Until 1928, patriarchal elections were carried out according to oral and written Church tradition. The patriarchal election of 1928 was the first in modern history to invoke written bylaws. The elections of 1928, 1942 and 1946 inspired controversy by pitting relatively young monks versus older, more experienced bishops. Supporters of each group argued that the other should be disqualified: the advocates of the younger monks claimed that the bishops were wedded to their dioceses for life and that their election to the patriarchate would lead to an unnatural divorce of bishop and diocese, while the bishops' partisans countered that a bishop might continue to provide diocesan pastoral care from the apostolic throne, while observing that the pastoral experience of the more seasoned bishops would be indispensable to the patriarchate of the entire church; they further noted that the patriarchs of every other apostolic church, such as those of the Greek, Russian and Catholic churches, were nearly always bishops or abbots prior to election.