Введение

§ 1. The concept of the church and church law Church law owes its origin and development to the world-historical fact of the emergence and spread of the Christian religion in the world, which united its followers into a special social union, to which the name of the church exclusively belongs. We say: exclusively, because the concept of the church as a religious union, completely different from all other human unions, was adopted by consciousness and penetrated into the life of peoples only together with Christianity. Pre-Christian antiquity knew neither a religion estranged from nationality, nor a religious union distinct from the state. How many nations, “languages” there were, so many religions, which therefore, that is, as natural national, as expressions of a special religious worldview characteristic of this or that people, are very expressively called pagan in our Slavic Bible. Religion, as well as language, was the main distinguishing feature of nationalities in ancient times and, together, the predominant element in the spiritual and social life of peoples. Primitive states in the east had the character of theocracies: the will of the national gods ruled here the entire social life of the people, dictated laws through the mouths of priests, and resolved issues of right and wrong. Thus, religious and political life rested on the same foundations, religion and law were one and the same. But the political genius of the European peoples of antiquity, especially the Romans, created, in contrast to eastern theocracies, a secular, purely legal state, in which religion was no longer the dominant, but a service element, subordinate to state interests and goals. Rome, conquering peoples, also conquered their gods, to whom during the empire, that is, during the era of the emergence and spread of Christianity in the world, it just as willingly gave a place in its pantheon as it gave the conquered peoples the right of Roman citizenship. The Pantheon was a kind of state museum, which was supposed to testify to the greatness of world-power Rome. In political matters, it was considered necessary to make sacrifices to the national and subjugated gods and perform other public religious rituals, but at the same time, the motto of every educated Roman at the end of the republic and the beginning of the empire was: nil credere. According to this emancipation of the civil order from the religious in the Roman state, religion in Christianity is the absolute beginning of human life, freed from narrow forms of nationality and statehood. Here, in Christianity, God ceases to be a national deity, the state does not, as before, absorb the entire personality and entire spiritual life of a person; on the contrary, in the new religion, individuals acquire such ideas, views and feelings, due to which they no longer recognize themselves as Hellenes, Romans, Jews or members of some other nation, but as brothers in faith, children of one common Heavenly Father. This very universal character of the Christian religion already proves that it is not the result of the natural historical development of any of the national religions of the ancient world, but represents a miracle in world history. True, the Originator of Christianity, if we look at him from a general historical point of view, belonged to the Jewish people; but He preached such a religious teaching to his compatriots that his own people did not know it and executed Him with a shameful death, as a destroyer of the national revealed law. It also seems like a miracle in history that the first preachers of Christianity outside of Judea, the personal disciples of Jesus Christ, were nothing more than simple fishermen, and yet they, in a relatively short time, managed to find numerous followers everywhere they went with their preaching about the crucified God-man Christ, the Savior of the world, the Founder of the kingdom of God on earth, although this preaching was a temptation for the Jews, and for the Hellenes, that is, all educated pagans are foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23). Finally, it is a miracle in the history of mankind that we must recognize the fact that the Christian religion, despite the bloody persecution to which its followers were subjected by the state authorities of omnipotent Rome, in some three centuries after its emergence became dominant in this very Rome. Thus, the prediction of one of Christ’s disciples, expressed by him as if in view of the already accomplished triumph of the Christian religion throughout the world, was fulfilled: this is the victory that has conquered the world - our faith (1 John 5:4). The more the pagan state armed itself against it, the more powerfully it acted on the minds and hearts of its contemporaries. For “the blood of the martyrs, according to the apt expression of one of the Christian writers at the end of Art. 2, became the seed of new Christians.” The Divine Author of the Christian religion himself called the society of his followers a church (ἐκκληςἰα): I will build my church (Matthew 16:18). This creation was the completion of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and consisted in the fact that He gave the church, in the person of His Apostles, the first spiritual hierarchy, namely, He invested them with threefold spiritual authority - to be preachers of the faith throughout the world (and not in Judea alone, where the Divine Teacher Himself acted), to give believers grace-filled forces and means for their spiritual revival and renewal, and to guide them in life by faith (Matt. 28: 19–20; Mark 16:15). At the same time, the Apostles received from their Lord a promise that He would remain with them, that is, with His church, until the end of time. This means, of course, that the apostolic ministry in the church must continue throughout its earthly existence. This is how the Divine will is expressed to establish a permanent church hierarchy, originating and receiving its powers through the act of sacred ordination established by the apostles. The preaching of the Apostles about the crucified and risen Redeemer of the world began on the 50th day after His resurrection and on the 10th after His ascension into heaven, when they, endued with power from above (Luke 24:49), captive to the obedience of the faith of Christ about three thousand souls from the Jews and proselytes of various tribes of Judaism, who came to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost from different countries of the then known world. (Acts chapter 2). This was the birthday of the church, on which it, along with the gifts of the Holy Spirit who descended on the Apostles, received the main features of its future permanent structure: the Apostles, with their extraordinary spiritual powers, represented the original church hierarchy, and the converts on the day of the first Christian Pentecost were the first community of simple believers (laity). Then, when the Apostles, according to the commandment of the Lord, preached the gospel to almost all countries of the then known world and founded societies of believers in Christ everywhere, the need arose to establish a church hierarchy with the character of a permanent institution. Namely: the Apostles, not being able to personally edify in the faith each of the Christian societies they founded, placed at the head of them special primates with those parts of their spiritual authority in which, in the essence and purpose of the church, lies the full power of the spiritual hierarchy, as a permanent institution that has to remain in the church and with the church, according to the promise of the Lord, until the end of the ages. Therefore, the method adopted by the Apostles of ordaining their successors in individual Christian societies - the mysterious act of ordination (χειροτονἰα) - should be considered as a divine institution, appointed for the continuous continuation of the apostolic ministry in the church, since it was manifested in the actions of their threefold authority: as teachers of the faith, as distributors of the grace-filled gifts of faith and as leaders of the Christian society in the life of faith. On this unshakable foundation of its structure and with these spiritual powers, the church, under the invisible supremacy of its Divine Founder, fulfills its saving mission in the world to this day and will fulfill it until the end of centuries with such a power that even the gates of hell will not prevail (Matthew 16:18). So, the church for believers in Jesus Christ is directly a divine institution, in which and through which the idea of ​​the kingdom of God on earth is realized in the human race, that is, the true knowledge of God is communicated to people and grace-filled forces and means are given to their spiritual revival, to bringing their will into agreement with the will of God and to achieving the ultimate goal of the Christian religion - the unity of man with God in eternal life. This is a dogmatic concept of the Church, constituting one of the members of the Christian confession of faith, in which the following properties of the church are indicated: 1) it is one, because the Christian religion is one, the one that Jesus Christ and His Apostles preached and which, as Divine Revelation, is devoted to the church for unchangeable (therefore, infallible) preservation for all times; 2) the church is holy, because it comes from God and has