Canon XI.
That Œconomi ought to be in the Episcopal palaces
and in the Monasteries.
Since
we are under obligation to
guard all the divine canons, we ought by all means to maintain in its
integrity that one which says œconomi are to be in each
church. If the metropolitan appoints in his Church an
œconomus, he does well; but if he does not, it is permitted to the
Bishop of Constantinople by his own (
ἰδίας
) authority to choose an
œconomus for the Church of the Metropolitan. A like
authority belongs to the
metropolitans, if the Bishops who are subject
to them do not wish to appoint œconomi in their churches.
The same rule is also to be observed with respect to monasteries.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XI.
If the Metropolitan does not elect an œconomus of
the metropolis, the patriarch shall do so. If the bishop shall
not do so, the Metropolitan shall; for so it seemed good to the fathers
assembled at Chalcedon. The same law shall hold in
monasteries.
Hefele.
The Synod of Chalcedon required the appointment of
special œconomi only for all bishops’ churches; but our
synod extended this prescription also to monasteries.
Van Espen.
Bishops at their ordination among other things promise
that they will observe the canons, and the bishops of the Synod say
that among these canons they are bound to keep the one that orders them
to appoint an Œconomus.
Among the officials of the Constantinopolitan Church,
Codinus names first The Grand Œconomus, “who” (he
says) “holds in his own power all the faculties of the Church,
and all their returns; and is the dispenser in this matter as well to
the Patriarch as to the Church.”
Balsamon and Aristenus refer to Canon xxvj. of
Chalcedon; and point out how here the power of Constantinople was added
to.
This canon is found in the
Corpus Juris Canonici
,
Gratian’s
Decretum
, Pars. II., Causa IX., Quæst.
III., Canon iij.