[Rec. On:] Pavlov A. The fiftieth chapter of the Helmsman’s Book, as a historical and practical source of Russian marriage law

In the past year, Russian literature of canon law has been enriched with such a venerable work that would honorably take its place in the literature of first-class canonists of the West. When we say this, we mean the book named by A. S. Pavlov, who has long enjoyed well-deserved fame. Its extensive research combines: the freshness of novelty - the examination and publication of materials from raw, as they say, first-hand sources, and subtle critical work - in the precise establishment of some historical moments in the development of canon law of the Eastern Church - and the extraction, so to speak, of a pure stream of canonical dogma about marriage from sources that are quite muddied, both from long-term stagnation and from the careless touch of consumers, albeit rare ones - and bright and correct coverage and solution of difficult issues of marriage law, and finally - even the perfection of the Russian legal style. The subject of the study is in many respects the famous 50th chapter of the printed Helmsman's Book, or more precisely, its historical and practical significance in our family law. The ultimate goal and the very, so to speak, essence of the author’s venerable work is depicted with perfect accuracy by himself in the following words: “the research of a learned canonist should lead to the resolution of the following questions: where do those sources come from, the historical origin of which is unknown? What was and remains their practical significance? How do they relate to the content of the main canon of the church, and to what extent do their special, unique definitions correspond to the needs of modern church life or the nature of the canonical institution they concern?” (page 4). The contents of this book by the famous Russian canonist are filled with the resolution of these questions regarding the 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book. The 50th chapter of the Helmsman's Book belongs, even more than anything else of this kind, to the number of such sources of our marriage law, the historical origin of which was unknown until recently. Now, thanks to the most thorough research of A. S. Pavlov, the entire process of formation of this source has become known in detail. One must have that zeal for the truth that the venerable author possesses in order to have the patience to compare one text with another with such precision and in this way to penetrate into the process of mental activity of our ancient scribes, to whose compilation works many articles of the Helmsman’s Book and other canonical codes owe their appearance; Without penetration into this process, their historical origin would never have received and cannot become known. For this, one must also have that skill for works of this kind, which the venerable author possesses, in order to conduct this comparison with all caution and thoroughness, maintain proper moderation, and get rid of the danger of being carried away by the similarities of the compared sources, etc. temptations. Then you must also have that extensive knowledge of Greek manuscripts of all kinds of fonts in various Russian and foreign book depositories and in early printed books, which is distinguished by our Russian book reader, A. S. Pavlov, in this capacity known as much to Russian scientists as to foreign scientists of various nationalities; Finally, in matters of this kind, one must also possess special caution, prudence, that slowness in drawing decisive conclusions, which distinguishes persons who, according to the old Russian custom, were called “Dumny” people. The rare ability to combine in one person these so diverse qualities when performing scientific work explains the appearance of those brilliant works by A.S. Pavlov, with whom he had already given Russian canonical science and the appearance of his book under consideration, which, in our opinion, surpasses all his previous works. This particular feature of A. S. Pavlov’s scientific talent stands out especially clearly in his book under consideration, in comparison with a similar book by our very venerable canonist, professor and archpriest, Fr. M.I. Gorchakova: “On the secret of marriage. St. Petersburg. 1880". Whoever read this last book came away with a very favorable impression of it: so much freshness, so much erudition; What breadth is in the author’s views, how comprehensively he examines his subject! It was not for nothing that the highest theological school gave the author the degree of Doctor of Theology for his work! It’s not for nothing that A.S. Pavlov, with his polemical articles published in various books of Christian Reading for 1882–1886. and in particular with his book, now under consideration, completely overshadowing it, at least in the main and essential things, I did not hesitate to express such a judgment about it. "research by the venerable professor... undoubtedly makes a very noticeable contribution to our sparse canonical literature. It reveals a significant amount of new material on the