Letter 82: Severus says a heretical or illegal second ordination has no force, so repentant clergy return to their lawful grade.

I was surprised when Your Holiness' letter reached us. From it I learned that the devout presbyter Gennadius of the village called Minidus was unsure what should be done with those who had undergone a spurious ordination, then cleansed themselves of those dregs by petitions of confession presented to you, and renounced in writing the strange foreign garment they thought had been put on them by heretics. Should they return to their former grade in ministry? They should show this by action: they should return to that grade and perform their sacred ministries in it. Even calling it "former" is not quite right, as though there were a second grade beside it. Since the second has no validity and is unknown to God, it is more fitting to say that they should minister in the true and only grade they legally received. No one legally ordained as a deacon can imagine himself a presbyter because of fraud or because some disowned and unlawful hand touched him. Gennadius must therefore understand clearly that those who have cast off in writing the strange and accursed laying-on of a heretical hand must be reunited by deeds, not merely by words. The kingdom of God is not in talk but in power; not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" enters the kingdom, but the one who does the will of the Father.

We were surprised when your sanctity's letter came before us, by which we learned that Gennadius the devout presbyter of the village called Minidus had any doubt whether those who have received and undergone the spurious ordination, and have purged themselves of these dregs by petitions of confession which they presented to you, and have once put off by a written legal renunciation the strange and foreign clothing in which they thought themselves to have been clothed by the heretics, ought to return to their former grade in the ministry. Therefore they must show this in deed by returning to the former grade, and in it performing their sacred ministrations, if we are not sinning in using this same expression, and mentioning "the former," as if there were a second: whereas, since the second has no validity and is unknown to God, it is more fitting to say that they ought to minister in the true and only grade, which they have legally received, there being no other at all. For no one who has been legally ordained a deacon maybe shall be able to think of himself that he is a presbyter, whether by fraud or by some disowned and illegal hand. Therefore as I said, the devout Gennadius must know clearly that it is by deeds that they ought to unite to themselves those who have cast from them in writing the strange and accursed laying on of a heretical hand, if "the kingdom of God is not in word but in power," and not he that says "Lord, Lord!" but he that does the will of the heavenly Father enters into the kingdom of heaven.