canon law, Latin 

jus canonicum, body of laws made within certain Christian churches

(Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, independent churches of Eastern Christianity, and
the Anglican Communion) by lawful ecclesiastical authority for the government both of the
whole church and parts thereof and of the behaviour and actions of individuals. In a wider
sense the term includes precepts of divine law, natural or positive, incorporated in
the canonical collections and codes.

Although canon law is historically continuous from the early church to the present, it has, as
a result of doctrinal and ecclesiastical schisms, developed differing, though often similar,
patterns of codification and norms in the various churches that have incorporated it into
their ecclesiastical frameworks. The canon law of the Eastern and Western churches was
much the same in form until these two groups of churches separated in the Schism of 1054.
In Eastern Christianity, however, because of doctrinal and nationalistic disputes during the
5th–7th century, several church groups (especially non-Greek) separated themselves from
the nominal head of Eastern Christianity, the patriarch of Constantinople, and developed
their own bodies of canon law, often reflecting nationalistic concerns.

Canon law in the Western churches after 1054 developed without interruption until
the Reformation of the 16th century. Though other churches of the Reformation rejected the
canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England retained the concept of
canon law and developed its own type, which has acceptance in the churches of the Anglican
Communion.

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Canon law has had a long history of development throughout the Christian era. Not a static
body of laws, it reflects social, political, economic, cultural, and ecclesiastical changes that
have taken place in the past two millennia. During periods of social and cultural upheaval
the church has not remained unaffected by its environment. Thus, canon law may be
expected to be involved in the far-reaching changes that have come to be anticipated in the
modern world.
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Nature and significance

A church is defined as a community founded in a unity of faith, a sacramental fellowship of
all members with Christ as Lord, and a unity of government. Many scholars assert that a
church cannot exist without authority—i.e., binding rules and organizational structures—
and that religion and law are mutually inclusive. Thus, the calling of a church leader to
office is regarded as important in the organizational structure, and, like every other
fundamental vocation in the churches that accept the validity of canon law, it is also viewed
as sacramental and linked to the priesthood—which, in turn, involves a calling to leadership
in liturgy and preaching. According to Roman Catholic belief, the mission of the college
of Apostles (presided over by St. Peter in the 1st century CE) is continued in the college
of bishops, presided over by the pope. Other churches may accept this view without at the
same time accepting the authority of the pope. The validity of canon law thus rests on an
acceptance of this sacramental view and of the transmitted mission of the Apostles through
the bishops.
Historical and cultural importance of canon law
Canon law has functioned in different historical periods in the organization of the church’s
liturgy, preaching, works of charity, and other activities through which Christianity was
established and spread in the Mediterranean area and beyond. Canon law, moreover, had an
essential role in the transmission of Greek and Roman jurisprudence and in the reception
of Justinian law (Roman law as codified under the sponsorship of the Byzantine emperor
Justinian in the 6th century) in Europe during the Middle Ages. Thus it is that the history of
the Middle Ages, to the extent that they were dominated by ecclesiastical concerns, cannot
be written without knowledge of the ecclesiastical institutions that were governed according
to canon law. Medieval canon law also had a lasting influence on the law of
the Protestant churches. Numerous institutions and concepts of canon law have influenced
the secular law and jurisprudence in lands influenced by Protestantism—e.g., marriage law,
the law of obligations, the doctrine of modes of property acquisition, possession, wills, legal
persons, the law of criminal procedure, and the law concerning proof or
evidence. International law owes its very origin to canonists and theologians, and the
modern idea of the state goes back to the ideas developed by medieval canonists regarding
the constitution of the church. The history of the legal principles of the relation
of sacerdotium to imperium—i.e., of ecclesiastical to secular authority or of church to state
—is a central factor in European history.
Problems in the study of canon law and its sources
Because of the discontinuity that has developed between church and state in modern times
and the more exclusively spiritual and pastoral function of church organization, scholars in
canon law are searching for a recovery of vital contact among canon law and theology,
biblical exegesis (critical interpretive principles of the Bible), and church history in their
contemporary forms. Canon law scholars are also seeking a link with the empirical social
sciences (e.g., sociology, anthropology, and other such disciplines), which is required for
insight into and control of the application of canon law. The study of the history of canon
law calls not only for juridical and historical training but also for insight into contemporary
theological concepts and social relationships. Many sources, such as the documents of
councils and popes, are often uncritical and found only in badly organized publications, and
much of the material exists only in manuscripts and archives; frequently, the legal sources
contain dead law (i.e., law no longer held valid) and say nothing about living law. What does
and does not come under canon law, what is or is not a source of canon law, which law is
universal and which local, and other such questions must be judged differently for different
periods.

