RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Nolasco Non-conformists
the great Synod of Constantinople 920, it was declared binding for the whole church. In the eleventh century, this nomocanon was again revised and augmented. The most important commentary on the nomocanon was composed by Theodore Balsamon, between 1169 and 1177. Although this nomocanon stood in high regard and was spread far and wide, the necessity was soon felt for a more convenient arrangement of the contents; the Syntagma, by Mattheus Blastares, in 1335, answered this requirement, and it may be counted among the nomocanons, although it does not bear that name. It consists of 303 titles which are arranged alphabetically, according to the substantives of their rubrics; as a rule first come the canonical regulations and after these the nomoi; however, under some titles, there are only kanones, under others, only nomoi. This work (printed in W Beveridge, Synodicon, vol. ii., part ii., Oxford, 1672) has been widely circulated in the orient and was, with the nomocanon of fourteen titles, the general handbook of the clergy. The large number of manuscripts, even of recent times, proves that both works preserved their reputation among the Greeks even under the Turkish rule. Another nomocanon was much in use according to numerous existing copies; this was compiled in 1561 by Manuel Malaxos, a notary of Thebes.
In the Russian Church there is in use, even down to modern timtfs, a frequently published collection, employed also in the secular courts and bearing the name Kormitshaia Kniga, " Book for the Steersman "; among other regulations it contains also a nomocanon of fourteen titles. The first compilation of this collection is to be referred to the labors of the Servian Archbishop Sava, of the beginning of the thirteenth century. From Servia the collection went to Bulgaria, and thence to Russia at the request of the Metropolitan Cyril II., where it was recognized as an official collection in a synod held at Wladimir in 1274. In 1630 it appeared for the first time in print.
Besides the Kormitshaia, use was made in the Servian Church of the alphabetical Syntagma of Blastares, and this is employed also in Bulgaria. In Russia, in the nineteenth century, a further collection was formed known as the Kniga pravil; this was used in connection with the Kormitshaia, and in Servia, in addition to the latter, a private edition is used, the Zbornik (Zara, 1884; 2d ed., Neusatz, 1886), which contains also the nomocanon of fourteen titles.
In Moldavia as well as in Wallachia, these old collections were formerly in general use, especially the Syntagma of Blastares, until, in the first part of the seventeenth century, the Moldavians formed their own canonical codification in their own language. The first of these (1632) is a translation of the nomocanon of Manuel Malaxos. Another codification appeared in 1652, and is called Pravila cea mare or Indreptarea legji. This collection, of which Peter Dobra, 1772, made a Latin translation, constituted the official collection of the Greco- Oriental Rumanian Church.
Besides the above-mentioned works there are many collections under the names Nomocanones,
Kanonaria, Nomima, which contain canons only, and not, as do the above, both canonical and secular rules. To the former belong, among others, the Nomocanon Doxopatris and the collection of Nicodemus and Agapius (1793) called Pedalion, " The Rudder," which at the present time forms the collection in official use in the Oriental Church. (E. Sehling.) Bibliography: J. B. Pitra, Juris ecclesiastici Grcecorum historia et monumenta, ii. 368 sqq., 416 sqq., 2 vols., Rome, 1864-68; G. Voellus and H. Justel, Bibliotheca juris canonici veteris, ii. 603-660, Paris, 1661; C. E. Zacharia, Histories juris Grceco-Romani delineatio, Heidelberg, 1839; J. Hergenrother, in Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht, new series, xvii (1870), 208 sqq.; N. Milas, Das Kirchenrecht der morgenlandischen Kirche, p. 173, Zara, 1897.
NON-ADORANTS. See Davidis, Franciscus, §§4-5.
NON-CONFORMISTS: A term applied to the 2,000 clergymen who, in 1662, after the Restoration, left the Church of England rather than submit to the Act of Uniformity (q.v.) which required assent to the Book of Common Prayer. Later it came to apply to the Protestant dissenters and in general to those who at any period in English history, since the establishment of Protestantism, have refused to conform to the doctrines and practises of the established Church. In the place of Puritanism before the Restoration now came, after the Restoration, political non-conformity, which has its seat principally among the middle or lower-middle classes, the yeomanry of former times. The Act of Uniformity was followed by other repressive measures: in 1664, the Conventicle Act (q.v.) declaring it unlawful to be present at any religious meeting not conducted according to the usages of the Church of England where more than five persons in addition to the family were assembled; in 1665, the Five-Mile Act (q.v.) intended to banish the ministers from their friends; and, in 1673, the Test Act (q.v.), incapacitating every person from holding any public office who had not publicly taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the usages of the Church of England.
In an effort to unite the opposition to the established Church, the Roman Catholic King James II. suspended, by a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience in 1687, the execution of all penal laws in ecclesiastical matters and all tests and oaths. As a result ministers were released from jails and restored. The Toleration Actof 1689, under William III., secured to Protestant dissenters a legal existence together with freedom of worship and government under the condition of self-support. This act did not repeal the penal statutes, which were, however, no longer enforced. The benefits conferred by it were much curtailed by the Occasional Communion Act, at the accession of Queen Anne, which excluded from civil office those non-conformists who had qualified under the Test Act (q.v.); and by the Schism Bill, which restricted the work of education to certificated churchmen. These restrictions were removed under George III., and the Test Act was repealed in 1743. The non-conformists have since enjoyed religious liberty, but the agitation has continued, having for its end ecclesiastical disestablishment. In 1836, the dissenters were allowed marriage by their own ministers and rites, and the tithes were commuted
Non-conformists North African Church