The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 104 - Would Your Church Make You Wait 12 Years to Take Communion if You Sinned??
The forgotten disciplinary wisdom of the Council of Nicaea reveals a church that took sin, repentance, and restoration with profound seriousness. While modern Christians often focus solely on the Nicene Creed that emerged from this historic gathering, the 325 AD council actually established practical guidelines for maintaining spiritual integrity that might shock contemporary believers.
What should happen when a Christian denies Christ out of fear during persecution? The ancient church prescribed an astonishing 12-year rehabilitation process. Three years as "hearers" (permitted only to listen to Scripture), seven years as "prostrators" (publicly confessing sins while lying before the congregation), and finally two years joining in prayer without receiving communion. This wasn't merely punishment—it was a carefully designed path to genuine restoration that took sin's gravity seriously while offering true hope of redemption.
The council's wisdom extended to recognizing that secret sins hold the greatest power. Their solution wasn't private confession behind closed doors but bringing everything into the light within the church family. This stands in stark contrast to many modern Christian approaches where "bosom sins" (as the Puritans called them) remain hidden for decades, retaining their destructive power precisely because they're never truly confronted.
The Nicene fathers weren't rigid legalists, though. They empowered bishops to accelerate rehabilitation for those demonstrating sincere repentance through "fear, tears, perseverance and good works." Even more mercifully, they ensured that anyone facing death would receive communion regardless of where they stood in the restoration process. Their approach balanced accountability with compassion, justice with mercy.
Perhaps most challenging for today's church leadership culture was their prohibition against clergy transferring between cities—a direct rebuke to ambitious ministers seeking more prestigious positions or comfortable surroundings. The council saw through the spiritual-sounding justifications for such moves, recognizing them as manifestations of personal ambition rather than genuine calling.
What might our faith communities look like if we recovered even a fraction of this ancient wisdom? How would it transform our approach to accountability, confession, and spiritual leadership? The Council of Nicaea offers us not just theological formulations but practical pathways to a deeper, more authentic Christian life—if we have ears to hear.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we, I think for the last time, are going to be looking at the Council of Nicaea, which, as we're recording, we'd be in. Really, there's still the third week of the Council and then it all would. I think the Creed itself was released on on June 19th, 325 AD, so 1,700 years after that, and we've been doing a reasonably careful look at the council but also now looking at some of the canons that they came up with and really, given that this is the global church all getting together and they're sort of comparing notes about church practices and how do they handle different challenges and situations, and then they're trying to standardise them and saying, well, let's see if we can all line up. So we're kind of all doing the same thing everywhere in the world. But I think one of the things that strikes me is I imagine that most things were, all were basically aligned the fact that they can single out areas of like church discipline and some matters of order and saying let's try and align there. I imagine, um, particularly when we look at kind of liturgical practices, it's, it's interesting just there is a kind of basic global unity on, obviously, on the core confession of who jesus is, what he's done, the trinity, all those, the creedal stuff, even that we've known that even before they come up with this particular formula of the Nicene Creed, they'd already got creeds. And I just this last week was reading another one. I forget which church father it was, but it was from a hundred years earlier and it was kind of the same ballpark earlier and it was kind of the same ballpark, the same kind of grief. But what we're then looking at is some of these issues they were looking at to try and get everyone on the same page and share some wisdom, and the one that I want to kick off with in this episode is one that's entitled those who Sinned Without Compulsion, and that means the sinning. There's a particular kind of sinning in mind there. It's the sin of denying Christ when threatened with persecution. So they're saying they've dealt with the idea.
Speaker 1:Now, if there were people who, under torture, ended up denying Christ, that they're more understandable towards that. They're like oh well, you know who knows what if you fail, under the threat of fire or being eaten by animals or something. They were kind of comparatively merciful and saying OK, well, let's just get you confessing Christ properly again, and that was quite a quick process comparatively. But what about people who denied Christ in times of persecution, who weren't under that level of pressure and just sort of were just cowards, basically just cowardly, and weren't themselves tortured or anything but just denied Christ? So they said, because obviously there'd been some of the North African Christians were like no, forget them, that's it, they're going to hell. There's no way back for people like that. And but here they said this the council decided to show mercy to them, even though they were unworthy of mercy. Those who sincerely repent shall spend.
