Canon XXX.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451) · The Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils
It is sacrilege to degrade a bishop to the rank of a presbyter; but, if they are for just cause removed from episcopal functions, neither ought they to have the position of a Presbyter; and if they have been displaced without any charge, they shall be restored to their episcopal dignity.
Chal 16.30.2
And Anatolius, the most reverend Archbishop of Constantinople, said: If those who are alleged to have been removed from the episcopal dignity to the order of presbyter, have indeed been condemned for any sufficient causes, clearly they are not worthy of the honour of a presbyter. But if they have been forced down into the lower rank without just cause, they are worthy, if they appear guiltless, to receive again both the dignity and priesthood of the Episcopate.
Chal 16.30.3
The judgment of the Fathers is right. We all say the same. The Fathers have righteously decided. Let the sentence of the Archbishops prevail.
Chal 16.30.5
He is sacrilegious who degrades a bishop to the rank of a presbyter. For he that is guilty of crime is unworthy of the priesthood. But he that was deposed without cause, let him be [still] bishop.
Chal 16.30.10
What precedes and follows the so-called canon is abbreviated from the IV Session of the Council (L. and C., Conc., Tom. IV., col. 550). I have followed a usual Greek method of printing it.
Chal 16.30.11
This so-called canon is nothing but a verbal copy of a passage from the minutes of the fourth session in the matter of Photius of Tyre and Eustathius of Berytus. Moreover, it does not possess the peculiar form which we find in all the genuine canons of Chalcedon, and in almost all ecclesiastical canons in general; on the contrary, there adheres to it a portion of the debate, of which it is a fragment, in which Anatolius is introduced as speaking. Besides it is wanting in all the old Greek, as well as in the Latin collections of canons, and in those of John of Antioch and of Photius, and has only been appended to the twenty-eight genuine canons of Chalcedon from the fact that a later transcriber thought fit to add to the genuine canons the general and important principle contained in the place in question of the fourth session. Accordingly, this so-called canon is certainly an ecclesiastical rule declared at Chalcedon, and in so far a κανών, but it was not added as a canon proper to the other twenty-eight by the Synod.
Chal 16.30.13
From the Fourth Session of the same Holy Synod, having reference to the matter of the Egyptian Bishops.
Chal 16.30.14