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To all Listmebers: A search for citations. In a collection of documents entitled Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina, (edited by A. Vassilieff, Moscow: 1893 ( and appearing as well in other collections), a libellus assigned to 1274 ( possibly 1275, or 1278, but certainly shortly after Lyons II) and ascribed to an anit-unionist opponent of Michael Palaeologos ( most likely by and after the return of one of Michael's envoys from the sessions at Lyons, there is recounted a contentious exchange between the "Latins" and the "Greeks", in which the Latins seem to suspect the Greek Church of practicing Absolution of the Dead. This accusation, while not detailed in the libellus, may be related to a prayer in the Orthodox Burial Service, in which, prior to the final litany of commemoration, the celebrant reads a prayer requesting forgiveness and mercy to the departed, in which requests are made for the lifting of "bans" or interdicts that may have placed by the Church upon the departed. Apparently the Latins responded by reading their official condemnation of the practice of Absolution of the Dead and the official ( canonical?) prohibitions thereof. Of course, the prayer, if that is the source for suspicion, espouses no such thing, and the Greeks were outraged, since, of course, the Sacraments of the Church are for the living. What interests me is: 1.Of what wouldsuch condemnation by the Latins consist? What were the canonical decrees that might have constituted their response? In other words, what is the Official Latin position on the issue of Absolution of the dead. ( late 13thc)? 2.Any citations of polemical literature surrounding this issue. 3 A question of Theo-logic: If posthumous and often chronologically distanced lifting of bans and interdicts was common practice in the Church; and if such interdicts or bans, ( or rather the issue which caused the imposition of the bans), at the time of their operation effectively precluded the recipients of the those interdicts from participating in the Sacramental life of the Church; and if such exclusion, as it must, prohibited the Sacrament of Confession and Absolution; would/ could the lifting of those bans posthumusly authorize the possibility of a posthumous absolution, which may have been denied to them exclusively by the specific issue which caused the ban, but not by their desire to confess their sins and receive the Absolution procalimed by the Church.? 4.) A call for any instances of posthumous confessions heard/witnessed and accepted by the Church as confessions of guilt/sin in Medieval hagiography? I most certainly may require your absolution for the length and wanderings of this post. Josef Gulka Josef Gulka [log in to unmask] Tel: 215- 732-8420 Fax (215) 732-8420 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%