Speaker 1:Now, just if you're listening, as a modern Christian, what would you do with someone who said well, things were getting a bit pressured at work and they didn't like Christians saying they were Christians. And they said they decided to put a ban in the workplace that no one was allowed to talk about Jesus or Bible or anything like that. You had to keep all that in your private life, and so you went along with that. Or there's someone in your church who just went along with it and said, yeah, I'm going to effectively deny Christ, I'm going to just pretend I'm not a Christian to get through this pressured time in the work environment now and they're coming back to church, they're prepared to be publicly Christian again and all this kind of thing. What would you do with them Now?
Speaker 1:Literally, if you want, just stop this podcast for a few minutes to really think hard like what would be the best thing, what would be an appropriate thing to do so that that person appreciates the seriousness of betraying Christ publicly, or even privately doing it, so that you know because here it's the idea that maybe no one ever knew that this is what they'd done, but they had denied Christ because of fear. What would you do with that? Would you say, oh, it don't matter, just come to church this next Sunday, forget it, let's just carry on as normal? Or would you say, actually, this person might need a bit of a refresher course on what it means to be a Christian, what, not? What do you do? Because most modern Christian churches do nothing at all about any of these things that are listed in the council. Nobody in most modern churches just don't care at all about anything. So I don't know why I'm laughing. That's terrible, but PJ's with me and he laughed too. So anyway, no, but it's just.
Speaker 1:It's just one of the things that we get from looking at the way the Council of Nicaea had handled these things is that they actually bothered about everything and they took seriously when the Bible says you can't deny Christ or else he'll deny you. And you know all the things the Bible says about how we should live and how we should persevere and all these things. They actually believed all that stuff back then. Well, I'll tell you what they did Now. You've had long enough to think Spend three years as hearers and seven years as prostrators, and then may join the congregation in prayer for two years without receiving the Eucharist.
Speaker 1:So just let's add this up Basically, they would initially spend three years. They're just able to hear what's going on, but that's it. They can be in auditory range of what's going on in a church and the idea is they'll hear the scriptures, maybe bits of liturgy, things like that, but that's it. For three years they could they have to be kind of treated as a suspicious outsider who's kind of inquiring, and then after three years they can spend seven years. So this is now a total of 10 years so far as prostrators. I'm not exactly sure what prostrator is, but I imagine that is.
Speaker 2:They're now allowed to be in the service and can bow kneel like participate in the worship time the emperor, saint theodosius, and he he has this feast about his repentance around the same time the Nicene Council sort of tide is happening, and he was a prostrator after he committed a certain sin, or people on his behalf did, and Ambrose told him off for it. And so he does have to, like in everyone's presence, prostrate himself before the altar and confess all his sins, and he does this day after day for like months. So he only gets a few months.
Speaker 1:You know, these people have a long time so it wasn't he, I was being too soft. I mean, that's the. So it wasn't just that you get to be join in with the worship and bow and kneel with everybody. No, you have to, presumably maybe at the beginning of the service, like let's have the prostrators out and get them all lying down at the front of the church to confess and bewail the manifold sins and wickedness.
Speaker 2:Um, and that way it's kind of very clear that they are publicly reversing the betrayal kind of yeah, and given that a lot of their sin was about keeping things private and everything, yeah, a greater emphasis on like getting it all out into the public.
Speaker 1:Do you know, I just this last week I was talking about this very thing to some church leaders and just the way that in the bible the assumption is old testament, new testament that sins will be brought out into the open, into the church, family, environment, in one way or another, not necessarily all of them declared at the Sunday school, but everything brought out into the open. That's the assumption in the Bible and it's obviously the assumption right up to the fourth century. You know, get these people and they must prostrate and get their sins out in the open and then they could be really free of them. And I find so many Christian people are held by what the Puritans call bosom sins, sins that they hold deep within themselves and just keep going back to throughout their life, year after year, decade after decade. But the the reason that those sins are so powerful is because the secret and they only ever confess in inverted commas to the lord, but never out, and maybe to a few specially selected friends who will always be like oh no, I totally understand, it's easy to fall in that area.