the goal of sanctifying man, i.e. making him like God; 3) the church is universal, because its Divine Founder proclaimed His religion and made His atoning sacrifice for the salvation of the entire human race as long as it exists; and 4) the church is apostolic, because it derives its hierarchy from the Apostles and from them received the fundamental principles of its structure. In the stated dogmatic concept of the church, both its internal, invisible being and its external, visible being are indicated. As a union based on religious faith, the action of which is directed primarily to the inner side of a person, to his soul, the church appears to be an invisible, spiritual union of believers in Jesus Christ. This inner being of the church was pointed out by its Founder Himself, calling it the kingdom of God, located within believers (Luke 17:21) and a kingdom not of this world (John 18:36). But at the same time, the church, as a human union, is the kingdom of God in this world, which means it is a visible phenomenon in the external social life of mankind. With this side of her being she is placed in the general conditions of human life, arising from the natural properties of human nature. And the nature of man, as a spiritual-physical being, is such that his inner, spiritual life, set in motion by the phenomena of the external world, itself manifests itself outwardly, that is, it is expressed in his words and actions. On the other hand, both the spiritual and physical powers of individual human beings (individuals) are extremely limited. Hence the need for people to live together, for which they were given the gift of speech. Only in society with other people, in the combination of many individual forces for a common goal, does a person receive the fullest possible satisfaction of the needs of his nature and achieve the perfection possible for him. All this is repeated in the external life of the church. Namely: the Christian religion, as an objective divine revelation, having been assimilated by the living subjective faith of man and having become the dominant principle of his spiritual life, by natural necessity is expressed by him externally, that is, in the external confession of faith and in the external life of faith. And since the need for such an expression of inner faith is equally inherent in all believers, an external union must be established between them for common external 6th veneration and for strengthening the weakest in the faith with the fraternal help of those who have achieved great perfection in it or who are directly called to edify others in the faith and to guide them to life according to faith. We already know that the spiritual Christian hierarchy has such a calling, originating from the apostles of Christ and, therefore, existing in the church jure divino. It serves as the center of external communication between believers and the fundamental basis of the structure of the church as a whole. The external life of the church, as an organized whole, necessarily presupposes the existence in it of a certain order, consistent with its internal being and life purpose. With this order, the church enters the field of law, and, moreover, in two ways: 1) as the bearer of its own law, i.e. those norms of one’s life that have their basis in the very essence of the church and which determine its internal legal relations; and 2) as a social union existing in the world along with other human unions, political and religious, and, therefore, necessarily entering into certain relations with them. The norms or desirable rules that determine these and other relations of the church constitute church law in the objective sense, which, according to the difference in these relations, is divided into internal and external; in the subjective sense, church law is the totality of powers and duties of individual members of church society in relation to each other and to the church as a whole, as well as this whole – in relation to its individual members and to other human unions. § 2. Titles of church law Church law is otherwise called canon law. This last name comes from the Greek word κανών, which in the original (material) sense meant any instrument for drawing straight lines or for leveling planes; in a later and figurative sense it received the meaning of a model, a rule (regula); finally, in church terminology, the first example of which is found in one of the letters of the Apostle Paul (Galat. 6: 15, 16), this word came to mean the rule of Christian faith and life and in particular the disciplinary decrees of church councils, in contrast, on the one hand, to dogmatic conciliar definitions (δροι, δόγματα), on the other, to secular or civil laws ( νόμοι, leges). It should be noted that in Western European literature the names of our subject: canonical and church law have different meanings. The first is assimilated to the law contained in the medieval Corpus juris canonici of the Catholic Church and consists of norms defining not only ecclesiastical, but also other legal relations, which during the Middle Ages were the subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. A system of church law, dogmatically built on the basis of the Corpus juris canonici in its entirety, will be a system of canon law, that is, it will contain law only in ecclesiastical origin, and not in content. On the contrary, ecclesiastical law is that which has as its subject exclusively matters and relations purely ecclesiastical, even though it originates not only from the church, but also from the state. The relationship of both rights, according to Richter’s witty remark, can be imagined in the image of two mutually intersecting circles, so that each of them is partly wider, partly narrower than the other. An Orthodox and, in particular, a Russian canonist can indifferently give his subject both names. In the Orthodox East, law, ecclesiastical in origin, and in the content of its norms has always been ecclesiastical. If even there the church sometimes entered, as the determining authority, into the area of ​​secular, worldly law, then it never attached fundamental importance to its legislative activity in this area; on the other hand, the Orthodox Church has never fundamentally denied the right of secular Christian authorities to take part in the formation of not only external, but also internal church law - under the condition, of course, that the secular legislator acts here in the same way as the church itself would act, that is, in full agreement with the fundamental principles of church law and on the basis or, at least, in the spirit of the positive canons of the ancient Ecumenical Church. Given this condition, the Eastern Orthodox Church did not believe in an internal, fundamental difference between its κανόνες and state νόμοι. Hence, practical collections of sources of church law received the name Νομοκανες in the east, since they contained both church rules and laws of secular authorities on church affairs. Thus, if we call our subject canon law, then by this name we will indicate the dominant and defining element in church law, which consists of the canons of the ancient Ecumenical Church, which serve as the criterion and basis for the current law of all Orthodox autocephalous churches. If we give it the name of ecclesiastical law, then we will indicate the exclusive content of its norms and thereby distinguish it not from canonical law, but from any other - non-ecclesiastical law. The last name deserves preference only because of its common usage and general intelligibility. § 3. The nature of church law Church law, as the outer shell of church life, of course, must correspond to the internal essence and vital purpose of the church itself. And since the church, by its nature and purpose, is completely different from all other human unions and, above all, from the state, which is considered to be the most important (if not exclusive) sphere of education of law in its pure form, this raises the question: is the formal concept of law applicable to church law in general? In other words, is church law really law in its proper, i.e., generally accepted, sense of the word? The answer can only be yes, albeit with some limitations. Firstly, church law, in an objective sense, is the external order of a special social organism that embodies a specific and necessary life goal. Let this goal relate exclusively to the inner, spiritual life of a person, where only religion, and not law, can extend its action; nevertheless, if this goal unites people into a special organized union and places them in certain external relations with each other, then all the conditions necessary for the formation of law are present. Ubi societas, ibi jus. Secondly, the norms of this law, as an imperative for the external activities of church members in relation to each other and to the entire church, are as different from the moral precepts of the Christian religion as law is generally different from morality: the former relate to the external actions of members of the church society, the latter to the internal motives of these actions. The ecclesiastical legal norm defines, for example, a certain punishment for an established relationship with someone else’s wife, calling this relationship adultery; and the religious and moral law points to the inner side of this crime, namely to say: “Whoever looks at another man’s wife