Back to the Library
The Medieval Church · c. 883; earlier material revised
The Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles
Attributed to Photius of Constantinople · c. 815 – c. 893
What it is
Church canons and imperial laws arranged together under fourteen headings, so that a bishop could see at once what the church required and what the state enforced, and where the two did not agree.
Why it lasted
The definitive law book of the Orthodox churches, commented on by Balsamon and Zonaras and carried into Slavic use as the Kormchaia Kniga. It governed Russian church law until the eighteenth century.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next