between husband and wife was penanced more severely than sodomy between unmarried males (eight years of exclusion from communion rather than just four). Mutual masturbation, regardless whether it was between members of the same sex or not, was penanced with 80 days exclusion from communion. It shows that a) not only extra-marital sex is considered sinful but also certain sexual practies within marriage and b) that the same-sex aspect in sodomy is mitigating rather than aggravating relatively to a marital sodomy. This is because committing sodomy inside marrigage was considered not only as a depravation of sex, but also of marriage; while a sodomy outside marriage only had the former problem and not the latter. References Attribution cites: Jacques Paul Migne reproduces the Penitential, the Instructions for Confession, and the Homily on Penitence in Patrologia Graeca lxxxviii. 1089. Baronius, ad. ann. 588–593 Acta Sanctorum (Bollandist) August 1, p. 69 Fleury, ii. bk. xxxiv. c. 44, etc. Ceillier, xi. 427, etc. Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. xi. 108, xii. 239. Dokos, G., Exomologetarion – A Manual of Confessions by our Righteous God-bearing Father Nikodemos the Hagiorite, 2006, Thessalonica, Uncut Mountain Press Agapius & Nicodemus, The Rudder (Pedalion) – All the Sacred and Divine Canons, 1957, The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, Chicago External links Orthodox icon and synaxarion 595 deaths 6th-century patriarchs of Constantinople 6th-century Christian saints Year of birth unknown