Excursus on
the Translation of Bishops.
There are few points upon which the discipline of the
Church has so completely changed as that which regulated, or rather
which forbade, the translation of a bishop from the see for which he
was consecrated to some other diocese. The grounds on which such
prohibition rested were usually that such changes were the outcome of
ambition, and that if tolerated the result would be that smaller and
less important sees would be despised, and that there would be a
constant temptation to the bishops of such sees to make themselves
popular with the important persons in other dioceses with the hope of
promotion. Besides this objection to translation, St. Athanasius
mentions a spiritual one, that the diocese was the bishop’s
bride, and that to desert it and take another was an act of
unjustifiable divorce, and subsequent adultery. Canon XIV. of the Apostolic Canons does not forbid the practice absolutely, but allows it for just cause, and although the Council of Nice is more stringent so far as its words are concerned, apparently forbidding translation under any circumstances, yet, as a matter of fact, that very council did allow and approve a translation. The general feeling, however, of the early Church was certainly very strong against all such changes of Episcopal cure, and there can be no doubt that the chief reason why St. Gregory Nazianzen resigned the Presidency of the First Council of Constantinople, was because he had been translated from his obscure see Sasima (not Nazianzum as Socrates and Jerome say) to the Imperial City.
From the canons of some provincial councils, and
especially from those of the Third and of the Fourth Council of
Carthage, it is evident that despite the conciliar and papal
prohibitions, translations did take place, being made by the authority
of the provincial Synods, and without the consent of the pope, but it is also evident that this authority was too weak, and that the aid of the secular power had often to be invoked.
This course, of having the matter decided by the synod, was exactly in accordance with the Apostolic Canon (no. xiv.). In this manner, for example, Alexander was translated from Cappadocia to Jerusalem, a translation made, so it is narrated, in obedience to heavenly revelation.
It will be noticed that the Nicene Canon does not forbid
Provincial Councils to translate bishops, but forbids bishops to translate
themselves, and the author of the tract De Translationibus in
the Jus Orient. (i. 293, Cit. Haddon. Art. “Bishop,” Smith and Cheetham, Dict. Chr. Antiq.) sums up the matter tersely in the statement that ἡ μετάβασις κεκώλυται, οὐ μὴν ἥ μετάθεσις: i.e., the thing prohibited is “transmigration” (which arises from the bishop himself, from selfish motives) not “translation” (wherein the will of God and the good of the Church is the ruling cause); the “going,” not the “being taken” to another see. And this was the practice both of East and West, for many centuries. Roman Catholic writers have tried to prove that translations, at least to the chief sees, required the papal consent, but Thomassinus, considering the case of St. Meletius having translated St. Gregory of Nazianzum to Constantinople, admits that in so doing he “would only have followed the example of many great bishops of the first ages, when usage had not yet reserved translations to the first see of the Church.”
But the same learned author frankly confesses that in
France, Spain, and England, translations were made until the ninth
century without consulting the pope at all, by bishops and kings. When, however, from grounds of simple ambition, Anthimus was translated from Trebizonde to Constantinople, the religious of the city wrote to the pope, as also did the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, and as a result the Emperor Justinian allowed Anthimus to be deposed.