Letter 3

From: Remigius, Bishop of Reims To: Bishops of Gaul Date: ~500 AD Context: Remigius advises his fellow bishops on how to work with the Frankish king and the rapidly changing political situation in Gaul. Remigius, bishop, to his beloved brothers the bishops of Gaul. The situation we face is genuinely new, and I want to share some thoughts about how to navigate it. For several generations, we have operated within a Roman administrative framework — a framework that is now, effectively, gone from most of Gaul. We have Frankish kings, Burgundian kings, Visigothic kings. None of them governs quite like a Roman emperor, and none of them has quite the same relationship to the church that Roman emperors had. This creates both problems and opportunities. The problem: we can no longer rely on civil authority to enforce church decisions, to compel attendance at synods, to suppress heresy with legal penalties. Where the bishops of the previous generation could call on the court for support, we largely cannot. We must rely on our own pastoral authority — which is ultimately a matter of how much people respect and trust us. The opportunity: the same civil authority that sometimes helped us also sometimes controlled us, manipulated us, used church offices as patronage positions, imposed decisions on synods. We are freer than our predecessors in some important respects, and that freedom should be used well. My counsel: build genuine pastoral relationships with the new rulers. Clovis is Catholic. That is significant. But it means that the relationship between the Frankish church and the Frankish crown will be negotiated, not inherited. We should negotiate from a position of genuine service — not sycophancy, but real care for the people of the kingdom. Your brother in Christ, Remigius