2010 Articles

“The Limits Now Fixed”: Appealing to Authority in the Trullan Canons

Danckaert, Seraphim

The Council in Trullo has shaped the canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church in powerful ways. It was summoned to bring discipline to many aspects of church life, and its canons therefore address liturgical, pastoral, administrative, and ethical issues. Perhaps even more significantly, its second canon confirmed the corpus canonum that we have come to know as authoritative in the Orthodox tradition. For these and other reasons, a number of recent publications have focused on Trullo. Few, however, have examined a particularly unusual characteristic of the Trullan canons: Unlike the majority of earlier canonical legislation, the canons promulgated at Trullo are full of quotations from Scripture, the Fathers, and previous canonical sources. This noticeable departure from previous models of canonical composition reflects a larger trend in theological writing and discourse—a trend with significant implications for the Orthodox understanding of authority.