Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 581

Gregory to Anthemius, subdeacon of Campania. It has reached us through the report of certain persons that Importunus, bishop of the city of Atella, when he was departing from this life, having drawn up his will, appointed his daughter-in-law heir to eight-twelfths of his entire substance, and his Church heir to the remaining four. We therefore charge your Experience to examine the matter with careful inquiry; and whatever shall be found to belong to that Church, suffer it in no way to be retained by any person, save only that which it shall be established he possessed as his own before his episcopal ordination.

But whatever you shall find either to have belonged to that Church beforehand, or to have been acquired by the aforesaid bishop while in the episcopal office, let it be preserved in the ownership of that same Church, that no one may presume on any occasion thereafter to usurp anything of it. But we wish you with all urgency to admonish the clergy and people of that same Church, that without any delay they elect for themselves a bishop to be set over them, one who is able to order the clergy, the people, and the goods of that Church with careful and canonical oversight.

Likewise also admonish more urgently the clergy and people of that same Church, and of the others which are united to it, that they too, all delay and postponement being laid aside, ought to elect a suitable bishop for themselves, lest for long—and especially at such a time—they be left destitute of the governance of their own pastor.