomes his slaves. That’s the kind of canons they’re going to write, and they have it planned, and they’re working toward it; canons on how to change the feast days, canons on how to change Pascha, canons on how to change the Liturgy, canons on how to change the concept of the whole divine ministry, canons which state the exact opposite of what the canons now state.

For instance, we have a canon, or rather many canons, that specifically teach us that outside of the Church there is no grace, there are no Mysteries. And there are canons that also give directions [on] how people who have been baptized outside of the Church are to be brought into the Church. The canons specifically tell us that such-and-such a heretic is to be brought in this way – canons which were written for a definite need. And sometimes we see one canon say that this heretic has to be baptized to be brought into the Church, and other times we see that he doesn’t have to be baptized. Nowhere, though, does it say that the baptism of the heretic is recognized, but only how this person is to be brought into the Church. The baptism – the grace of baptism – which this person never had, is given to him the minute he comes into the Church, whether it be through Chrismation or sometimes simply through confession of faith.

The Church is the dispenser of Mysteries. And just because a person is received into the Church canonically, as the canons allow, through Chrismation, for instance, it doesn’t at all mean – and nowhere is it to be found in the canons – that he was considered [previously] baptized. It simply means that upon his entry into the Church he receives the grace of Holy Baptism. These are the canons.

- Protopresbyter Panagiotes Carras, Th.D., “The Canons and Their Significance,” presented at the 1980 St. Nectarios Orthodox Conference, Seattle, WA. From the transcription of his extemporaneous talk, published by St. Nectarios Press, Seattle.