Tizaz
Statute 70
Overview
This statute gives instructions for prayer when believers cannot safely enter a church, prohibits prayer with catechumens and heretics, and concludes with a disciplinary ruling concerning believers who live with slaves.
1If you cannot go to the church because of unbelievers, then you, bishop, shall offer prayer in your house, so that the servants of God do not mingle with the assembly of the impious. It is not the place that sanctifies the person, but the person who sanctifies the place.
2If the impious seize the place, flee from it, because they pollute it. Just as a pure person sanctifies the church, so it is defiled by an unclean person.
3If you cannot assemble in a house or in the church, each person shall sing psalms alone wherever he is, read Scripture, and pray. If there are two or three, they shall pray together, because our Lord said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst.”
4Believers shall not pray with a catechumen in the same house, because it is not right for one who partakes of the holy Mystery to be defiled.
5The servants of God shall not pray with heretics, nor in the house of any—who would join light with darkness, or believers with doubters?
6Believing men or women, if they live with slaves, shall be excommunicated and shall leave the church.