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Donatrists
This North African sect believe that
the efficacy of a sacrament depended upon the spiritual state of the priest
administrating it. The orthodoxy answer to this position was that the sacrament
was sacred within itself and independent of the spirituality of its administrator.
This heresy had to be stopped quickly because upon it rested the entire
edifice of the Church for there was no possible certainty as to the spirituality
of priests. Consequently, the Church had to declare even heretics could
administer the sacraments. A.G.H.
Source: 55.