with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28). Thirdly, the laws of the church order, as of the public order, establish the same boundaries for the activities of individual members of church society as are necessary in the legal order in general, and violation of these rules is accompanied by the same reaction from the established guardians of order, as in any well-ordered human union. In a word, church law, just like any other, has the character of compulsion, in the sense that it rises above private will and acts on it with the force of necessity. Of course, the church itself cannot physically coerce in the same way that the state forces people to carry out their laws. Nevertheless, it also has a kind of coercive and punitive power, with which it acts against its individual members who violate the general order of church life. This cannot be doubted if we take into account that the church has at its exclusive disposal certain rights and benefits, which, therefore, it can also take away, for example, the rights of clergy, the right of each member of the church to perform certain church acts for him, etc. The existence of such compulsory laws in the church does not in any way contradict the Christian teaching about free will: for whoever recognizes himself as a member of the church, thereby expresses his will and assumes the obligation to obey its laws and observe the order existing in it. There is not and cannot be any compulsion to join the church, but whoever already belongs to it must necessarily obey its laws, since they are based on the positive divine will and are set by conditions, under which only it is possible for individuals to achieve the goal that opens up for them in the church union. Thus, the coercive power of ecclesiastical legal norms does not arise from the simple necessity of ecclesiastical order, but from the position of individuals in this order. He exists not for himself, not for the church as a whole, but for what the church itself exists for, that is, to provide its individual members, for whom the blood of the God-Man was shed, with the opportunity to achieve their religious goal. Hence it is obvious that in church law, in contrast to secular law, the moments of external coercion and internal personal freedom completely coincide. § 4. The position of church law in the whole system of law If church law includes all the formal, logical aspects from which the concept of law in general is composed, then it is self-evident that it should be included in the whole system of law and occupy a certain place in it. Which one exactly? In resolving this issue, learned lawyers, i.e., authors of legal encyclopedias, differ significantly among themselves. Adhering to the traditional Roman division of law into two branches: public and private, the newest learned jurists attribute church law either to the first or to the second, or divide it into two parts and classify one as private law and the other as public law. None of these opinions can be considered correct. Lawyers who completely attribute church law to public law, i.e., looking at it as a special part of state law, obviously follow the example of Roman jurists, who defined the scope of public law in this way: Publicum jus in sacris, in sacerdotibus, in magistratibus consistit. But what is true of the Roman sacra publica, which really were part of the state order, the same cannot be said of the Christian religion and church. Christianity, by its origin, is not anyone’s national religion, and the church is not a state institution. On the contrary, history teaches us that a complete system of original church law developed even in those times when the state (namely the Roman Empire) ignored the church or even directly persecuted it as an illicit association (collegium illicitum). This fact clearly expressed the essential property of church law that the binding force of its norms for church members is affirmed, in the final instance, on divine, and not on human, authority. The state can only recognize or not recognize the validity of church legal norms in its sphere, but for full members of the church these norms remain binding even without state sanction. In a word, internal church law, that by which purely ecclesiastical relations are determined, is the creation of the church itself, and not the state, and, therefore, cannot be part of state law; the question of the position of the church in the sphere of secular law is a different matter. Here the church is completely and entirely dependent on the state, which may or may not recognize it as a public corporation. So, in order to correctly judge the relationship of church law to state law, one must constantly keep in mind the difference between the internal and external law of the church. Recognizing the complete independence of the first, we do not at all limit the natural and necessary rights of the state regarding the church, and do not place it above the state or in international relations with it. The Church, in accordance with its essence and purpose, embraces a person on a religious, and not a political principle, after all. it cannot be a state within a state, nor a union that, pursuing the same goals as the state, would enter into international relations with it. These two great unities - church and state - cannot coincide even if all peoples became members of one political whole and all belonged to one church. The Church, even in this state union, would still remain a kingdom not of this world, that is, a union pursuing goals inaccessible and unusual for the state. For the same reason, it is impossible to subordinate church law, under the general heading of public law, to state and international law. The affinity between them is only purely formal, since all the named departments of law have the character of publicity. But by its internal nature, church law is equally different from state law and international law. The action of state law is limited to a certain territory, while church law can and does operate regardless of the borders of states and nationalities. We are no longer talking about the Catholic Church, which has a center of unity in the person of the Pope; its members and institutions are located in all countries of the world. Let us point out our Russian church, some parts of which are located in Japan and the North American United States. Finally, both in its primary sources, in its nature and in the sanction of its norms, church law is completely different from state law. The Church derives its right from the positive revelations of the Divine will and on it asserts the binding force of its own prescriptions, as a result of which the fundamental principles of church law remain unchanged for all times and among all peoples. On the contrary, the state law of any people is entirely a product of its history and is subject to the same changes as the life of the people themselves. Apparently, church law has more in common with international law, since both of them strive to embrace all of humanity through their action. But the connection between peoples established by the church is far from being like any other international unions. The latter are established by treaties and last only as long as the peoples concerned wish or find it possible to remain in a contractual relationship among themselves. These unions do not and cannot have an external organization, like a church or a state, because otherwise they would turn into one union state. Finally, international unions are as different in their goals from the church as they are from the state. It is impossible to attribute church law to private law, as some lawyers do (for example, Falk in his “Legal Encyclopedia”) on the basis that religion is a matter of conscience, and not external state coercion, and therefore is a private matter. Of course, from the point of view of Christianity there is and cannot be any compulsion to religious beliefs; but it does not in any way follow from this that the church, with its right, stands in the area of ​​private law and personal arbitrariness. The Church is a private society only relatively, that is, in relation to persons who do not belong to it and can belong only by free self-determination, and in relation to the state, which does not recognize it as a public corporation. In itself and for those who share its faith, it is always and necessarily a public institution. Its structure, purpose, means are higher than private arbitrariness; they are given along with her, in her very being. In this sense, the sign with which Roman jurists distinguished public law from private law can be applied to church law: jus publicum privatorum pactis mutari non potest. Finally, we also need to consider the view according to which church law relates partly to public law and partly to private law. This view is expressed with particular clarity and distinctness by Marezoll in his “Institutions of Rome. rights." “Every person, says Marezoll, according to his beliefs, is part of one or another religious community. From here arise more or less unique religious relations. These relations sometimes coincide completely with all other relations in the state, namely, where there is a completely national religion. Thus, among the Romans jus sacrum is classified as jus romanum publicum. Where there is no such identification of the interests of the state with the interests of religions, it is in the newest states