The fragment of the First Canonical Epistle of Basil the Great to Amphilochios of Iconium, which quotes the decision of the local council of Carthage of 256, according to which not only heretics but also schismatics are received into ecclesiastical communion exclusively through baptism, has been interpreted by various canonists in different ways, although it is clear from the context of the letter, as well as from the general context of his ecclesiology, that Basil the Great is only paraphrasing the said decision, that is, he does not present it as his own ecclesiological and canonical position. Thus the Byzantine canonist Zonaras interprets the fragment correctly, and a similar conclusion can be drawn indirectly from Balsamon’s and Aristinos’ commentaries. Nicodemos Milash interprets it literally (as the personal canonical opinion of St Basil), while St Nicodemos the Hagiorite in the Pedalion comments on it correctly in the main text of the interpretation, i.e. he treats it as a neutral historical testimony of the ecclesiology of the Councils of Carthage, but in additional notes he also presents it as the personal opinion of St Basil. The possible reasons for this contradiction are the following: 1. the peculiarity of the epistolary style, which allows for a gradual clarification of the author’s position as the correspondence progresses; 2. the incomplete syntactic transparency of the author’s narration and, finally, 3. the fact that St Nicodemus was not necessarily the author of all the commentaries of the Pedalion, which he had nominally signed.