On the condemnation of clerics who have been promoted to the ecclesiastical grades because they had paid for it.

 

Seeds of depravity sprout again and again, though we know that they have been frequently damned by the fathers with just severity. Because they seem to strike again with many roots, we decree to uproot them with the great strength of justice. Hence, if an imitator of Simon and a promoter of the Symoniac heresy was promoted to the ecclesiastical grades not because of his merit, but because he strived to get it through payments and obtained it through gifts - and he was exposed - he should be allowed by no means to reach the summits of the holy orders. But if he already reached them, he shall be deprived of communion and damned together with his ordinators, and he shall lose all property.

 

(trans. M. Szada)