bidden that would naturally be the custom in times of peril, such as celebration of the Eucharist in private houses, and consecration of bishops by one bishop only. We also find that which occurs in every oriental council—and was apparently equally ineffective in every one—viz., the stern prohibition of the practice of magic and the use of charms. No canons, in East or West, have prevailed against the fascination of that forbidden fruit.
Other canons (XX and XXI) regulate the position and precedence of the five metropolitans, Bait Lapat, Nisibis, Prat d'Maishan, Karka d'Bait Sluk and Arbela, which owed obedience to the Catholicos. Their provinces are duly assigned to them, and the number of suffragans under each clearly laid down.[1] A special canon (XVIII) secured to each bishop the right of appeal to the Catholicos, without whose confirmation no episcopal consecration was valid. Definite rules (Canons I and XX) were laid down for the election of bishops; but not for the choice of a Catholicos, though provision was made for government during a vacancy. Later, rules were made on the point; but, as a matter of fact, he was usually nominated by the Shah-in-Shah.
Broadly (Canons I, VI, XVIII), the council recognizes in, or confers on, the holder of the see of Seleucia a power over his suffragans that is
- ↑ The council had to determine whether Bait Lapat or Karka d'Lidan (Susa), (both of which were royal residences), should be metropolitan; and decided in favour of the former. Further, it had to say which of four, or more, claimants to these two sees was in the right. For the time all the soi-disant bishops were suspended; but as one of them, Agapitus of B. Lapat, appears fourteen years later as a warm supporter of Seleucian supremacy, it would seem that a modus vivendi was reached. The condemnation of a bishop of the Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf shows how far the Church had extended (p. 273, 34).
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