Foreign bishops or priests, residing for a time in the land of a Patriarch who was not their own, would continue to use the rite to which they were accustomed at home. A priest could not use various rites according to the land where he happened to be for a time; he would not know its prayers nor ceremonies.
The simple faithful must, no doubt, in default of a priest of their own rite, have received sacraments according to the use of the place where they happened to be. But in cases of a more or less stable colony of foreigners, there was generally provision made that they should have clergy of their own rite to minister to them. Thus there were, long before the great schism, priests of the Byzantine rite in Southern Italy for the Greeks who had settled there.[1] There were Latin churches at Constantinople for the Western soldiers; the Roman Apocrisarius[2] at the Emperor's court had his own chapel, in which he celebrated according to the Roman rite.
In the case of such fixed colonies of foreigners, the question soon arose which Patriarch they were to obey. Now the reasonable answer to this would seem to be that, if they have settled in a foreign country, they should obey the Patriarch of that country; but that he should provide clergy (brought from their own land) to minister to them.[3] On the one hand, a large group of Christians who disregard the general law of the place where they live will be a cause of disorder and confusion to their neighbours. On the other hand, it would be hard on people, accustomed to attend services to them full of meaning, to make them suddenly forsake these for others, of which they could understand nothing. Nor is there any real difficulty in such an arrangement. The local Patriarch can easily appoint priests, even bishops, for the foreign colony. These will see to the rites, while treating with the local Patriarch about matters of discipline for their own people.[4]
- ↑ See p. 71, seq.
- ↑ Legate.
- ↑ The fourth Lateran Council (1215) made very sensible provisions for this case. There are never to be two Catholic Ordinaries in the same city; that would be like a monster with two heads (for a long time this was considered an axiom of Canon Law; it is abolished now). But the Ordinary is to provide priests of other rites, who minister to their own people, but obey him. If necessary he is to appoint Vicars General for the other rites (Cap. ix; Mansi, xxii, col. 998). These provisions are still observed in the case of the Italo-Greeks (see p. 177).
- ↑ To obey the local Patriarch does not necessarily mean to submit in all things to his normal Canon Law. He can, by his authority, dispense the foreign colonists from special points, and allow them in these to follow their own customs. A reasonable Patriarch would