that the relationship of believers to their religious community, the church, forms a special right - ecclesiastical law. Church law, since we are talking about the relationship of the church to the state, is, however, part of state law. But since it also affects the interests of individuals and modifies them, it also applies to private law. Everything else in church law lies on the border between private and public law” (Russian Translation, pp. 5 and 6, § 4). From the point of view from which the author stands, his reasoning is correct. Church law, if you look at it from the outside, that is, from the point of view of secular law, and if you divide the latter into public and private, contains elements related to both the first and the second. But - as Marezoll himself rightly noted - the entire content of church law does not fit into this scheme, so that there remains something in it that lies on the border between private and public law. And this “something”, which does not fit under the rubric of public and private law existing in states, constitutes an essential element in church law, which permeates its entire system and gives it a character distinct from any other law. What general conclusion should we draw from the analysis of all the above views? Obviously, church law is a special, independent branch of law, which cannot be classified as either private or public. It is united with them only in the external concept of law in general. Until the systematics of various branches of law is raised to indisputable philosophical principles, until then we have the right to remain in the view of medieval civilists and canonists, who, bearing in mind the difference in the sources and subjects of private and public law on the one hand, and canonical law on the other, did not find another, higher principle for dividing the entire system of law and, in accordance with this, divided all law, in the final instance, into jus civile (civil law, i.e., secular, secular in general) and jus canonicum (canonical, ecclesiastical law). § 5. The science of church law and its relationship to theological and legal sciences Because of this independent meaning, church law constitutes the subject of a special legal science, which shares its name. In its content, the science of church law is, however, in close connection with the theological sciences. Thus, from dogmatic theology it takes the basic concepts of the church, its goals and means, from moral theology it borrows the truths of Christian morality, in which the spirit and motives of church legal norms are revealed; Church history introduces us to the facts under the influence of which this or that ecclesiastical legal norm arose or an entire canonical institution was formed. But all these borrowings from theological sciences do not change the nature of our science as legal science. It deals exclusively with the law of the church, and subordinates all purely theological elements in its content to the legal point of view, expounding them only from the legal side. Let's explain this with a few examples. The dogmatic concept of the Church as the spiritual kingdom of God on earth, in which the will of God prevails and the mysterious forces of divine grace operate, is not included in the range of subjects to be considered in the science of church law. The latter deals with the church as an external human union, which has its own special organization and stands in certain relationships with other human unions. Two more examples. The doctrine of the sacrament of baptism, precisely as a sacrament, that is, a grace-filled means of spiritual rebirth of a person, belongs to dogmatic theology, and not to church law, for this internal action of baptism is not subject to external observation and cannot be legally proven. For the law, baptism is a way of entry into church society and the basis of general church legal capacity. From this point of view, in the science of church law we can only talk about the conditions for the validity of the act of baptism. Likewise, the dogmatic teaching about the church hierarchy, about the spiritual authority that is imparted to hierarchical persons through the sacrament of ordination, has no place in the science of law, because the very act of ordination or consecration is purely religious, and it can never be proven externally whether the ordained person has actually received spiritual gifts associated with the concept of the sacrament. Therefore, ordination, as a sacrament, is not included in the field of law, but is considered here as the only legal way to enter the hierarchy: from a legal point of view, it creates for the ordained a new position in the church, gives him new rights, imposes new responsibilities on him. So, the presence of theological elements in our science does not in the least prevent it from remaining a legal science in the strict sense of the word. But its connection with jurisprudence is not only formal, consisting in the subordination of all its content to a legal point of view, but also material, established, in many respects, by the unity of content. We have already seen that the church, as a social organism, is necessarily included in the sphere of law of those states in which it exists. From here it borrows all its external law, which determines its relations as a public corporation. True, by its nature, by the basic principles of its structure, it is a kingdom not of this world, but by its external position, by the conditions of its earthly existence, it is a kingdom in this world, and from this side it is subject to the action of worldly, state law. Therefore, neither historical nor dogmatic study of church law is possible without familiarity with the law of those states with which the church has had or is dealing. In particular, this must be said about Roman and Greco-Roman or Byzantine law, under the influence of which, from the era of the establishment of the union of church and state, i.e., from the beginning of the 4th to the end of the 9th century, the strongest forms of external church organization took shape and the most important ecclesiastical legal institutions developed. For its part, the church so powerfully influenced the legal views of those peoples among whom it was established that the scientific development of positive law in any of the Christian states would have been unsuccessful without familiarity with canon law. Let us now trace the most important phases of the development of our science and present in a brief outline the history of its literature. § 6. Historical outline of the development of the science of church law Initially, knowledge of church law was acquired practically, with the help of private collections of its sources. The first experiments in free mental activity on these sources consisted of their systematic presentation, in subsuming individual ecclesiastical legal norms under certain headings, which indicated their general content. Then, short explanatory notes (scholia, glosses) began to be added to the text of some norms, relating either to individual sayings or to well-known passages in a given source. A further step in the development of these exegetical experiments was extensive interpretations of the entire composition of collections generally accepted in practice, containing sources of church law. In the Greek east, such interpretations appeared in the 12th century. They belong to three authorized Greek canonists of the indicated era - Alexei Aristinus, John Zonaras and Theodore Balsamon. Along with interpreters of the text of sources, special treatises on various issues of church law appeared. The purpose of all such work was purely practical. It consisted of explaining the true meaning of the sources and applying them to specific cases of modern life. But further successes of church jurisprudence in the east were stopped in the middle of the 15th century. the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the infidel Turks. The development of the science of church law in the Catholic West proceeded differently. Here the cradle of this science was the famous law school in Bologna, which arose at the end of the 11th century. This school was engaged in the actual development of Roman law according to the codification of Justinian, which then received the name Corpus juris civilis. But since Roman law, under the influence of the church, changed significantly and acted in the Middle Ages only in the form in which it was accepted by the church, the lawyers of the Bolognese school soon had to realize the need to become familiar with church law. This need was satisfied by the first system of church law, which appeared around the middle of the 12th century. in the same Bologna and owned by the local monk Gratian. The latter called his canonical compilation Concordantia discordantium canonum, but in the language of the school it soon received the name Decree. Gratian built his system on the model of Justinian's Institutes, namely, he divided all the ecclesiastical legal material at his disposal into three sections, according to the scheme: personae, res, actiones. But the connection between Gratian’s Decree and Roman law was not only formal, but also material. His compilation contains a huge mass of extracts from the sources of Roman civil law, as valid in the ecclesiastical sphere. This is explained by the fact that throughout the Middle Ages, the Roman Church in its worldly