The results of the controversy on the issue of schismatic marriage

There is no truth, there is a lot of confusion At the end of 1894, a Moscow priest turned to us with a request to clarify: how to look at a schismatic marriage recorded in the police register according to the law of 1874 on April 19? Should such a marriage be recognized as legal in the same sense in which a church marriage is understood, or in order to give it full legality and ecclesiastical character, when schismatic spouses turn to the Orthodox Church, should they perform the full rite of a church wedding, or only the “completion” of the wedding? At the same time, he admitted that he learned about the existence of the law of 1874 on April 19. only from what was printed in Russian. Led. trial of V. Parfenov: for there are no special governing decrees of the Holy. There was no Synod or Diocesan Authority issued on the application of this law. In view of the importance of such a statement, the vital importance, we decided to express the explanations required of us in print, in the hope that people more competent than us will express their opinions on these same issues, and perhaps the Holy Synod itself will issue some guiding rules on this issue. This intention was realized by our publication in The Theologian. Bulletin 1895 February and March articles entitled: “What is a schismatic marriage?” This article had the following ending: “By presenting these considerations of ours to the attention of mainly Orthodox pastors, we had nothing more in mind than to highlight the great ecclesiastical importance of the question posed in the title of the article and only to outline (and not at all predetermine) those points that should be authoritatively decided by the legitimate church authority - the Holy Governing Synod. In view of the great vital importance of these points, the opinion of a private person here should not have a decisive significance 1. After this, for six months we did not see any tangible results of our article in print; only privately, in correspondence or in oral conversations with church pastors, we received both praise and gratitude for our explanations. There was nothing left for us to wish for more, and we considered our business to be over. But in the October Book of Orthodoxy. The interlocutor for 1895 appears in an article entitled: “Note on a schismatic marriage.” I. Berdnikova (pp. 190–230). Although this article did not say a single commendable or approving word addressed to us, but on the contrary, from beginning to end it consisted of petty quibbles, refutations and perhaps even some between-the-line insinuations: nevertheless, it gave you great pleasure (the writer - I think - is quite understandable) and we began to study it, the result of which was our second article (response) under the following title: the legal and canonical significance of the religious element in schismatic marriage. (Theological Bulletin. 1896, January-February). In it we greeted our opponent with the following words: “Prof. Kaz. Spirit. Kazan Academy. University I. S. Berdnikov devoted his own article to the analysis of our article, no less in volume than ours 2, although under a very modest title: “Note on a schismatic marriage.” “The venerable professor was very attentive to our article: he follows the flow of our thoughts almost step by step and expresses his comments and judgments.” “We consider it our pleasant duty to express our deep gratitude to him for such flattering attention. But we are even more grateful for the fact that, having taken advantage of our article, the venerable professor took on quite a lot of work to very strenuously argue his views on this issue, although they do not agree with our views.” “In matters of law, truth and the clarity of its expression should be in the foreground, for these are matters of life, not theory, especially in matters of church law. Therefore, when exchanging opinions on these issues, the personal relationships and positions of the opponents in the various vicissitudes of their polemics are not so important and interesting as the very opinions they defend” 3 . A careful study of Mr. Berdnikov’s notes led us to the conviction, firstly, that in order to refute our article he took on the difficult task of piling up a large mass of domestic legislation. although for the most part it is already outdated for the present time, that is, no longer valid; secondly, that he is a poor analyst, as a result of which he could neither adequately use his material against us, nor penetrate into the essence of the issue and the importance of those particular points into which we logically divided it in our article. In particular, we noticed that Mr. Berdnikov does not clearly distinguish between the concepts: “legal” and “ecclesiastical”, “civil” and “canonical”, “legitimation” and “sanctification”; Therefore, not deeming it necessary to enter into petty polemics with him, we set our task in our response article only to establish as clearly as possible