Speaker 1:Nah, that's rubbish. This is proper where you know, get him out front, lie down on the ground and let's hear what's going on. So there you go. So they've got three years of hearing as an outsider, seven in this prostration process, and at the end of that it's not even all done yet. Now they can just join the congregation in prayer for two years, so now a 12-year cycle, and then at the end of that they can finally be fully absorbed back into the church family and receive communion, holy Communion. So they would be 12 years without receiving the Eucharist.
Speaker 2:And it's important because, sadly, the Emperor St Constantine's reign was not the end of persecutions, and particularly in Islamic persecution. It wasn't always torture and stuff. It was like, oh, we give you economic pressure while you're a christian and then you can get like tax write-offs and stuff if you convert to islam, and surprising amounts of people did do that and then later in life were like, oh no, that was totally wrong, so that, as we can see, there's no torture or anything. So so that one is just greed.
Speaker 2:There's loads of different things the devil can use to make people deny Christ, or, you know well, not really make them, they decide to do it, but to entice them to deny Christ, and so there's quite a few neo-martyrs I think the Eastern Orthodox Church calls them who had done that, who had denied Christ just for greed or sometimes lust, like they fall in love with a Muslim woman and things like that, and then later in life, regret it. And so some of them, because they're being martyred, they don't have the whole opportunity to go through that whole process and they get given communion more quickly because they think, well, I haven't got 12 years. Sometimes they do, though, and they would take quite a while and they'd go somewhere where there wasn't so much persecution, so they could go through the whole process and then think, right, I'm going back to be killed. Um, so that this stuff does get used even into the 19th century and I imagine even today.
Speaker 1:Uh, this stuff is great wisdom. I mean, whether the full 12 year cycle is always well they, because they actually get. The next canon is about those that have renounced the life of the world, come to church but then go back to the world. And here it's not because of persecution. This one is because, for example, because they take it for granted here that if a person's become a christian, they may, in their zeal, resign from military service, because the idea is, as a christian, I can't be a soldier and that sort of thing. But then they decide oh no, I quite like my job as a soldier, I'm gonna get it back again. So they regard that as a kind of. It's not like they've renounced christ, but they've gone, they've given their heart back to worldly things like money or career or whatever. So that's another one, and I find this one amazing. And they're saying it's like returning to the vomit, using the scripture there, proverbs 26, 11, and they say so such a person who's done this, who's kind of.
Speaker 1:It's not about persecution now. It's about this enduring thing that the church of every age has to face the pull of the world, the flesh and the devil. And if you do that and give yourself back to the world, the flesh and the devil, and now want to return to Christ, what should be done and here the example is the rule is they shall complete a time as three years as hearers Three years as hearers and ten as prostrators, so it's 13 years here in this process, and then they'd be allowed back. So you're like whoa, that's as much as a person who denies under times of persecution, but before you run away with it, that actually says, though, but with all of them, you must examine their conduct and the manner of their repentance. Right, listen carefully.
Speaker 1:It says those who demonstrate repentance with genuine fear, tears, perseverance and good works, and not just a show of them.
Speaker 1:Well, they shall complete the set time as hearers and then may participate in the prayers.
Speaker 1:So they're saying okay, if, during the three years of rehabilitation time, when they've got to kind of constantly go on the Alpha course or Christianity Explored or something, give them three years of doing alpha and christianity explored, or three, two, one from glenn scrivener, look it up if you don't know it. Um, at the listen, pay attention to them, because if, in that time of the three years as a hero, there's really obvious heartfelt repentance and a zeal for good works and things they it's. Then they're effectively saying they won't need to do 10 years as a prostrator because they're doing it as a hero. They're already repenting and bringing their sins out there. But and if you and it says that, if the bishop can observe in them that they are really sincerely repenting and returning, forget the 10 years as a prostrator. They can just go straight, fast-tracked to two years as a prayer, so you could be back on track in only five years. If you have betrayed Christ with lust or treasures and pleasures of this world, in only five years you'd be allowed to take communion again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it is particularly worth noting, and it will be similar in the modern world, whether or not we have the sensitive eyes for it. But in order to be in several military units there were idols and there were prayers and sacrifices to these idols to be in several military units there were idols and there were prayers and sacrifices to these idols to be in this military unit. And then people would like uh, excuse it, like with naaman in the bible, where it's like, oh, I'll have to bow just because I'm you know, and that sort of thing. But then there were also political positions where you had to actually be a priest of the roman pagan. There were loads of Christians who were. I think they were called the Flavus or something like that.