affairs was exclusively guided by Roman law, that is, it determined its purely legal relations in all the new German states that arose from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire. Hence the general position of the then public law: Ecclesia jure romano vivit. This is not enough: realizing the high advantages of Roman law in comparison with the crude legal views and customs of the Germanic peoples, the church in the West strenuously strived to implement Roman law in the life of these peoples that it had converted to Christianity. To a certain extent, she achieved this in the era of the full development of the Holy Roman Empire she created, when Roman law in the minds of the peoples that were part of this empire acquired the meaning of universal civil law. But, as noted above, this new Roman law in many respects was not the same as that contained in Justinian’s codification. It changed significantly and was transformed under the influence of German legal views and customs, mainly due to the fact that these views and customs were adopted by the church. Thus, the dogmatic construction of many of the institutions of this new Roman law required familiarity with canonical morals. This is the reason why Gratian's Decree, soon after its publication, was accepted by the Bologna law school and became the subject of the same scientific works as the Corpus juris civilis. Lawyers who studied both types of law with equal success began to receive the title of doctor juris utriusque. The scientific development of church law according to the Decree of Gratian and later collections of sources of church law, according to papal decretals, which together with the Decree received the name Corpus juris canonici, was carried out in exactly the same way as the development of Roman law; it was in the margins or between the lines of manuscripts containing the text of the sources that explanatory notes (glosses) were written to their individual places. The gloss, once accepted by the school, forever remained with the text of the sources and served, as it were, as a theme for further work in the same direction. This is how individual church-legal institutions were developed, which formed the subject of special treatises, from which complete dogmatic systems of church law were then compiled, modeled on the Gratian Decree, which in turn followed, as stated above, the scheme of the Justinian Institutions. Following the method of the Bolognese glossators, canon law was developed in other European universities, mainly in Paris and Montpellier. Since the 15th century, since the era of the renaissance of sciences, experiments have been made to critically develop the history of the sources of church law and its individual institutions. The most important result of the work undertaken in this direction was the discovery of a mass of forgeries contained in the famous collection of False Isidore's decretals. This, of course, significantly undermined the authority of church law and papal authority. But the strongest blow to both was dealt by Luther’s church reform. It is known that this reformer, as a sign of his break with the Roman Church, in a solemn procession with his disciples, students of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg, burned the Corpus juris canonici along with the papal bull of his excommunication. Many governments of German states, where Luther's teachings were recognized as the dominant religion, acted in the same spirit. In Lutheran universities, the teaching of canon law was prohibited, as a subject contrary to the basic provisions of the new religion and politically harmful. But the centuries-long dominance of this right in the religious and social life of the German people could not be immediately and forever destroyed by Luther’s reform. Many institutions of the Lutheran Church were and remain copies of the institutions of the Catholic Church. Hence, in order to study and teach new church law, the need to become acquainted with the old law naturally opened up. On the other hand, civilists in their studies of Roman law, as common to all Western European peoples, could not do without knowledge of canon law, under the influence of which, as noted above, this general civil law was formed. For these reasons, the teaching of canon law was reintroduced in Lutheran universities. But here it was developed mainly in a critical direction in relation to the current law of the Catholic Church. A strict verification of this law began based on its undoubtedly authentic sources - with the goal of restoring the original appearance of the most important church-legal institutions, and mainly the central one - papal monarchism in the church. Thanks to such works, medieval views on the essence of church power, namely papal power, radically changed, and not only in Lutheran states, but also in Catholic ones. Thus, in France, the doctrine of the liberties of the Gallican Church, that is, of its comparative independence from the papal throne, developed. The foundations of this system are derived from church history, which teaches that the highest church authority lies in the entire episcopate and is represented at ecumenical councils, and not in the person of one pope, who himself stands under the authority of the ecumenical council. A further development of this teaching was the so-called Febronianism, a theory of church structure and government, the author of which was the German Catholic Bishop Nicholas of Gontheim, who wrote a book under the pseudonym Febronius: “on the state of the church and the legitimate power of the Bishop of Rome.” In this book, the origin and development of papal power is explained by political reasons, in other words, the papacy is not recognized as a divine institution, and therefore the Catholic Church is placed in the same dependence on local states as the Lutheran zemstvo churches (Landskirchen) were. This is how the canonical views of Catholics met the teachings of the Lutherans about the church. As a result of the further development of these views, the idea of ​​absolute state power was obtained, next to which no other independent power could exist, otherwise it would be a state within a state. In the fight against these views, strict Catholic canonists had to turn to history. Without denying the reality of forgeries in the sources of medieval church law, they rendered more or less important scholarly services through a critical development of the history of its authentic, indisputable sources. This historical trend found support at the beginning of this century in the famous historical school of lawyers, headed by the Berlin professor Savigny, and finally became dominant in the science of church law. Now this science has freed itself from the old scholastic shackles that tied it to the system of the Gratian Decrete and the later collections of papal decretals. In such a formal and material setting, the science of our subject again aroused lively interest. Scientists of all faiths, lawyers and theologians, compete in its development. The science of church law in Germany was especially lucky. The best textbooks and systems of this subject undoubtedly belong to German scientists, namely Walter 3, Richter 4, Schulte 5, Phillips 6, Ginschius 7, Scherer 8, Wehring 9 and others. It goes without saying that it is clear that the learned West has been and is studying its own church law, that is, first - Catholic law, and then - Protestant law. But since the law of the Catholic Church until the 9th century was, generally speaking, identical with the law of the Eastern Church, then all scientific works devoted to the history of this law before this era constitute a necessary scientific manual for the Orthodox canonist. We already know that such work began in the West with the era of the revival of science and Luther's church reform. The critical attitude of these eras to the current law of the Catholic Church aroused in the West a keen interest in the Eastern Church, as the faithful custodian of the traditions of the ancient universal church. This interest was expressed, firstly, in a number of critical editions of the original sources of canon law of the ancient church. We will name only the most important of these publications, those that were respectfully received not only in the West, but also in the East. The following should be recognized as such: 1) the publication of the French scientists Voellus and Justellus under the title: Bibliotheca juris canonici veteris - in two volumes, published in Paris in 1661. The first volume contains the oldest canonical collections of the Western, Latin Church, which appeared before the beginning of the 6th century; the second - only Greek collections from the 6th to the end of the 9th century, that is, before the era of the division of churches. 2) Edition of the learned presbyter of the Anglican Church Beveridge, or according to the Latin transcription Beveregius, entitled: Συνοδικόν, sive Pandectae canonum ecclesiae graecae, published in 2 folios in Oxford in 1672. The first volume contains the rules of all ecumenical and local councils recognized in the Eastern Church with interpretations on them by three Greek canonists of the 12th century - Aristinus, Zonaras and Balsamon; in the second volume - the alphabetical Syntagma, i.e. a dictionary of church law, compiled in the 14th century. by the Greek monk Mataeus Vlastar, with some additions at the beginning. 