Canon 1 The divine canons are received and upheld

For those who have obtained the priestly dignity, the prescriptions of the canonical ordinances are both testimonies and right directions; and receiving them gladly, we sing with David, the revealer of God, to the Lord God, saying: In the way of your testimonies I have delighted, as in all riches; and: You have commanded righteousness, your testimonies are for ever; give me understanding and I shall live. And for ever the prophetic voice commands us to keep the testimonies of God and to live in them, as plainly abiding unshaken and immovable; because Moses, the beholder of God, also speaks thus: To them it is not possible to add, and from them it is not possible to take away. And the divine Apostle Peter, glorying in them, cries: Which things angels desire to look into. And Paul says: Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema. These things being so, then, and being solemnly attested to us, exulting over them as one who finds much spoil, we gladly embrace the divine canons, and we hold fast their ordinance whole and unshaken, those set forth by the holy trumpets of the Spirit, the all-praised Apostles, and by the six holy ecumenical councils, and by those assembled locally for the issuing of such decrees, and by our holy Fathers. For all of them, illumined by one and the same Spirit, defined what is profitable. And those whom they consign to anathema, we also anathematise; and those to deposition, we also depose; and those to excommunication, we also excommunicate; and those whom they hand over to penance, we likewise subject to it. For: Let the manner of life be without love of money, being content with what is present; so cries out expressly the one who ascended to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words, Paul the divine Apostle.