Speaker 2:Loads of them were. Some people were like bishops and things.
Speaker 1:Were simultaneously pagan priests. Yeah, I think we have that today. Actually, we have that.
Speaker 2:So it was quite a common thing though, where, like political advancement was, especially in this transitional time, it still constantines reign, but this stuff, like augustine, knew bishops who were this sort of pagan priest, and so this goes on for like 100 years or more. Genuinely unchristian conduct is a part of how you In the military?
Speaker 1:yeah, again, I think there's loads of things like that. Isn't there when military orders genuinely, even to today, embody patterns of social behaviour and traditions which actually are completely incompatible with the Christian faith? But you kind of hardly notice it because you joined the military and you're brought up in it, and then there's traditions and behaviours which are completely incompatible with the Christian faith and for them it literally took the form of being a pagan priest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like CS Lewis describes this sort of stuff with the Christian faith, and for them it literally took the form of being a pagan priest. Yeah, yeah, and like CS Lewis described this sort of stuff in like public school. That's right yeah yeah, Loads of Christians would go through very unchristian behaviours so that they would be able to politically advance later in life whilst claiming to be Christian.
Speaker 1:So he wasn't claiming to be a Christian at the time, but he still didn't do that stuff Just because he was like this is well dodgy and we've seen what happens where people imbibe those sorts of behaviours into themselves and in fact even bring them into church life and continue to say, oh well, this kind of way of organising things works very well in the military and it will work well in church life too. And you're like, you're well, and we've seen some unbelievable car crashes when that happens. So it's good then that they at nicaea, where they're like look, if people have made done this sort of thing, there has to be a period of rehabilitation where they are retaught the gospel, retaught what it means to follow Jesus, and it could be up to like 15 years of this process of them being properly discipled again. But I do like the fact that the bishop can keep an eye on and it says and if that person's really repenting sincerely and it's obvious that they've reformed and been transformed, you can speed up the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there is St Oregon. The scholar writes a lot about this sort of stuff, like the whole military question and everything, and so people often think he's a pacifist because of how he talks about the military.
Speaker 2:But it's this stuff. It's about the kind of idolatry and the knowledge and practices so he does, because he reads the Bible loads and there's loads of Christian soldiers and he believes, you know, israel is the church of the Old Testament. There's this continuity. He's strongly about continuity, so he's of this sort of idea that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being a soldier, you know. It's just there's these practices within Roman soldiery and it was the same with St Martin. He was a Christian soldier under Constantine and he loved being a Christian soldier under Constantine.
Speaker 2:But when it was Julian the Apostate, he has to resign. Because then he's like, oh, all this pagan stuff's going to come back. I can't in good conscience do it. So then he leaves. So then if he were to rejoin, then all this stuff would apply to him then. But he doesn't. But that's an important bit of context sort of thing. It's like there are good soldiers and everything and loads of early Christians were soldiers and stuff like that. But there are. And so if you want to find out more about these early Christian perspectives, there's loads if you read St Oregon the Scholar.
Speaker 1:Well, or, much better, get involved with the Global Church History Project. I'm assuming all our listeners are already patrons of that. For just a very small fee, for like five pounds a month, you get access to really crazy massive library of uh early church resources. If you're enjoying pj's input in all of this, uh, you'll get so much of of kind of pj's research and insights you'll. Well, I don't think even if you devoted all day every day, it'd take you probably a year to get through it all. But yeah, one day we must go and do a deep dive on Julian the Apostate. He's what a headbanger that guy is. He's almost he's like laughably extreme. We won't say anything about him now, but that's one for a future episode.
