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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > O > Episcopal Oeconomus


EPISCOPAL OECONOMUS

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(Greek oikonomos from oikos, a house, and nemein, to distribute, to administer)

An Episcopal Œconomous is one who is charged with the care of a house, an
administrator. In canon law this term designates the individual who is appointed
to take charge of the temporal goods of the Church in a diocese; it is used also
of the person in charge of the property of a monastery. This office originated
in the Eastern Church and dates back to the fourth century: a law of Honorius
and Arcadius in 398 speaks of it as if it were then widespread (Cod. Theodos.,
IX, tit. 45, lex. 3). The Council of Chalcedon (451) ordered an œconomus to be
appointed in every diocese; to take charge of ecclesiastical property under
episcopal authority (canon xxvi in Mansi, VII, 367). They were established in
the Eastern Church and have continued down to the present day in the
schismatical Greek Church (Silbernagi, "Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand
sämtlicher Kirchen des Orients", 2nd ed., Ratisbon, 1904, 37). The increase of
church property after the Edict of Milan (313) and the multiplication of
episcopal duties rendered this office very useful. In the West, we meet with the
œconomus in Spain (Council of Seville, 619, can. ix), in Sardinia, and perhaps
in Sicily, at the end of the sixth century (Jaffé-Wattenbach, "Regesta
Pontificum Romanorum", Leipzig, 1881, I, nn. 1282, 1915). But as a general rule
the Western bishops contented themselves with the aid of a confidential
assistant, a vicedominus, who looked after the temporalities and ranked next to
the bishop. The establishment of a domain in connexion with each church made the
task of administering the ecclesiastical property much lighter. The office of
vicedominus was modified by the influence of the feudal system, and by the fact
that the bishops became temporal sovereigns. The Council of Trent ordered the
chapters of cathedral churches to establish, in addition to a capitulary vicar,
one or more œconomi to administer the temporal property of the diocese during an
episcopal vacancy (Sess. XXIV, De Reformatione, c. xvi). At the present time,
the bishop is not obliged to appoint an œconomus, though he is not hindered from
so doing. The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (c. lxxv) advises bishops to
select one from among the ecclesiastics or even the laity, who is skilled in the
civil law of the country.


SOURCES

LOENING, Gesch. des deutdchen Kirchenrechts (Strasburg, 1878), I, 235; II, 342;
STUTZ, Gesch. des kirchl. Benefizialwesens, I (Berlin, 1895), 9 sq.; SENN,
L'institution des Vidamies en France (Paris, 1907); LESNE, Hist. de la propriété
ecclés. en France, I. Epoque Romaine et Mérovingienne (Paris, 1910).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Van Hove, A. (1911). Episcopal Oeconomus. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11214a.htm

MLA citation. Van Hove, Alphonse. "Episcopal Oeconomus." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11214a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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