the difference between these concepts and through this to dispel some of the darkness or fog in which Mr. Berdnikov with his “Note” on it, or better to say - with his under - and between the lowercase scholia, or commentaries. At the same time, we have made efforts to, as clearly and separately as possible, complete our answer to the question: what is a schismatic marriage, established by the law of 1874. April 19. - the answer, in our opinion, is clearly expressed in our first article, but how obscured by Mr. Berdnikov’s comments to it. Under the influence of these considerations, in our response article we made every effort to reveal: 1) that a schismatic marriage, recorded in the police register in accordance with the rules of the law of 1874. 19 Apr., there is a purely civil legal marriage and those in it - husband and wife - in a strict civil sense, and the children born in this marriage are legitimate children, 2) being such in a civil sense, a schismatic marriage must, from the Orthodox hierarchy, receive a proper canonical assessment from its religious and moral side, for only by making such an assessment, it will be possible to safely impart to it in one way or another the church consecration of which this There is no civil schismatic marriage. Since this point in our first article was clarified quite fully and since Mr. Berdnikov did not make any serious objections to it, in our article we limited ourselves only to “some additional considerations and an explanation of the irrationality of the views (on this matter) of Prof. Berdnikov" 4. This is the task and partly the content of our article in response to Mr. Berdnikov. We were confident that our opponent would be completely satisfied with our explanations, which we presented in the most respectful manner to his face, and would leave behind us the battlefield to which he himself had called us and... we were almost right in our confidence. In the July Book of Orthodoxy. Interview this year, Mr. Berdnikov published: “The second note on the issue of schismatic marriage, dated March 10, 1896 5, Although in external form this note is the same commentary on our articles as his first note; or, if you like, there is a polemical article, but in essence the matter is nothing more than flight from the battlefield, only hiding behind the plausible form of a retreat carried out in order. Namely: in this “note” Mr. Berdnikov does not mention a word about the first point of his polemic - that the schismatic marriage of 1874 April 19. there is a purely civil marriage; This means that his entire legal battery, so to speak, which directed its blows at this point in our articles, became completely silent. Now, making his retreat, Mr. Berdnikov only slightly sends his shots against the second point of our articles - the canonical one, but no longer attacking, but only defending and firing back. Knowing well the rule that “the winner is characterized by magnanimity,” we were ready to completely stop our explanations with Mr. Berdnikov, but we cannot do this for the reason that he himself calls and obliges us, with a courage incomprehensible to us, so to speak, to finish him off, leaving the polemical field behind us. We will not finish him off, but with the respect due to his person and position, we will very willingly present proper explanations for his challenge. On page 261 of his “second note” prof. I. S. Berdnikov in the 1st note writes the following: “The reproach of Mr. Zaozersky (Theological Vestn. 1896 vol. Feb. 347–348), that in our first note we reject the need for sanctification for a schismatic marriage recorded in the register of parishes, is a vain report on us from his side. See our note Rights. Social security 1895, Oct. pp. 205 – 209, 229.” We dare to tell Mr. Professor that we have never been involved in “knowledge”. and in this case, the professor called the letter nothing more than his renunciation of his own words, namely: on page 229 (first note), prof. I. S. Berdnikov actually said, by the way, the following: “The church blessing and religious consecration of these marriages, in the case of the accession of both spouses, is communicated in the act of joining them to the Orthodox Church.” We ask readers to pay special attention to these words of the venerable professor: for they would really expose us to falsehood if his entire first note consisted of only this one 229th page; but unfortunately for him, it consists of some other pages, for example. 