3) Edition of the German scientist Leveklav or in Latin Leunclavius: Jus graeco-romanum - in two volumes, printed in 1596 in Frankfurt on Main. This publication contains sources of Byzantine law, not only ecclesiastical, but also civil. For us, of course, sources of the first kind are of particular importance. All of them are in the 1st volume of Leunclavius ​​Greco-Roman Law, and consist of: a) from the short stories of the Byzantine emperors on church affairs, starting with Justinian to his last successors on the Byzantine throne; b) from the resolutions of the patriarchal synod in Constantinople, 9th century. before the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and finally c) from the canonical answers and treatises of various Greek ecclesiastical writers of the same time period. Thus the edition of Leunclavius ​​constitutes an essential addition to that of Beveridge, and, together with the latter, was received with great respect not only in the West, but also in the East. Here, in the east, these rare and expensive books were even copied by order of the spiritual hierarchs. They also formed the basis of the official Greek edition of the canonical code, called Pidalion (Πηδάλιον), and another, entitled: Σύνταμα τῶν Θείων καἰ ἰερῶν κανόνων, published in 1852–59. in Athens, with the blessing of St. Synod of the Kingdom of Greece, edited by two professors of the University of Athens, Ralli and Potli. In Russia, the editions of Beveridge and Leunclavius ​​were translated into Russian, by order of the patriarchs and St. Synod. The newest, so-called. The historical school of German lawyers, the head of which, as noted above, was Savigny, also provided no less valuable services to our science by publishing many monuments of Byzantine law, which are more or less important in the history of Russian law in general and church law in particular. Particularly important are the publications of two Byzantine lawyers: Heimbach and Tsacharia von Lingenthal. To the first we owe the publication of a set of Byzantine laws known as Basil, i.e., royal books. This is actually a Greek revision of all parts of the Justinian codification, i.e., Code, Institutes, Digests and Novellas, a revision undertaken in the 9th century. imperial Basil the Macedonian and completed by his son Leo the Philosopher. The second of these scientists owns a number of publications of many hitherto unknown sources of Byzantine civil law and brief, official and unofficial guides to the knowledge of this law. Most of these monuments were published in the collection of Tsakharia under the title Jus graeco - romanum, in 7 parts. But even before the publication of this collection, the same scientist published the original text of two official Byzantine manuals on civil law - the Eclogue of the iconoclast emperors Leo the Isaurian and Constantine Copronymus (in the 13th century), and Prochiron, i.e., the handbook of the laws of Emperor Basil the Macedonian (at the end of the 9th century). For us, these two monuments are important because they, in the Slavic translation, were part of the ancient Slavic-Russian Helmsmen and undoubtedly had enormous significance in the history of Russian law. A number of Western editions of the sources of Eastern church law are concluded by the publication of the canonical code of the Greek Church, completed by the late Cardinal of Rome. Church of Pitroy, by order of Pope Pius IX. This publication was undertaken with the aim of proving from the sources of canon law of the Eastern Church itself that it has always recognized the supremacy of the pope over itself. Pitra's publication, covering the monuments of Eastern church law before the era of the actual, if not formal separation of the churches of the West and the East, was published in two volumes under the title: Juris ecclesiastici graecorum historia et monumenta (Romae, t. 1. 1864: t. 2. 1868). As the very title of this publication shows, it contains not only the text of the monuments of Eastern church law, but also its history. It is here, in this story, that the publication’s indicated tendency is being pursued - to prove that the pope has always been the head of the church, not only Western, but also Eastern. As for the text of the sources itself, it was undoubtedly published by Pitra more satisfactorily than by Beveridge, since for his publishing Pitra used the best manuscripts of all European libraries, among other things, and our Russian ones (in Moscow and St. Petersburg). Along with the numerous editions of the sources of Greek church law, there was also a critical development of the histories of these sources in the West. Of the works related here, the following are especially important: 1) A study of two Italians, the Ballerini brothers, entitled: De antiquis tum editis, tum ineditis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum, Venice 1753–57. Here is the history of the sources of common law of the ancient universal church until the era of the appearance of the False Isidore decretals, that is, until the half of the 9th century. The research of the Ballerini brothers is distinguished by its subtle critical analysis and the rigor of its conclusions, which for the most part still retain their scientific value; only recently the works of the said brothers received some amendments and additions in 2) Maassen’s capital book, under the title: Gescbichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Reclits im Abendiande bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 1870. The works of the brothers Ballerini and Maassen are devoted mainly to the development of the history of the sources of law of the Western, Catholic Church, which, however, were mostly translations of the decrees of the Eastern, Greek councils. The following works of Western scientists are devoted exclusively to the history of Greek church law: 1) Wiener - De collectionibus canonum ecclesiae graecae, Berlin 1827; 2) Mortreul -Histoire du droit byzantin, in 3 volumes, Paris 1843–46; 3) three excellent monographs by Tsacharia von Lingenthal on the Greek nomocanons, published in the Memoirs of our Academy as separate brochures. Finally, Western literature presents us with a huge mass of historical research about individual institutions of the ancient universal and, in particular, the Orthodox Eastern Church. In particular, there is a lot of research on the history of church structure, church government, church court and marriage law. Based on these studies, some of the Western canonists made experiments in presenting the entire system of Orthodox church law, in comparison with the law of the Catholic Church. Such are, for example, the textbooks of church law by Walter and Wehring. But these textbooks only set forth the law of the ancient Ecumenical Church; Western European literature does not present us with a scientific system of Russian church law, because, of course, the language of the sources of this law is not accessible to the scientific world there. However, it should be noted that the law of the ancient Eastern Church, which forms the basis of Russian church law, is presented in the mentioned German textbooks as a secondary subject, serving only to illustrate the institutions of Catholic church law. § 7. Church jurisprudence in Russia. In Russia, scientific studies of church law began very recently. The teaching of this subject was first introduced at the end of the last century at the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Theological Academy. In the instructions given to this academy by Moscow Metropolitan Plato, it was prescribed, among other things, to read and explain the Helmsman’s Book, comparing the old Slavic translation of church canons contained in it with the original text according to the above-mentioned edition of Beveregia 10. In 1798, by decree of St. The Synod ordered all theological academies to read and explain the Helmsman’s Book, of course, according to the instructions of Metropolitan Plato (P.S. 3. No. 18726, paragraph 4). In the rules on the transformation of theological schools of 1808, the canonical and ecclesiastical law of the Russian Church was again mentioned between the subjects of study in theological academies (P.S. 3. No. 23122, paragraph 83). The task of teaching this subject was now understood much more broadly. In the draft charter of spirits. academies, compiled on the basis of the mentioned rules, it was said: “The canon law of our church requires the special attention of the professor, especially since it has not yet been brought into proper order and must be explained by his (the professor’s) own research” (§ 153; cf. P.S. 3. No. 25673). Here, as well as in the mentioned synod. The decree of 1798, without a doubt, understood the special right of the Russian Church. The general program of the system of this law was drawn up by the Commission of Spirits. schools in the proposal of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, the Commission proposed that the board of the academy instruct the most capable of the teachers to “select from ancient and modern church-political decrees provisions concerning the course of the most important spiritual affairs, and present them in a special chronological and systematic work” 11. In 1814, the Commission again instructed the Board of St. Petersburg. spirit. Academy to draw up a brief system according to canon law, in which to collect the fundamental