The Emperor Justinian Augustus to Mennas, most holy archbishop of this royal city, and patriarch of its whole region. Many clerics, often, who are assigned to certain oratories or even perhaps substituted for some others, as soon as they have received the solemn allowance, withdraw themselves altogether from the sacred mysteries (for what causes, they themselves know better), or on whatever occasion withdraw altogether from the most sacred church in which they are stationed. We ordain therefore that this impediment be not brought against the sacred ministry, but that by the bishops most loving of God, under whose protection these churches are established, others be substituted in their place, who may receive these things (the allowances).
For neither do we wish to grant to any that they should convert to their own gain those things which by them or through them are now bestowed upon the most sacred churches. Since by no pretext or occasion do we wish that, from the defrauding of others, gain should accrue to others;
But, just as the several allowances have been disbursed from the very beginning, so let them henceforth be furnished without any fixed limit of time, and let the sacred ministry not be corrupted nor fail on that account. Those who have withdrawn from the churches shall have no license — after others have been substituted in their place either by the most holy patriarch or by the provincial bishops — either to thrust out from there the men substituted for them, should they wish to return, or to compel those who bear that kind of disbursement to furnish doubled expenses and to provide both for the substitutes and for those wishing to return. But (to put it most plainly) they themselves, if they return, are not to be received;
but to those who have been appointed after the departure of the former, let the grain-allowances be furnished, with no profit therefrom accruing to those who are accustomed to supply them. Thus those who attempt to make gain from such things shall in every way furnish to the substitutes — they themselves as well as their heirs and successors — both the grain-allowances and the other disbursements; knowing that, if even afterward they defraud, a certain holding from their patrimony shall be set apart for our sacred private estate, so that the disbursement may be made to those men from it.
This too we decree, for our honour and for the dignity of your see: that if anyone, building a church, or otherwise expending to provide sustenance for those ministering in it, should wish to appoint certain clerics, he shall have no warrant to bring those whom he wills, by his own power, to your reverence to be ordained; but they are to be examined by your holiness, and by your judgment, and those who shall govern the pontifical see are always to receive these for ordination — provided they appear suitable to your beatitude and to posterity, and worthy of the ministry of God — so that the holy things of God may not be profaned (that, namely, which is sanctioned by the sacred Scriptures), but that things untouched, ineffable, and to be dreaded may be handled in holiness, in love toward God, and with reverence.
Quæigiturnobisplacuerunt, etperhancsacramexprimunturlegem, eautinperpetuumbeatitudotuacustodiat, sancimus: certoscientesquodnonminusnobissacrosanctarumecclesiaruincommodacuraesint, quamipsavita. Dat. xvK. Novem. Constant. imp. dn. Justin. Aug., postBilis. v. c. cons. ann. 3.
What therefore has pleased us and is expressed through this sacred law, we ordain that your beatitude keep in perpetuity, knowing for certain that the advantages of the most holy churches are no less a care to us than life itself. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of November at Constantinople, in the reign of our lord Justinian Augustus, in the third year after the consulship of Belisarius, vir clarissimus.