other · 354 · Armenia
Nerses the Great had been raised at Caesarea in Cappadocia and served at the Roman court before he was made catholicos, and what he brought back was Basil's programme: not doctrine, which Armenia was not quarrelling about, but institutions. The council he called at Ashtishat ordered hospitals built in every province, houses for lepers, orphanages, and hostels along the roads; it forbade the marriage of close kin and the old funeral practices of tearing the flesh in mourning; and it regulated the clergy. It is one of the earliest instances anywhere of a national church legislating public welfare as its own business rather than as private charity, and it happens in the same years Basil is building the Basileias outside Caesarea, which is not a coincidence — the two men knew the same world. Nerses fell out with the king over it and by the tradition was poisoned by him. This dataset records the reforms and marks the poisoning as what the tradition says.
What did a fourth-century church council legislate about?
Hospitals, leper houses, orphanages and hostels — one in every province.