228, at the end of which are his following words, which we present in two columns (we do this because these words were printed twice: in the Right. Sobes. and reprinted in the Theological Vestn. As can be seen from here, the edition of Mr. Berdnikov’s words in both magazines is completely identical, the only difference is in the fonts: for some words in the Theologian. Vestn. printed in italics. We did this in order to draw the attention of their author to the fact that he completely rejects the need for church blessing and illumination of a schismatic marriage; As long as he was certified by the police department, that would be the end of the matter. So. arr. pp. 228 and 229 of Mr. Berdnikov’s notes relate to each other as + and –, that is, one affirms what the other denies. Maybe for some readers this statement of ours will not seem entirely convincing? We believe and for the strongest conviction we go to other pages of the 1st note by Mr. Berdnikov. So, in his text on pp. 205–209 of this note, the author could really indicate the basis for accusing us of falsehood: for on these pages he seems to really recognize the need for the church sanctification of a schismatic marriage, but in his 6th meal he placed the following note on p. 205, which clearly exposes that so-called. lapsus mentis (logical lapse) which plagues his entire first note. “I am not entirely consistent in resolving this issue and Fr. Archimandrite Pavel. He says quite rightly: “the very joining of spouses (non-believers) to St. church, the very acceptance into church communion - of both or one of them - is already church confirmation of the legality of their marriage; for St. church from the unbelief of those who come to St. He does not accept baptism into his union if one of them has a harlot as his partner and does not want to leave her.” But on the other hand, he considers the mere confirmation of a marriage of other faiths in the act of joining the spouses of other faiths to the Orthodox Church insufficient, and he also wishes to complete it through special prayer and the blessing of the priest. (Brotherly Word 1888, 4, pp. 255, 256, 272). In our opinion, as the original words of the late Fr. Archimandrite Paul, and his supposed “inconsistency” do great credit to his mind (if we are not mistaken, the late Father Archimandrite did not receive a school legal education). His words contain exactly the same idea about the difference in the church sacrament of marriage between the power that legitimizes marriage and the power that sanctifies it, an idea that we tried to clarify for Mr. Berdnikov and tried not in vain: for in his second note he already correctly and clearly distinguishes these forces in the sacrament of marriage and no longer reproaches Fr. Paul, in inconsistency, wisely keeps silent about the reproach already made to him in his first note, just as he wisely keeps silent about those parts of it, he is guilty of this sin of his not distinguishing between the concepts of “legitimation” and “sanctification”; to the instructions we made to him about the places of his notes, the one exposing him in this sin responds by accusing us of “in vain.” No, venerable professor! There is no knowledge here on our part, but on your part it is admitted that you can express your own without knowing your own in biblical language. G. Berdnikov further complains that we do not refute it, but only “unfoundedly, in a tone that does not allow any doubts or objections, we declare... that our views are completely clear, simple, alien to darkness and confusion; and his, Berdnikov’s, objections are not proven and he commits a grave sin against the principles of that science, to protect the interests and principles of which is his direct and sacred duty” 6. There are two halves in this complaint: the first contains a complete untruth, the second - a complete truth. It is absolutely untrue that we did not refute the views of Mr. Berdnikov. On the contrary, they were engaged, even in two ways: 1) very energetically expressing their refutations and 2) expressing them very subtly and delicately. We will not point out the first ones: everyone can easily find them in our article Legal and canonical significance of the religious element in a schismatic marriage; Let's talk a little about the second. We call it a subtle and delicate way of refuting an opinion, which consists in the fact that without entering into consideration of the opinion, we literally write it out, noting only in italics those expressions that, in our opinion, express, for example. absurdity. We neglected this method of refuting Mr. Berdnikov. often, on the one hand, respecting his dignity and honor, on the other, being quite confident that he will understand, on the basis of these silent instructions from us, what he made a mistake or let slip. Thus, in the above two columns, our underlining of Mr. Berdnikov’s words clearly, although silently, expresses his following condemnation: he does not know where the responsibility of the police department for arranging a schismatic marriage ends and the pastoral responsibility for the priest in this very matter begins. Based on the words of the law of 1874 April 19. that the execution of the marriage rites observed between schismatics that preceded the registration of marriage is not subject to the supervision of police officials who conduct metric registration - he argues that “the religious rite of marriage should not be taken into account” and by the Orthodox priest who joins a schismatic married couple to the church. G. Berdnikov was so convinced of the correctness of this understanding of the law that in his first note he directly accused us of contradicting the law of 1874. April 19. when we expressed the following position: “if both spouses, turning to the church from a non-priestly sense, do not wish to sanctify their marriage, recorded in the registry register, with a church wedding, then the church should treat this cohabitation as tolerable by civil law, but regard it as nothing more than a concubinage. This provision, Mr. Berdnikov wrote, directly contradicts the law of 1874. April 19. by which the marriage recorded in the register of births is given the power and consequences of a legal marriage." 