Church. How to deal with the many apostates at the time of the persecution of Decius constituted a problem. They were known as the lapsi (the fallen). Those who, on the contrary, confessed their faith in Christ and were therefore condemned were referred to as "confessors". Those condemned to death on that charge were called "martyrs" from the Greek word meaning "witness", having given witness unto death. "The martyrs' and confessors' sufferings were credited with the power of compensating the sin of the lapsi", To them the lapsi turned to obtain speedy reconciliation, "utilising for their benefit the merits accumulated by the heroism of the confessors". The Church authorities, especially from the 3rd century on, allowed the intercession of confessors to shorten the time of penance to be undergone by those who sought forgiveness. A priest or deacon could reconcile lapsi in danger of death on the basis of a martyr's letter of indulgence, but in general the intervention of the higher church authority, the bishop, was required. "Officeholders, not charismatic individuals, were to have the final say on admission to the Church's assemblies." Remission of penance The 314 Council of Ancyra witnessed in its canons 2, 5 and 16 to the power of the bishops to grant indulgence, by reducing the period of penance to be performed, to lapsi who showed they were sincerely repentant. The Council of Epaone in 517 shows the rise of the practice of replacing a severe older canonical penance with a new milder penance: its 29th canon reduced to two years the penance that apostates were to undergo on their return to the Church, but obliged them to fast once every three days during those two years, to come frequently to church and take their place at the penitents' door, and to leave church with the catechumens before the Eucharistic part commenced. Any who objected to the new arrangement were to observe the much longer ancient penance. It became customary to commute penances to less demanding works, such as prayers, alms, fasts and even the payment of fixed sums of money depending on the various kinds of offenses (tariff penances). By the 10th century some penances were not replaced by other penances but were simply reduced in connection with pious donations, pilgrimages and similar meritorious works. Then, in the 11th and 12th centuries, the recognition of the value of these works began to become