Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 525

Gregory to John, bishop of Syracuse. A certain man coming from Sicily told me that some of his friends, whether Greek or Latin I know not, as though under zeal for the holy Roman Church, were murmuring about my arrangements, saying: 'How does he presume to restrain the Church of Constantinople, who follows its custom in all things?' When I said to him, 'Which of its customs do we follow?', he answered: 'Because you caused the Alleluia to be said at Mass outside the season of Pentecost; because you appointed that the subdeacons should proceed unclothed; because the Kyrie eleison should be said; because the Lord's Prayer should be said immediately after the canon.' To him I replied that in none of these things have we followed another Church.

For that the Alleluia should be said here, is handed down to have been drawn from the Church of Jerusalem, from the tradition of blessed Jerome in the time of Pope Damasus of blessed memory; and therefore in this matter we have rather cut off that custom which had here been handed down by the Greeks. As to my causing the subdeacons to proceed unclothed, that was the ancient custom of the Church. But it pleased some pontiff of ours, I know not who, who commanded them to proceed clothed. For did your churches receive their tradition from the Greeks? Whence, then, do they have it today that the subdeacons proceed in linen tunics, except that they received this from their mother, the Roman Church?

As for the Kyrie eleison, we neither have said nor say it as it is said by the Greeks, since among the Greeks all say it together, but among us it is said by the clerics and answered by the people, and as many times the Christe eleison is also said, which among the Greeks is in no way said. But in the daily Masses we pass over certain things that are wont to be said, and say only Kyrie eleison and Christe eleison, that we may be occupied a little longer in these words of supplication. But the Lord's Prayer we say immediately after the prayer, because it was the custom of the apostles that they should consecrate the host of oblation to that prayer only.

And it seemed to me very unfitting that we should say over the oblation the prayer which some scholastic had composed, and should not say over His body and blood the very tradition which our Redeemer composed. But among the Greeks the Lord's Prayer is said by all the people, whereas among us it is said by the priest alone. In what, then, have we followed the customs of the Greeks, we who have either restored our own old ones, or established new and useful ones, in which nevertheless we are not shown to imitate others?

Therefore let Your Charity, when occasion offers that you go to the city of Catania, or in the Church of Syracuse, teach, by conference held, those whom you believe or understand may have been able to murmur about this matter, and cease not to instruct them as though from another occasion. For as to what they say about the Church of Constantinople, who can doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See? which both the most pious lord emperor and our brother the bishop of that same city continually profess. Yet if that or any other Church has anything good, I am ready to imitate in that good even my inferiors, whom I forbid from things unlawful.

For he is a fool who esteems himself the first in this, that he disdains to learn the good things he has seen.