International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Anna Vankova
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of World History, Moscow, Russian Federation;
[e-mail]
Status and Civil Condition of Early Byzantine Monk
This paper will deal with the problem if there was a change in the status and civil condition of a 
layman after his becoming a monk. Apophthegmata says us about a hermit whose relatives told him 
that his father was at death’s door, and suggested that he should come and receive his inheritance. The 
answer of hermit was: “I had died before him for the world: the dead do not inherit from the live”. 
The sense of this story is that the monk renouncing the world dies for it. However, in the papyri 
we can see that the monk who has “died” for the world acts as though he were quite alive. So, for 
example, in P. Herm. Land l G505/F722, an apotaktikos Makarios owned ca. 350 16 arouras of land.
To what extent do the law and juridical sources corroborate the idea of the civil death of a 
layman after taking his/her monastic vows? 
According to law, the monks could receive property mortis causa or by donatio inter vivos. 
The evidence a contrario is CTh. 16. 2. 20 (AD 370). See also CJ 1. 2. 13 (455). 
According to a Justinian law, the parents could not deprive a son (or a daughter) of his (her) 
inheritance for “ingratitude”, but were to give him/her the Falkidios part. In 546 Nov. 123.37 
prescribed: if someone had left a will upon the obligatory condition of assuming the inheritance 
on entering into a marriage, the birth of a child …, but the heir apparent had become a monk, the 
inheritance was to be given to the person it was destined for. The only reservation was that the 
inheritance had to be spent piously or become the monastery’s property.
The settlement of the relations between the person possessing the patria potestas and the 
person subject to it, was also undertaken for the first time by Justinian. CJ 1. 3. 54.5 allows making 
the assumption that on entering a monastery the parents’ power (parentium potestas) was abolished.
Novel 123. 40 gives the clearest expression of the legislator’s intentions: “If … the husband or 
the wife should become monastic, the marriage shall be dissolved without divorce”. B. Granić draws 
the conclusion that “at the time of the announcement by one of spouses of his/her desire to become 
a monk/nun there comes the natural end of the matrimony analogous to the legal consequences of 
the physical death of one of the spouses”. See also 5. 5 (AD 535) and C. 1. 3. 54. 4.
But the principle of a layman’s legal death after his becoming monastic is not carried out 
consecutively by the legislators themselves. 
There is an interesting passage by Basil the Great. In his Letter 284 he concerns the matter of 
taxes. Here we can see once again that the monk is not “dead” for the state authorities, he is very 
much alive for fiscal purposes.
Let’s return to the question whether there was a change in the status of a monk on entry into 
the monastery. F. (B.) Granić may be seen as the spokesman of the first point of view. He states that 

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becoming a monk was legally equivalent to death. After taking the vows, the monk/nun in the strict 
sense of secular and ecclesiastical law, isn’t legally capable. The second point of view is represented 
in monograph of Russian scholar Hierom. Mikhail (Semenov): “Taking the monastic vows as the 
transition to a new status …, presents as a matter of fact none other than capitis deminutio …”, so 
the monk becomes a person alieni iuris and thereby his rights pass to a new legal entity. 
The problem requires a further study, first of all, of documentary and literary sources. It 
appears that the capability change, if there was any, could only concern the monks of the coenobitic 
monasteries with the strictest Rule (like, for example, those of Pachomios).