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Longer Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 54: How that the Superiors of the Brotherhoods Must Refer Their Concerns to One…
It is well that there should be a meeting at fixed times and places of those in charge of the brotherhoods,2 at which they will report to one another any untoward happenings and difficult moral problems, and how they have settled each one, so that if any has fallen into error it may be clearly unfolded to the judgment of the many and that right decisions may be confirmed by the witness of a number.
Notes
- Cf. F. 35, 43. The title has τοὺς προεστῶτας τῆς ἀδελφότητος, which would mean the Superiors (seniors) in a single monastery. But the answer refers to the abbots of a number of monasteries.
- This rule was probably borrowed from the Pachomian monasteries, There a general chapter was held twice a year, at Easter and on August 13 (Clarke, p. 38).