The orders of the ministry are bishops, presbyters, deacons.
The bishop has acquired control of the sacraments, presbyters and deacons acting only under his orders; the episcopate appears as a unit, bishops being bound to respect one another's disciplinary decrees.
The elders are the first or oldest teachers of congregations, for which there is no regular bishop. They have charge of the meetings of such congregations, and participate in excommunication proceedings, besides which they preach, exhort, baptize, and may, when needed, take the offices of the deacons.
The tenth canon tolerates the marriages of deacons who previous to ordination had reserved the right to take a wife; the thirteenth forbids chorepiscopi to ordain presbyters or deacons; the eighteenth safeguards the right of the people in objecting to the appointment of a bishop whom they do not wish.
With the exception of the pallium, this was also the costume of the Roman deacons.
