Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XII:
The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great.: To Leo, Bishop.

Epistle XXXVI.

To Leo, Bishop.

Gregory to Leo, Bishop of Catana 1561 .

We have found from the report of many that a custom has of old obtained among you, for subdeacons to be allowed to have intercourse with their wives.  That any one should any more presume to do this was prohibited by the servant of God, the deacon of our see, under the authority of our predecessor 1562 , in this way; that those who at that time had been coupled to wives should choose one of two things, that is, either to abstain from their wives, or on no account whatever presume to exercise their ministry.  And, according to report, Speciosus, then a subdeacon, did for this reason suspend himself from the office of administration, and up to the time of his death bore indeed the office of a notary, but ceased from the ministry which a subdeacon should have exercised.  After his death we have learnt that his widow, Honorata, has been relegated to a monastery by thy Fraternity for having associated herself with a husband.  And so if, as is said, her husband p. 159b suspended himself from ministration, it ought not to be to the prejudice of the aforesaid woman that she has contracted a second marriage, especially if she had not been joined to the subdeacon with the intention of abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh.

If, then, you find the truth to be as we have been informed, it is right for you to release altogether the aforesaid woman from the monastery, that she may be at liberty to return without any fear to her husband.

But for the future let thy Fraternity be exceedingly careful, in the case of any who may be promoted to this office, to look to this with the utmost diligence, that, if they have wives, they shall enjoy no licence to have intercourse with them:  but you must still strictly order them to observe all things after the pattern of the Apostolic See.

Footnotes

Catana was one of the sees in Sicily.

This order had been given by pope Pelagius II. a.d. 588.  In I. 44 Gregory had seen fit to relax the stringency of this order in the case of existing subdeacons who had not on their ordination pledged themselves to chastity.