rules of church government with evidence of them from the word of God, councils and fathers (of the church), with the addition of Spiritual Regulations 12. But neither one nor the other order was and could not be fulfilled. The then teachers of church law in religious educational institutions were entrusted with the task of not only scientifically processing, but also collecting all the material of the system, and meanwhile the teaching of this subject was usually combined with the teaching of other theological sciences. It goes without saying that the first experiments in the systematic presentation of church law in spirit. Academy could consist only in more or less satisfactory implementation of the above official program of this subject. It is also clear that all of them were primarily of a theological nature, i.e., they contained not only church law, but also various subjects from other theological sciences, although the best theologians of that time (for example, Met. Filaret) were well aware that this science “is farthest from all others from the center of theological knowledge.” In universities, the teaching of canon law in law faculties was first introduced by the statute of 1835. And here our science was originally of a purely theological character: its teaching was entrusted to the professor of theology, and listening was mandatory only for law students of the Orthodox confession. Having, therefore, no internal, organic connection with other faculty subjects, the science of church law naturally remained in the universities as if it were a thought: it was taught and listened to only at the request of the statute, without a clear consciousness of the purpose for which it was taught. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the author of the first complete textbook of church law was precisely a university teacher of this subject - a professor of theology at the University of St. Vladimir, Archpriest Skvortsov. This fact alone marked the first time the transfer of our science from theological academies to universities. Our subject at universities was placed in new and more favorable conditions by the statute of 1863. Therefore, the charter separated the teaching of church law from the teaching of theology, and an independent department of our subject was established at the Faculty of Law, as compulsory for all faculty students. This very formulation of the subject indicated the need to entrust its teaching to a person with a thorough legal education. Unfortunately, not all law faculties have responded to this requirement with equal attention. Some demanded that the first teachers of church law, invited from theological academies, first listen to a full or shortened course of legal sciences in Russian or foreign universities. Others allowed only those with theological education to teach this subject; but without any legal training. And at present, the department of church law at four universities (Kazan, Kharkov, Kiev and Novorossiysk) is occupied by pure theologians. The described position of our subject in universities is also preserved by the current university statute of 1884. There is no doubt that both statutes placed our science in conditions quite favorable for its successful growth and development. And now a significant revival in its development is already noticeable, thanks to the influx of new forces that have given this matter a new formulation. But it goes without saying that our science, in such a short period of its existence in theological academies and universities, could not grow on par with other older sciences, not only legal, but also theological. Most of all we have done on the history of the sources of church law and on the development of its individual institutions. But we still do not have a complete system of the subject that satisfies all scientific requirements. There were only experiments of such a system, unfortunately, unfinished, or completed, but in the form of compilation textbooks. Most of these experiments belong to canon theologians, and not to lawyers. I mean: 1) Experience in the course of church jurisprudence by Archimandrite. John, who was a professor of this subject in St. Petersburg in the forties. Theological Academy. This is a very respectable work. It contains (in two issues, St. Petersburg, 1851) an introduction to the system of church law, the history of the canonical code of the Universal Church and a historical and dogmatic commentary on this code. Then, according to the author’s plan, the system of general canon law of the Eastern Church was to follow, but only some excerpts of this system were published by the author, when he was the rector of the Kazan Theological Academy, in its journal “Orthodox Interlocutor” for 1858–60.–2) The beginning of the course of my predecessor at this department, prof. Sokolov, published under the title: From lectures on church law (two issues, M. 1874–5). An introduction to the system of church law and part of the teaching on church structure are printed here. Judging by this beginning, the course of prof. Sokolov was supposed to largely satisfy the needs of university teaching of the new science. His lectures were distinguished by remarkable clarity of presentation and a fairly solid legal presentation of the subject, although the author did not have a school legal education. This is explained by the fact that in his course he followed a good example - the German author of the system of church law mentioned by us - Schulte. Of the complete training courses in church law, I will point out two that have appeared relatively recently: 1) the textbook by Prof. Kazansk Univ. and spirit. Berdnikov Academy: Short course of church law, Kazan 1888, and Supplement to this course, Kazan 1889, and 2) on the textbook of prof. Yaroslav. Suvorov Legal Lyceum: Course of Church Law, 2 volumes. Yarosl. 1889–90 13. The first is not entirely successful in its system and is more theological than legal in nature. The second, although it exposes the author as a scientifically educated lawyer, often sins both against history and against the fundamental foundations of Orthodox church law, which, for a very clear reason, should be the main subject of study for a Russian canonist: this is our current church law. Fundamental shortcomings of the textbook by Prof. Suvorov is explained by the fact that the author, not only formally, but also materially, builds his system according to foreign models, mainly Catholic, and the fundamental foundations of Catholic church law are far from the same as those on which the law of the Orthodox Church and, in particular, the Russian Church is affirmed. § 8. The task and method of the science of church law The task of our science is to build a system of church law on the basis of its own principles and from its own sources. It goes without saying that science must deal with the current law of the church, and most importantly with the law of the Russian church. And since the Russian Church is part of the united Eastern Orthodox Church, its law must be presented in inextricable connection with the law of the latter. But in order to correctly understand the vital significance of both rights, it is necessary to know how they were formed. Hence, the historical-dogmatic method should be recognized as the best method for the scientific presentation of church law. Namely: we must go back to the imprecise beginnings of each church-legal institution and then follow all the phases of its historical development, constantly and accurately noting those local, national, political influences under the influence of which it achieved its present form. In this genetic process, the law of the church will appear to us as living, in its vital growth, with its own character. While following this process, we must constantly keep in mind the connection of church law with the very essence of the church, with the dogmatic foundations of church-legal institutions. These grounds should serve as a test for positive law. From the point of view of these foundations, it is revealed what constitutes the essential grain of each church-legal institution, and that there is only its outer shell, changing over time and not requiring one constant and solid form. Such a historical and at the same time rational method will clearly show us what should be recognized in the law of the church as essential and unchangeable and what as accidental and insignificant, and how far one can go in church transformations without touching the essence of the church and without shaking the foundations of its law. By processing church law in this way, science thereby contributes to its application to practical life and, by providing church and state authorities with material for legislation, paves the way for the renewal and further development of law. § 9. The importance of the science of church law in the system of general legal education If the science of church law properly fulfills its now indicated task, then it will undoubtedly take an honorable place among other legal sciences and become an essential and necessary addition to them. The significance of this science in the whole system of scientific legal education is determined from two points of view: historical and practical. We have already noted above that the historical development of law among any of the Christian peoples took place under the more or less strong influence of the church and