Speaker 1:Just on that business where you said people who are in this, say, 12 to 15 year process of rehabilitation because of betraying Christ, the next little canon that comes up is really saying if they suddenly are going to die and they're maybe still in like maybe the hero process, like early on in this, like massive process of becoming uh properly accepted as a genuine christian again, uh, but say suddenly they're in a fatal illness or received a fatal injury or something, uh, and the dying, it says. It says I'll read it of the dying. We must. We must now keep the ancient law of the church that the lord's provisions must not be withheld from anyone who is dying. So he said they're saying, look, you've got to give them holy communion once it's clear that the the dying so it. Because some people would say, oh well, but you can't leave a person without any holy communion for up to 15 years. And then you know what, if they die and they're still, uh, not receiving this important means of grace and the sacrament of salvation and all this other thing, yeah, yeah, so they've covered that. They're like, no, no, make sure they get holy communion. But then what happens? If they don't die? They suddenly recover. Yeah, they cover that. They're like, okay, but if the person does recover, then you put them in that part of the fast-tracking process. They go to the prayer stage. So do you remember it's hearer, prostrator prayer. So if they've been on the deathbed but they somehow recover, put them in that final category of the prayers now. So that's a two-year process. So nearly dying does speed up the process a fair bit, but it does.
Speaker 1:They say it's all really down to the bishop. They said the bishop should, with examination, distribute the sacrifice to any dying person who asks to partake of the Eucharist. Person who asks to partake of the Eucharist. So you don't need, in other words, don't be too picky about giving the Eucharist. Saying I don't know whether you really are dying, you don't look too bad to me, it's if a person who is considered to be dying asks for it. Basically the bishop should give it. So they were actually quite gentle.
Speaker 1:Okay, now what about apostate catechumens? So those who apostatized during the catechumenate? The way to solve that is so it's basically, if you're in that hero phase where you're on the alpha course or 3-2-1 or Christianity's Board or something, and you're in that three years of hearing and then you fall away or renounce Christ or get pulled in by some heretics or something, what should you? It's actually very gentle. It's basically they should spend three years as hearers and then may get back involved with it. So it's really like just restart the whole process, because they've not yet got to the stage where they are fully acknowledged as being Christians yet. They're still in this kind of entryway. Just restart the whole process with them. But now, pj, we've got time for you to explain this next one Clergy must not transfer from one city to another.
Speaker 1:What's that? And the one that comes after it is weird Of those who do not remain in the churches where they were promoted. So this you can't transfer from one city to another. What's that about? Like what, if you have a great job opportunity comes up and you're you know, I don't know, you're stuck in londonium or something, and then this is actually the peachy job comes up in, uh, nicomedia or I don't know, carthage, and you're like, oh, I fancy that. What are you not allowed to do that? What's going?
Speaker 2:on. Well, I think there's two things prompting this, one of which is like a very recent example from their perspective. But there's also this biblical thing, because you look at Moses when he lives amongst the Kenites, you know under Hobab and Jethro, and, and he just lives as one of them, so he doesn't even circumcise his kids because he's just like oh, I'm transferring from Israel to the Kenites, I'm just the diocese of the Kenites.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's like I'm just going to do that, so he doesn't even bother having his kids as a part of Israel. He's's just like I've totally transferred. And then Jesus is so angry he's about to kill him, until Zipporah intervenes. It's like no, no, that's it. And so she kind of goes she's like that's it, we're going Israel now, and then later Jesus tests him again because he's like oh, I could make you your own nation, sort of thing Are you going?
Speaker 2:to leave Israel and transfer to the new Moses diocese. And at that point Moses is like, no, I'm not doing that, it's all in for Israel. And then great things come of that. So there's that sort of biblical thing where we just see, with Moses and he's kind of the archetypal bishop and emperor and you know all sorts of things there's loads, loads of reasons everyone should study Moses. We're all kind of meant to be a bit like Moses or a lot like Moses, but there's that he's not allowed to transfer his diocese, no matter how much he wants. So there's that there's biblical basis to it. But then also recently someone had failed where Moses had succeeded eventually, and that's Eusebius of Nicomedea. He was meant to be the Bishop of Beirut.