7 Now the same Mr. Berdnikov, of course, will no longer dare to accuse us of such a contradiction, precisely because he learned to distinguish between the “civil” and “canonical” dignity of marriage and when we found out that the law of 1874 April 19. is the fruit of both humanity and the wisdom of the legislator: “for in truth it would be cruelty to authorize a police official with the right to conduct an inquiry in a purely moral area, and it would be very irrational to appoint a private bailiff or a volost foreman as a judge of religious conscience and the significance of a sacred rite. But this humane and wise deviation of the state administration from discussing and assessing the religious and moral side of a schismatic marriage should all the more and more persistently encourage the Orthodox hierarchy to be as attentive as possible to this particular side of a schismatic marriage in the event that married schismatics turn to the Orthodox Church" 8 . The second example of our use of a subtly delicate method of refuting Mr. Berdnikov, which influenced him, but unfortunately not to the proper extent, is represented by the following passage of our response article: “If schismatic spouses who are in such cohabitation join the Orthodox Church, they are not subject to a wedding, but are blessed to continue their marital cohabitation by the act of joining” 9 ... These are not our words, but the words of Mr. Berdnikov. We, citing them literally, for our part only noted in italics the unsuccessful expressions in them... G. Berdnikov writes the following in his defense: “This expression received a remark from Mr. Zaozersky: “A wedding is a high honor, not an exam or torture,” says Mr. Zaozersky, “and therefore a wedding should be expressed as being honored, and not subjected to it” (Bog. Vest. 1896, Feb. 348). But the question is, is it always appropriate to say that one is worthy? When we were talking about the ancient church, which deprived second-weds of the right to get married, then it would be appropriate to say that second-weds were not given the honor of getting married. But when a wedding is spoken of as an obligatory requirement from someone in any case, then the expression “honored” of a wedding will be inappropriate, but it must be said: subject to a wedding, or subject to a wedding as an obligatory requirement. If, on the advice of Mr. Zaozersky, we insert into our speech the word “honored” instead of the word “subjected,” then there will be no proper meaning." 10. In our opinion, “there will be no proper meaning - in the words of Mr. Berdnikov -” in his entire speech now being considered until it is completely redone, in particular until the further strange combination of words we have emphasized is eliminated from it: “blessed by the act.” For what is a “blessing (εὐλογία)?.. And what is an “act” (actus, actio)? And who is it, whom and when did he bless or bless with the act? The proper and deep meaning of this speech can only be obtained in the following paraphrase: For our very delicate, albeit good-naturedly ironic note regarding Mr. Berdnikov’s completely incorrect interpretation of the laws of 1883 on May 3 and 1874 on April. 19 13 he accuses us of insinuation 14 . The accusation, as an educated reader can see, is no less, if not more serious, than the previous accusation against us of “live”. We consider ourselves forced to give an explanation without good-natured irony, but categorically and directly. Our irony (or, as Mr. Berdnikov put it, “innuendo”) consisted in the following words: “what will happen if schismatic spouses, having read Mr. Berdnikov’s article, begin to arrange their family affairs, guided by the rights it provides, and not by the code of Russian laws? – Various practical untidiness will probably follow both for the schismatics and for Mr. Berdnikov” 15 . The direct meaning of this irony is as follows: we know for certain that articles in spiritual journals, especially those decorated with the signatures of Academy professors, are read by our clergy (as well as some lay persons, not excluding schismatics) with the greatest confidence and, if they relate to issues of life, then often, due to the difficulty of checking the laws, they are accepted for guidance in pastoral practice itself. Prof. I. S. Berdnikov in the considered place of