The Angelici and Laodicea: Theodoret on praying to angels in Phrygia and Pisidia
What kind of religion toward angels those false Christians had, whom the ancients called Angelici, we can learn from the Synod of Laodicea. One of its canons was taken into the Code of Canons of the Universal Church: "Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God and go off to name angels and hold assemblies, which is forbidden."
What "naming angels" meant to that council Theodoret explains in his commentary on the Epistle to the Colossians, on the very passage we are pressing. "Those who defended the law," he says, "also led people to worship angels, saying that the law had been given through them. This vice lasted a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia. That is why the synod that met at Laodicea in Phrygia forbade by law that anyone pray to angels. And to this day one can see oratories of Saint Michael among them and their neighbors. They urged this practice out of humility, as they claimed, saying that the God of all things cannot be seen or reached or grasped, and that we ought to win God's goodwill for ourselves through angels."
Latin
LXXXVI. Quaenam autem esset istorum pseudochristianorum, qui veteribus Angelici dicti sunt, erga Angelos Religio, colligere possumus ex Synodo Laodiceno: cujus reperitur hic Canon Codici Canonum Ecclesiae Universae insertus. Quod non oportet Christianos Ecclesiam Dei relinquere, & abire, & Angelos nominare, & Congregationes facere, quod est prohibitum. Quid vero sit, ex mente istius concilii, Angelos nominare, explicat Theodoretus in Epistolam ad Colossenses scribens, & locum illum quem urgemus exponens. Qui legem, inquit, defendebant, eos etiam ad Angelos colendos inducebant, dicentes legem fuisse per eos datam: Mansit autem perdiu hoc vitium in Phrygia & Pisidia. Proinde Synodus quae convenit apud Laodiceam Phrygiae, lege prohibuit ne precarentur Angelos. Et in hodiernum usque diem oratoria Sancti Michaelis apud illos illorumque finitimos videre est. Illi ergo humilitate nimirum ducti hoc fieri suadebant, dicentes universorum Deum nec cerni, nec attingi, nec comprehendi posse; & oportere per Angelos divinam sibi benevolentiam conciliare.