Concerning Canonical Order, Ecclesiastical Confession, and the Responsibility of Pastors

Ioannis N. Paparrigas | September 26, 2026

 

 

Every clergyman certainly has the right to formulate personal theological or canonical views and to express reservations or disagreements. There is, however, an institutional reality that personal assessments cannot set aside: decisions already taken by the competent ecclesiastical bodies remain binding elements of ecclesiastical order until revoked, corrected, or replaced by a new ecclesiastical decision. However much a clergyman may believe that expressing his personal disagreement constitutes “confessing the Faith,” he should remember the distinction between inward conviction and actual ecclesiastical action. Confession is not exhausted by stating a theological position one personally considers correct. It also entails the responsibility to struggle within the Church to restore what one believes has deviated, accepting, when necessary, the cost of one’s stance.

The Fathers of the Church did not treat major ecclesiastical problems as personal disagreements that could simply be placed on record and then set aside. When they perceived that the faith or the canonical order of the Church was at stake, they were not content merely to state their opposition privately, nor did they consider that their personal disagreement, by itself, marked the end of their responsibility. They struggled, appealed to the competent ecclesiastical authorities, requested that the matter be examined, presented their testimony, and insisted upon the need to correct the problem. For this reason, the severing of ecclesiastical communion was not, for them, the first or easy solution. It came as a last resort, when it had become clear that there was no longer any possibility of healing the situation through the ordinary ecclesiastical means, or when persistence in a particular error had assumed such proportions that the continuation of communion itself created a serious ecclesiological problem.

There is an essential difference between saying, “I disagree,” which expresses a personal position, and saying, “I am striving to have the matter with which I disagree corrected,” which denotes ecclesiastical responsibility, personal cost, and concrete action. Greater still is the difference between declaring that one is “confessing the Faith” and actually assuming all the consequences of that confession when it comes into conflict with an already established ecclesiastical situation. True confession, therefore, cannot be confined to words that soothe the personal conscience while, in practice, everything remains exactly as it was before. If someone believes that an ecclesiastical decision or practice is mistaken, the matter does not end simply with his stating that he personally disagrees with it. The real question is what he does in order to seek the restoration of order, what ecclesiastical means he employs, and, above all, how far he is prepared to go when he sees that efforts at correction are bearing no fruit. The history of the Church presents to us as a model neither unconditional submission nor facile withdrawal. It presents the difficult path of struggle: first, the effort to heal the problem within the Church and, when this becomes impossible and the requisite ecclesiological conditions are present, the acceptance of the necessary consequences of confession as well. Confession without a struggle for the restoration of truth risks remaining merely a personal disagreement, while confession that is never accompanied by action and sacrifice may ultimately become a convenient form of inward dissent without any real ecclesiastical consequence.

 

Greek source: https://entoytwnika1.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-post_26.html