Letter 20: Severus gives the Apamene bishops time to answer and repent before canonical penalties fall.

Severus writes to the bishops under Apamea after they were absent from an assembly at Antioch, where other bishops from the metropolitan cities were present. When Severus asked Peter, the bishop of Apamea, why none of his suffragans had come with him, Peter answered with grief. He said they had separated from the common communion, despite every effort he had made to invite them back to concord. Peter submitted a petition to the patriarch of the bishops of the East, asking that canonical steps be taken against offenses committed not merely against him but against the common union of the holy churches. The gathered bishops heard the petition and recognized the seriousness of the matter. Even so, Severus says, they remembered that they are ministers of peace. They chose first to summon the bishops canonically, to ask them to answer the charges, to give time for repentance, and to call them back to the old paths of the Lord. Sin itself is human. What becomes dangerous is refusing the admonition of friends and fellow priests when they call a person back in a fitting way. The canons cannot be treated as a dead letter in such matters. Those entrusted with churches know that the catholic and apostolic church requires blamelessness.

Having been summoned by the grace of God and by the behest of our pious king, we assembled before the evangelical throne of the great Christ-loving city of Antiochus for the purpose of carrying into act what- ever seemed good to his ^ serenity's God-loving p. 79- sovereignty: and one among those who assembled with us was Peter the saintly bishop of the illustrious metropolis of the Apamenes; and, being moved by an affectionate disposition," we were induced to ask his love of God how it was that not one of you was with him, as was in fact the case with the other bishops of the resplendent metropolitan cities. But he said that he wondered whether it was in ignorance of what had happened that we were putting such a question. He was sighing, but still he related how you separated yourselves from the common communion of us all (for it was not from his),^ and that he left no method of inviting you to concord untried. And, having included a few of the things that were done as he said in a petition, he presented it to the saintly patriarch of the God-loving bishops of the East, asking his beatitude to take canonical steps against the offences committed against him by you, or rather against the common union of the holy churches. For we were in fact all met together in accordance with fair adornment ^ and ecclesiastical order. And, when we had heard the petition, the serious character of the things that have been done called for a decision suited to the circum- stances to be put forth: for the above-mentioned ^ Cf. Evag. iii. 34. * Misunderstanding of ewKoo-pa. God-loving bishop of the metropolis of the Apamenes 80. made certain of the charges themselves almost stand before every man's eyes without needing testimony from without. But we, considering that we are ministers of peace, and that, as we are one body, it is our duty to travel along every path that does not tend towards schism, but summons those who have fallen away to sin to repent, believed it to be right that we should summon you canonically, and should urge you to make a defence for the sins that have been committed, and should give time for repentance, and to say farewell to thoughts that lead to division, and with fitness to cry out to you also the words of the prophet which say, " Stand upon the ways and see and ask for the paths of the Lord that have been from everlasting, and see which is the good way and walk therein, and ye shall find holiness for your souls." ^ For a man to sin is human. But after he has once sinned not to listen to the admonition of friends, who summon him to them in a manner befitting priests, gives occasion for the apostolic distinction that says, " Behold therefore the mildness and severity of God, on them which fell severity, but on thee the mildness of God, if thou continue in mildness: and if not then shalt thou also be cut off" " For it is in fact not obscure, especially to those to whose lot it has fallen to feed churches, that the authority of the holy canons cannot remain a dead letter in such things, seeing that ' Jer. vi. 16. ' Ro. xi. 22. "the catholic and apostolic church requires blamelessness