Speaker 1:Was he really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, so he was in that Lebanese church alongside Saint Eusebius, so there's lots of Eusebi in that area. Oh, if only he'd stuck with the other Eusebius yeah, he was great at reaching out to arians and bringing them in and that sort of thing, but now he'd left to for politics and to get close to constantine, because he you know, yeah, he was in with constantine, yeah all of that.
Speaker 2:So for political gain, just ambition and loads of early church people see ambition as a sin. You get loads of people going up to these like desert fathers and stuff, and they're just asking like, oh father, how do I deal with ambition and you know, self-esteem, this sort of thing, these horrible sins, and that's kind of this early church thing, and so they're kind of just thinking there's no real reason, isn't that?
Speaker 1:just on that, though, isn't that fascinating, like modern day people. It's like how can I give more room for self, uh, love, and how can I be even more, like, focused in my personal ambitions? And I've even had people come to me as a church minister to ask for help. Like, how can I, you know, give better expression to my personal goals and ambitions? And, uh, I, I feel that I don't love myself enough. Man, it's like that's the difference between the modern, the ancient world. Right, there, isn't it? But that, uh, imagine if you'd gone with that agenda to a desert father, they'd probably like headbutt you or something. Yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah. So the Eusebius of Nicomedea, he is a friend. He's kind of either already a friend of Constantine or becomes a friend, closer friend, of Constantine, but he basically goes forget the flock over which Christ had made me the shepherd. I'm abandoning my flock because I've found a better one that's more advantageous to me effectively, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and you get this stuff all the time where people are like, and it's like this lovely beach side resort with loads of amenities and this sort of thing, that's Nicomedea, and so loads of people do this, where they just suddenly feel a calling to a lovely beachside property and it's like that's where God wants me. And it's like, is it though? This council basically says no God doesn't do that.
Speaker 1:I know, like literally I've known I won't name it but there's a particular parish that's very sweet spot, very wealthy area, in a kind of christian bible belt part of england, and when it came up and advertised there were like 20 people applying for it, all of whom thought, ah, this is what the lord wants me to do. But then I know of many parishes that advertise and no one applies to them. And I wonder why. I wonder why it's like, yeah, it's so.
Speaker 1:The council, nicaea, was on to this long ago and really saying if the lord's appointed you to cut for this flock of sheep, you must commit to them and you can't just go. Oh, but I want to live by the beach or I like that wealthy area where it's a massive church that's, uh, doesn't have any of the social problems that I, uh, I've got to put up with. I want to live in a cushy place, you know, wow, they're very wise, aren't they at the council of nicaea, and they see through things, yeah, and can kind of go. Nah, hang on, why are you wanting to move?
Speaker 2:yeah, and this is totally like when constantine was before all this kicked off. Constantine saw through it because he read the bible and the apostles say all of these heresies come about because of our own personal ambitions and lusts and greed and that sort of thing. So so the how we deal with it, Constantine said, is we deal with the deceitful desires, then there will be no heresy. It is that way round.
Speaker 1:Yeah, once you root out the disease, the symptoms cure. Yeah, it was funny. Not that long ago I remember there was a bishop I won't name the bishop, but I think at one time they'd been vaguely evangelical and then they started voting for very unorthodox um measures in the church of england, particularly on sexuality and things, uh, and, and then they find themselves getting access to better positions. And then, of course, it opens up that they're offered a much more prestigious position House of Lords, things like that and you're like oh yeah, here we go. This measure was made for that sort of situation. Yeah, it actually says here, and then we'll end with this of situation. Yeah, it actually says here, and then we'll end with this.
Speaker 1:And for this episode it says that, um, not neither bishop nor priest nor deacon may move from one city to another. And if they even try such a thing after the council of nicaea, um, that arrangement must be cancelled and they must return to the church where they were ordained bishop or priest or deacon. So it's quite challenging, isn't it the idea? Now, in the modern church, people just do move around all the time between parishes and diocese and things like that. But back then they were much more suspicious of that. I mean, it might be that, uh, you might. We might say oh, but there's, here's an example of someone who's going from an easy beachside property to a challenging environment. Surely that's a good thing? Well, yeah, maybe you know, whatever, but I like the fact that the council nicey is like looking carefully and saying hang on, you cannot move around for anything other than the most selfless, christ-honouring, church-loving reasons.