church law. Even the most perfect of the positive rights of the ancient world, the Roman, experienced the transformative power of the Christian religion when it became dominant in the Roman state. Thus, under the influence of Christianity and the church, the social status of slaves little by little changed: from a thing of his master, the slave gradually turned into a human person, with his natural rights: the church recognized the marital unions of slaves as marriages, i.e. the same indissoluble unions as the marriages of free people; the killing of a slave by a master in the eyes of the church was the same crime as murder in general. A similar change occurred in the relationship of father to children, husband to wife, when Roman society became Christian: the potestas patria and manus of the Roman householder in the legislation of the Christian Roman emperors significantly lost their former harsh character. It goes without saying that the public law of the Roman state, in that part that embraced the sacra publica, took on a completely different form after the old, pagan religion was replaced by a new, Christian one. If such was the influence of Christianity and the church on the legal life of the highly cultured Roman people, then in relation to the barbarian, Germanic and Slavic peoples, the civilizing activity of the church manifested itself on an even wider scale and with greater force. Here she often had to lay the first foundations of citizenship, establish public order, promote the establishment of firm public power, actively participate in the legislation and court of the country, develop and strengthen among the people the concept of right and wrong. Thus, it is impossible to point out a single aspect in the legal life of these peoples that would not have experienced more or less profound influence of the church. This influence was felt most strongly and most clearly in the field of marriage, family and inheritance law. Throughout the Middle Ages, matters relating to these areas of private law were in most of the Western European states and here in Russia under the exclusive jurisdiction of church authorities. As for public law, the influence of the church was particularly decisive in the sphere of criminal and international law. All new peoples, during the era of their conversion to Christianity, had a custom of private bloody revenge for murder and private reprisal for property and personal grievances. The spirit of the church was completely disgusted by such a barbaric way of satisfying the feeling of violated rights and, at its insistence, the punishment of criminals little by little becomes a matter of public authority. And the church constantly inspired this power that punishment should be directed against the very source of all crimes - the evil will of a person and should lead not to the destruction of this will and the very personality of the criminal, but to his correction. And since the states of that time did not have the means to achieve this goal, they left this matter to the church itself, which actually created for itself a whole system of spiritual-corrective punishments - a system known under the name of public repentance or penance. This system undoubtedly served as a direct model for the newest state system of penal prisons and solitary confinement of criminals. The very concept of crime, under the influence of church views, has expanded significantly: already one attempt at a crime is recognized as punishable in the same way that evil will is revealed in it. In a word, all the basic concepts of criminal law, adopted in its modern codes, developed under the influence of the church and church law. The church took an even more active part in the formation of modern international law. In her opinion, all Christian peoples constitute one great whole, the spiritual life of which should be imbued with the moral principles of a common religion, and these principles should be expressed in external relations between individual peoples. The church looked and looks at the war between Christian peoples as fratricide. Therefore, she always insisted that disagreements between peoples be resolved not by weapons and bloodshed, but by an international court or preliminary peace treaties between the disputing parties, offering her own means for this. If war became inevitable, then the church inspired Christian soldiers not to forget the man and the Christian in the enemy and not to show cruelty towards the vanquished. At the same time, the church constantly stood for the strict observance of international peace treaties, especially those that were sealed by an oath or oath between representatives of the contracting parties. From all that has been said, it naturally follows that in the science of church law, other legal sciences will find the key to the historical understanding of many institutions of the law that forms the subject of each of them. But church law is a valid law and will not lose this meaning as long as the church exists. This reveals the practical significance of the science of this law. But what practical interest can church law have for a lawyer as a lawyer? Why should he study church laws and orders when he is preparing himself to serve civil society, and not church society? To this we will answer: a lawyer who belongs to the church, to whom its interests are therefore not alien, will, of course, feel a significant gap in his scientific education if he does not know the church laws that define his rights and obligations as a member of the church - laws confirmed by state laws, therefore, obligatory for him as a subject of our state. A very important department of our civil law, namely the marriage law of Orthodox Russian subjects, is almost entirely based on church laws, and moreover, it is not uncommon that knowledge of these laws is assumed in each and everyone whom they concern. For example, our civil law says: it is prohibited to marry persons who are in such degrees of kinship and property as are prohibited for marriage by church laws - and nothing more. It means that you need to know these laws. In the same way, our criminal code, i.e., the current criminal code of punishment, for many crimes assigns to the perpetrators of the Christian faith, along with criminal or correctional punishment, church repentance according to the rules of their religion; This means that it again points to the practical importance of knowing these rules. It cannot be said that a lawyer who does not belong to our dominant church, that is, the Orthodox Church, or who is not a Christian at all, is not practically interested in knowledge of church law. As a Russian subject, he is subject to the action of those state laws that determine the relations of people of other faiths to subjects of the Orthodox faith in matters of religion, family and marriage. As a practicing lawyer, he must know at least those church laws that he may easily need in his practice, for example, laws on church jurisdiction; otherwise, he can take charge in the district court or before the magistrates of such cases that are under the jurisdiction not of them, but of the ecclesiastical consistory. Another example: a practicing lawyer of a non-Christian confession can easily appear in a district court as an intercessor in property matters of church institutions, or be an attorney for the opposing party: in either case, he, of course, needs to know the laws on church property, their special legal nature, the method of acquiring them, etc. The examples given seem to be sufficient to see that knowledge of church law is not without interest for a practicing lawyer, no matter what type of lawyer he is. had a religion. § 10 Course plan for church law Since a system of church law can only be built from its own sources, a necessary preparation for it should be a review of these sources. In this introductory part of our course we must 1) set forth the general doctrine of the sources of ecclesiastical law, consider their various types, and show their relative merits; 2) review their history both in the ancient Ecumenical Church and in the Russian one. Then, in the system of law itself, two main parts must be distinguished: the internal and external law of the church. In the first part we will consider church structure and church government; in the second, we will show the relationship of the church to the state and to other religious unions, both Christian and non-Christian. F. Walter, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts aller christlichen Gonfessionen. Richter, Lehrbuch des katholischen und evangelischen Kirchenrechts. Schulte, Das katholische Kirchenrecht, 2 Bd.; his Lehrbuch des kathol. und evangel. Kirchenrechts. G. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, 8 Bd.; his Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, 1881. Hinschius, System des kathol. Kirchenrechts mit besonderer Rucksicht auf Deutschland, 5 Bd., 1869–1893. Scherer, Handbuch des Kirchenrechtes, 2 Bd., 1885–1891. Vering, Lehrbuch des katholischen, orientalischen und protestantischenr Kirchenrechts, 3-e Aufl. 1893. See Smirnova - History named. Acad., pp. 294 and 298. Chistovich, East. St. Petersburg spirit. acad., 101. In 1898, a new revision of this course was published - in one volume, under the title: Textbook of Church Law. Currently prof. Suvorov holds the chair of church law at Moscow University. You might be interested in: