Canon 40 Minimum age of ten for monastic profession

Since to cleave to God, through withdrawal from the tumults of life, is very salutary, we ought not to admit, without examination and out of season, those who choose the solitary life, but to keep in their case also the rule handed down to us by the Fathers; so that the profession of the life according to God must be accepted then, as being now firm and made from knowledge and judgement, once reason has reached its completion. Let him, therefore, who is about to come under the monastic yoke be not less than ten years old, the testing in this matter also resting with the one who presides, if he considers it more profitable that the time be increased for him, for his introduction into and establishment in the life. For although Basil the Great, in his sacred canons, legislates that she who willingly offers herself to God and embraces virginity, when she is completing her seventeenth year, be numbered in the order of virgins; yet, following the example concerning widows and deaconesses, we have proportionately fixed those who have chosen the solitary life at the aforesaid time. For in the divine Apostle it is written that the widow in the Church is to be enrolled at sixty years of age; but the sacred canons have handed down that the deaconess be ordained at forty years of age, having seen the Church becoming stronger by divine grace and advancing forward, and the firmness and steadfastness of the faithful in keeping the divine commandments; which we too, having understood it very well, have now defined, quickly impressing, as a kind of seal, the blessing of grace on him who is about to begin the contests according to God, thereby leading him on so as not to hesitate and shrink back for long, or rather also urging him on to the choice and establishment of the good.