his first “note” made such an incorrect interpretation of the laws of 1883 on May 3 and 1874 on April 19. and gave such inconvenient practical advice on his own that if any of the pastors had followed this advice, he would have subjected both himself and the schismatic spouses to an extremely uncomfortable, unlawfully humiliating position before the police or volost administration and for this, of course, he would not have thanked Mr. Professor. Our irony, which has this meaning, is caused by the following words of Mr. Berdnikov: “Perhaps it would be safer and more practical 16 in such cases to advise the converting spouses to take care, before joining, to record their marriage in the registry register established for schismatics and then present the metrical record of their marriage to the shepherd who joins them” 17 . Let's consider this advice. Imagine that schismatics, husband and wife, who did not register their marriage in the police or volost register, realizing their error, flee from the schism and turn to the church pastor, asking to join them with the children of the Orthodox Church. And so the pastor of the church, following the advice of Prof. I. S. Berdnikova, sends them to the police or volost administration to sign up there in a book established specifically for schismatics. Is it good for a shepherd to do this? The schismatics run from the schism to the shepherd with a prayer to be numbered among the chosen flock, that is, to the holy Orthodox Church, and the shepherd drives them back into schism, demanding that they be officially numbered among the schismatics in the metric established specifically for schismatics? Are these really the canonical and legal way of acting for an Orthodox pastor?! And now we are positively surprised that, instead of gratitude for our complacent pointing out a very important mistake to Mr. Berdnikov, we receive his following statement: “We leave in its place the mentioned combination (as Mr. Berdnikov calls his advice given above) in the wording that was given to it in our first note, without hesitation and without regard to the insinuations of Mr. Zaozersky” 18. The gross inconsistency of our consultant’s advice occurred due to the fact that he (the consultant), not clearly distinguishing in the general concept of “civil marriage” (as it is established in Western Europe), its two types: “obligatory” and “optional”, completely lost sight of what the Legislator, establishing the rules of 1874 April 19. and had no intention of introducing anything like a compulsory or optional civil marriage, but only, so to speak, reluctantly deigned, in view of the great extremity, to allow an exception from general legislation for natural schismatics who marry and give birth to children - an exception in the form of civil registration of their natural marriages. The deep meaning of this law is as follows: The legislator is highly undesirable of the forms of civil marriage, both compulsory and optional, established in the West, but forced by extremes, regretting the thousands of children and their mothers who, due to the fanatical blindness of the split leaders, are deprived of even the right to be called children and mothers. He established a special form of civil legitimation of their natural marriage ties and granted them all the civil rights of children, mothers (and fathers) under the condition is that these already conceived natural marriage ties are officially secured by a civil act established specifically for this purpose. If this condition is met, the natural marriage relationship becomes a legal marriage, the persons in it become husband and wife, and the liberi naturales descended from it become legitimate children. At the same time, He strictly forbade the civil officials called upon to carry out this civil act to interfere in any way with the consideration and discussion of religious rites, during which schismatic similar marriages usually begin and are announced and their natural families are founded - he strictly forbade them to do this, not only sparing, but also respecting the religious, albeit weak, conscience of thousands of loyal subjects. This is the deep and highly humane meaning of the law of 1874. April 19. (in accordance with the law of 1883, May 3), which we tried to reveal in our articles, which were attacked by prof. I. S. Berdnikova 19 . The direct logical conclusion from here is that the law of 1874 April 19. It is completely alien to the idea of ​​​​establishing any competition between police metric and religious registers - not to mention church metric books, and even more so competition between the civil act of legitimation of a schismatic marriage and religious blessing and marriage ceremony - much less - church blessing and marriage ceremony. The schismatic couple does not want to remain in schism and go to the police or to the volost government in order to consolidate their supposed civil marriage, but wants to go to an Orthodox priest, submit to his canonical way of acting (which is also legal) and wants to enter into his church books as husband and wife - and Glory to God! Such, we are deeply confident and convinced of it, is the intention and reason of the law of 1874. 