CODE OF EASTERN CANON LAW. - As with the codification of Latin canon law, so too for the compilation of a C. of o. c. l., proposals were put forward in the preparatory meetings of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, and specifically in the VI Congress of the commission for the missions and the Oriental Churches, on the basis of the wishes expressed also by some Oriental prelates. And Pius IX on 1 Aug. 1858 had already charged the Benedictine G. B. Pitra, later a cardinal, with collecting the texts of the sources of Oriental canon law; and he had also entrusted the same task to the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide pro negotiis ritus orientalis, in the apostolic letter of 6 Jan. 1862, with which he established it.
Meanwhile requests reached the Holy See from various quarters that it proceed to the codification of Oriental canon law, requests that became particularly pressing after the promulgation of the CIC. In Dec. 1929 Pope Pius XI established a commission of four cardinals (presided over by Card. Pietro Gasparri) for the preparatory studies of the Oriental codification (AAS, 21 [1929], p. 669); the commission was assisted by experts (jurists and historians), particularly competent in the various Orientalist subjects, most of whom were Orientals (delegated by their respective Ordinaries), belonging to the various rites.
At the same time the Holy See took care that Oriental canon law should become known to a greater number of scholars, introducing into the faculties of canon law, as an optional subject, Ius ecclesiasticum orientale, entrusted to teachers of particular specific competence (cf. S. Congr. de Seminaris et studiorum Universitatis, Ordinationes, 12 June 1931, art. 27 and app. I; AAS, 23 [1931], p. 282).
In 1935 a new cardinalitial commission was established, with the task of preparing the drafts of the C. and finally, taking into account the opinions sent by the Ordinaries, of drafting the C. itself (v. COMMISSIONI PONTIFICE, n. 3).
The work of codification is by now almost completed; and so far 33 vols. of sources used for this work have been published (v. COMMISSIONI PONTIFICE, n. 3).
Similarly to what was done during the work for the codification of Latin canon law (v. CODEX IURIS CANONICI), it seems that the practice is to be followed of promulgating some first fruits also of the C. of o. c. l.: in fact, with the motu proprio « Crebrae allatae » of 22 Febr. 1949 (AAS, 41 [1949], pp. 89-119) all the norms on marriage have in the meantime been published, which entered into force on the following 2 May (in them, as can be seen from an examination of their text, the CIC has been used to a large extent, especially as regards legislative technique).
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