The function of canon law in liturgy, preaching, and social activities involves the
development and maintenance of those institutions that are considered to be most
serviceable for the personal life and faith of members of the church and for their vocation in
the world. This function is thus concerned with a continual adaptation of canon law to the
circumstances of the time as well as to personal needs.
History

The formative period in the East

The early church was not organized in any centralized structure. Over a long period of time,
there developed patriarchates (churches believed to have been founded by Apostles)
and bishoprics, the leaders of which—either as monarchical bishops or as bishops with
shared authority (i.e., collegiality)—issued decrees and regulatory provisions for the clergy
and laity within their particular jurisdictions. After the emperor Constantine granted
tolerance to Christians within the Roman Empire, bishops from various sees—especially
from the Eastern part of the empire—met in councils (e.g., the ecumenical Council of
Nicaea). Though these councils are known primarily for their consideration of doctrinal
conflicts, they also ruled on practical matters (such as jurisdictional and institutional
concerns), which were set down in canons. In the West there was less imperial interference,
and the bishop of Rome (the pope) gradually assumed more jurisdictional authority than his
counterpart (the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople) in the East. Throughout this
period there were often conflicting canons, since there were many independently
developed canonical collections and no centralized attempt to bring order out of them until
the Middle Ages.
Eastern churches
In addition to the New Testament, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (the second
generation of Christian writers) and the pseudo-Apostolic writings (documents attributed to
but not written by the Apostles) contain the oldest descriptions of the customs existing in
the East from the 2nd century until the 5th. The sources of all the others are the Doctrina
duodecim Apostolorum (2nd century?; Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles), the Didascalia
Apostolorum (3rd century; Teaching of the Apostles), and the Traditio
Apostolica (Apostolic Tradition), attributed to St. Hippolytus, written in Rome about
220 CE but far more widely distributed in the East. From these documents
the Constitutiones Apostolicae (Apostolic Constitutions), in which 85 Canones
Apostolicae (Apostolic Canons) were included, were composed about 400 CE.

During the period that followed Constantine’s grant of religious toleration,

many synods held in the East legislated, among other things, various disciplinary rules,
or canones. In addition to and in place of the law of custom, written law entered the scene.
An ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) possessed a chronological collection of the
canons of earlier councils. This Syntagma canonum (“Body of Canons”), or Corpus
canonum orientale (“Eastern Body of Canons”), was subsequently complemented by the
canons attributed to other 4th- and 5th-century councils, canonical letters of 12 Greek
Fathers and of the 3rd-century Latin bishop of Carthage, St. Cyprian, and the Constitutiones
Apostolicae. With the exception of the last, the Quinisext Council (692) accepted this
complex, along with its own canons, as the official legal code of the Eastern churches. The
canons of the ecumenical Second Council of Nicaea (787) and of the two councils (861 and
879–880) under Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, were added to that.

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The systematic collections—and there were many of them—contained canons of

councils, ecclesiastical laws (nomoi) of the emperors, or both together (nomocanons). The
first known Greek collection of canons that is preserved is the Collectio 50
titulorum (“Collection of 50 Titles”), after the model of the 50 titles of the work known as
the Pandecta (“Accepted by All”), composed by the patriarch John Scholasticus about 550.
He composed from the Novels (Novellae constitutiones post Codicem) of Justinian
the Collectio 87 capitulorum (“Collection of 87 Chapters”). The Collectio
tripartita (“Tripartite Collection”), from the end of the 6th century and composed of the
entire Justinian ecclesiastical legislation, was the most widely distributed. The nomocanons
were expressions of the fusion of imperial and church authority. The Nomocanon 50
titulorum (“Canon Law of 50 Titles”) from about 580, composed of the works of John
Scholasticus, remained in use until the 12th century. The edition of the Nomocanon 14
titulorum (“Canon Law of 14 Titles”) was completed in 883 and accepted in 920 as law for
the entire Eastern church.

The science of canon law was pursued together with the study of secular law, especially in
the schools in Constantinople and Beirut. The Scholia (commentaries) on the Basilica,
a compilation of all imperial law from the time of Justinian, promulgated by
the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (reigned 886–912), influenced the method of commenting on
and teaching canon law. The best-known commentators in the 12th century were Joannes
Zonaras and Theodore Balsamon. Matthew Blastares composed his Syntagma
alphabeticum (“Alphabetical Arrangement”), an alphabetic manual of all imperial and
church law, in 1335 from their works.
Independent churches of Eastern Christianity
The churches of Eastern Christianity that separated from the patriarchal see of
Constantinople over a period of several centuries, but primarily during the 5th and 6th
centuries, developed bodies of canon law that reflected their isolated and—after the Arab
conquests in the 7th century—secondary social position. Among these churches are
the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (in Syria), the Ancient Church of the East (the
Assyrians), the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church (in Egypt).
Another independent church is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Though these churches developed an extensive body of canon law throughout their
histories, Western knowledge of their canon law has been very scant. In the 20th century,
however, more than 300 manuscripts dealing with canon law were found in various isolated
monasteries and ecclesiastical libraries of the Middle East by Arthur Vööbus, an Estonian-
American church historian. These manuscripts cover the period from the 3rd to the 14th
century and deal with ecclesiastical regulations of the Syrian churches. Included among
these manuscripts are the following: “The Canons of the Godly Monastery of St. Mār Mattai”
(630), 26 in number, concerning the jurisdiction of the metropolitan (an archbishop) over
the monastery; “The Canons of the Holy Qyriaqos, Which the Patriarch Composed and the
Synod of the Saints and Bishops with Him” (794), containing 46 canons dealing with
ecclesiastical and moral discipline and with liturgical, cultic, and monastic matters; and
“The Canons Which Were Composed by the Holy Synod Which Assembled in Bēt Mār Šīlā
[in the region] of Serūg, and Which Consecrated Mār Dionysios as Patriarch of Antioch, the
City of God” (896), which originally contained 40 canons, though only 25 remain, dealing
with the election and examination of candidates for the hierarchy and clergy, the conduct of
priests, marriage, pagan influences, and religious and ecclesiastical duties. These canonical
collections come from the West Syrian churches. Other canonical collections of the East
Syrian churches were published in the early part of the 20th century.