19 Apr. This is where we stop our explanations and justifications against Mr. Berdnikov’s accusations of “innuendo” and “faith” against us. While we readily consider these accusations to be the consequence of his misunderstanding, we do not wish to take any revenge on him for his vain accusation. Moreover, we find ourselves forced by him to give him one fraternal warning regarding some of his statements, in our opinion, the same results of polemics - made by him in the Vth (May) book of the Scientific Notes of the Imperial Kazan University of the current year (pp. 16 - 18 in the department of Criticism and Bibliography). Regarding these statements, I dare to assure him that the bringing together of my humble name, as well as the name of my esteemed colleague I.M. Gromoglasov, with the deservedly loud and glorious name of L.S. Pavlov, not only here, but also abroad, is a high honor for me and my colleague; and the declared by Mr. Berdnikov - to put it as mildly as possible - une tentantive de la defamation of our names humiliates the professorial dignity of Mr. Berdnikov and harms the dignity of the venerable organ in which he decided to publish such an attempt. As evidence of this, I refer to the following words of our old writer: “Even if allowing defamation could sometimes have some benefit, it still produces a hundred times more harm. It produces a whole class of literary corsairs, mostly people without honor and intelligence, who, under the guise of love for truth, are engaged in disgracing people out of revenge, out of a desire to flatter the rude instincts of the masses. As a result, defamation leads to a decline in the moral significance of literature" 20 . When deciding on such an attempt, it would not be superfluous for you, venerable Mr. Professor, to pay attention to the view of our new writer N.S. Tagantsev on this subject, at least expressed by him in his notes to Art. 1039 21. At the conclusion of his attacks on us, Mr. Berdnikov sends us, so to speak, a certificate characterizing our views “and the degree of thoroughness of our knowledge on the issue of marriage (pp. 269–272). We accept this certificate with gratitude; for it is still a certificate, although for us it is not very flattering, but again we deeply regret that it was Mr. Berdnikov who until now could not secure - as all his polemics against us, and even this very certificate of his proves - neither scientific, nor moral, nor legal grounds for issuing us any kind of certificate, that is, not only not flattering for us, but even commendable. At the very end of his article (p. 273), Mr. Berdnikov expresses his sad mood in the following words: “Mr. Zaozersky’s articles on schismatic marriage lead us to sad reflections about the state of our science of church law and about the methods of polemics of our canonists on scientific issues. Let's not say them out loud." And, in our opinion, Mr. Berdnikov should not have expressed his “sad thoughts” out loud, but it would have been better to drive away the influx of them with those recipes offered by the textbooks of the science called Logic, which was not for nothing once called medicina mentis... We too are somewhat sad, contemplating the sad flight of Mr. Berdnikov from the polemical field, but forced our ears and in its wake to utter the words, the helmsman of the book: there is no truth There is quite a lot of confusion... there are things in things." Theologian. Vestn. 1895, March, p. 421. I confess to my gross mistake, I don’t know how the images that crept into my article, Mr. Berdnikov’s “Note” is located on 41 pages (190–230) in bold font, and mine is on 60 pages. clean. Bogoslovsk. Vestn. 1896, Jan., p. 128 Theologian Vestn. 1896, February, p. 344. Right Sob. 1896, pp. 246–147, July Right Sob. 1895, Oct., p. 206. Theologian Vestn. 1896, February, p. 343 Theologian Vestn. 1896, February, p. 346 Right Sob. 1896, June, pp. 265 – 266, note See Bogosl. Vestn. 1896 February, pp. 340, 345 and Divine. Vestn. 1895, March, pp. 413, 414. Theologian West. 1896 February, pp. 346–347. Right Sob. 1896, June, p. 269. Theologian West. 1896 February, page 347, note. The italics are ours and were made by us in Feb. Book of Theology A messenger with the kindest goal towards Mr. Berdnikov. Right Sob. 1895, Oct. page 230. Ordinary Prof. came to this interpretation of this law in his own way and completely independently of our polemics with Mr. Berdnikov. by the department of the Church. Yaroslav is right. Legal Lyceum N.S. Suvorov in his excellent, although very small in volume, book: “Civil Marriage” 2nd add. ed. St. Petersburg. Law Library No. 11 (1896). A. Lokhvinsky: Course of Russian criminal law, ch. XXVI, p. 611. N. S. Takantsev: Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments. 1885 ed. VII SPB. 1892, pp. 455–460. You might be interested in: