1. Notion. In the wider sense one understands under the term “Commandments of the Church” all the general precepts of the Church’s pastoral office which define in the concrete the divine law in view of the salvation of the faithful (canon law). They must be distinguished from the instructions which may be imparted by the ecclesiastical superiors to particular members of the faithful. Taken in the strict sense, however, the commandments of the Church grew up in the Middle Ages, in association with confessional practice, out of obligatory ecclesiastical custom. Under the influence of the Su…