Sorry we disagree. Canons law is binding on the whole church as shown in the linked posts already. No point in repeating what has already been provided in the previous posts. It is all the Councils collectively that include the collective canons of the Church...
It is true that the Council of Laodicea was a local synod but that is not relevant as all the collective Canon laws are on the books of the Roman Catholic Church so the statement you made above is misleading as the Canons developed at this synod are included in the collective Canon laws that govern universal Church.
A.D. 363-364, the Catholic Church outlawed Sabbath keeping in the Council of Laodicea when they decreed 59 Canon laws.
Canon XXIX: “
Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.” (Percival Translation).
This is an official Canon of the Catholic Church that is still on their books. The collective councils of the Roman Catholic Church after the schism and split with the Eastern Orthodox Church have collectively accumulated all the Canons regional or otherwise from the Roman Catholic Church. Though the Council of Laodicea was a regional synod the Canon laws are a part of the official collective canon laws of the Roman Catholic Church.
CANON LAW – CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA (
Catholic Answers)
As the later law of the separated Eastern Churches did not influence the Western collections, we need not treat of it, but go on to consider only the Greek collection. It begins early in the fourth century: in the different provinces of Asia Minor, to the canons of local councils are added those of the ecumenical Council of Nicaea, (325), everywhere held in esteem. The Province of Pontus furnished the penitentiary decisions of Ancyra and Neocaesarea (314); Antioch, the canons of the famous Council “in encaeniis” (341), a genuine code of metropolitan organization; Paphlagonia, that of the Council of Gangra (343), a reaction against the first excesses of asceticism; Phrygia, the fifty-nine canons of Laodicea on different disciplinary and liturgical matters. This collection was so highly esteemed that at the Council of Chalcedon (451) the canons were read as one series. It was increased later by the addition of the canons of Constantinople (381), with other canons attributed to it, those of Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), and the Apostolic canons. In 692 the Council in Trullo passed 102 disciplinary canons, the second of which enumerates the elements of the official collection: they are the texts we have just mentioned, together with the canons of Sardica, and of Carthage (419), according to Dionysius Exiguus, and numerous canonical letters of the great bishops, SS. Dionysius of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Basil, etc. If to these be added the canons of the two ecumenical councils of Nicea (787) and Constantinople (869) we have all the elements of the definitive collection in its final shape. A few “systematic” collections may be mentioned as pertaining to this period: one containing fifty titles by an unknown author about 535; another with twenty-five titles of the ecclesiastical laws of Justinian; a collection of fifty titles drawn up about 550, by John the Scholastic, a priest of Antioch. The compilations known as the “Nomocanons” are more important, because they bring together the civil laws and the ecclesiastical laws on the same subjects; the two principal are the Nomocanon, wrongly attributed to John the Scholastic, but which dates from the end of the sixth century, with fifty titles; and another, drawn up in the seventh century, and afterwards augmented by the Patriarch Photius in 883.
B. The Canonical Collections in the West to Pseudo-Isidore.—In the West canonical collections developed as in the East, but about two centuries later. At first appear collections of national or local laws, and the tendency towards centralization is partially effected in the ninth century. Towards the end of the fourth century there is yet in the West no canonical collection, not even a local one, those of the fifth century are essentially local, but all of them borrow from the Greek councils. The latter were known in the West by two Latin versions, one called the “Hispana” or “Isidorian”, because it was inserted in the Spanish canonical collection, attributed to St. Isidore of Seville, the other called the “Itala” or “ancient” (Prisca), because Dionysius Exiguus, in the first half of the sixth century, found it in use at Rome, and being dissatisfied with its imperfections improved it. Almost all the Western collections, therefore, are based on the same texts as the Greek collection, hence the marked influence of that collection on Western canon law.
(I) At the end of the fifth century the Roman Church was completely organized and the popes had promulgated many legislative texts; but no collection of them had yet been made. The only extra-Roman canons recognized were the canons of Nicasa and Sardica, the latter being joined to the former, and at times even cited as the canons of Nicaea. The Latin version of the ancient Greek councils was known, but was not adopted as ecclesiastical law. Towards the year 500 Dionysius Exiguus compiled at Rome a double collection, one of the councils, the other of decretals, i.e. papal letters. The former, executed at the request of Stephen, Bishop of Salona, is a translation of the Greek councils, including Chalcedon, and begins with the fifty Apostolic canons; Dionysius adds to it only the Latin text of the canons of Sardica and of Carthage (419), in which the more ancient African councils are partially reproduced. The second is a collection of thirty-nine papal decretals, from Siricius (384) to Anastasius II (496-98). (See Collections of Ancient Canons.) Thus joined together these two collections became the canonical code of the Roman Church, not by official approbation, but by authorized practice. But while in the work of Dionysius the collection of conciliary canons remained unchanged, that of the decretals was successively increased; it continued to incorporate letters of the different popes till about the middle of the eighth century when Adrian I gave (774) the collection of Dionysius to the future Emperor Charlemagne as the canonical book of the Roman Church. This collection, often called the “Dionysio-Hadriana”, was soon officially received in all Frankish territory, where it was cited as the “Liber Canonum”, and was adopted for the whole empire of Charlemagne at the Diet of Aachen in 802. This was an important step towards the centralization and unification of the ecclesiastical law, especially as the Latin Catholic world hardly extended beyond the limits of the empire, Africa and the south of Spain having been lost to the Church through the victories of Islam.
Hope this helps.