history of Russian marriage customs, presents a detailed historical and canonical analysis of the content of one of the main sources of this law; raises many questions that are of high importance not only scientifically, but also in practical terms” (p. 6). What is missing from such a venerable work and how is the work and book of A. S. Pavlov superior to this book? The answer is short: it lacks the concentration of those spiritual gifts, which is imprinted with particular clarity in the book now under consideration; This is the superiority of the latter over the former... “The 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book contains two articles that are different in their sources and content: 1) “on the secret of marriage,” which sets out the concept of marriage and gives instructions to the priest about the procedure and conditions for its implementation; 2) “On Affinities in the Secret of Marriage” - a treatise on various types of kinship that constitute an obstacle to marriage. Both articles were included in the Helmsman’s Book back in the era of its first printed edition (1649–1653) from the famous Trebnik of Kyiv Metropolitan Peter Mogila (1646, part 1, pp. 359–396). But where did Mogila get them from? (page 8). The research of the venerable professor Fr. Gorchakov was led to the following conclusion: “the first part of the 50th chapter (or the first article) is borrowed from the Roman Catholic Polish Trebnik - from its article: de Sacramento matrimonii, and this article sets out in its entirety the bull of Pope Paul V. The content of the bull is largely borrowed from the decree of the Council of Trent.” Having stated this categorically at the beginning of his book (p. 10) his judgment about the source of the article of the Mogilyan Trebnik and the Helmsman’s Book, the venerable professor at the end of his book makes from this categorical judgment the following even more bold and decisive conclusion about the canonical significance of this article: “the degree of canonical dignity of the 50th chapter can be determined by the relationship of its content to the canons of the Universal Church and the legislation of local churches. The entire 50th chapter, in its content, represents a set of provisions and extracts extracted from various sources and works of unequal canonical merit. Some (few) of its provisions and rules are extracted from the canons of the Universal Church.... others are from the bull of the Pope, Paul IV (i.e. the Vth)” 1. Of all the provisions and rules, chapters can and should have, in their content, an unconditionally binding significance in all local churches, and therefore in the Russian one, only those that are borrowed from rules that have the meaning of legislation of the Universal Church... The same provisions and rules of the 50th chapter, which, in their content, are borrowed from the bull of Pope Paul IV (i.e. V)... cannot have any binding meaning in the Russian Church if they are not elevated by its independent legislation into certain rules” 2. This resolves the question of the practical significance of those rules of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book, which underlie the later decrees of the Holy Synod on the relationship between the bride and groom, on wedding and non-wedding days, etc., which determine modern church practice on this subject. Both these researches and this conclusion based on them make a heavy impression on the reader. “Some provisions and rules of the Breviary of Peter the Mogila and the Helmsman’s Book are borrowed from the bull of Pope Paul V or IV.” “They cannot have any significance unless the Russian Church elevates them into certain rules by its legislation.” A difficult situation for the legislative power of the Russian Church: it is inconvenient to proclaim the rules borrowed from the papal bull; This is humiliating, and there is no need for it; and not to erect it means to deny any meaning to the rules in force today, to sign a renunciation of what has been practiced for so long and which finds support for itself in the long-standing body of canon law of the Russian Church - in the Pilot’s Book. Moreover, who will deny how difficult it is for the Russian Orthodox consciousness to hear that both Peter (Mogila) and the council of Russian shepherds headed by the All-Russian Patriarch in the 17th century placed the papal bull of the 17th century among the fundamental sources of canon law of the Orthodox Russian Church, etc., etc. Such sad thoughts completely dissipate in the light of L. S. Pavlov’s research on the same subject. According to these studies, it turns out that the provisions and rules of the 10th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book, as well as the Breviary of Peter Mogila, were not borrowed from any papal bull, but were compiled by the Kyiv Metropolitan Peter Mogila, although under the literary influence of the Roman Catholic Breviary and the school-dogmatic views of scholastic theology, but compiled in a strictly Orthodox spirit. A. S. Pavlov's thorough research is aimed primarily at finding those literary sources that the Kiev Metropolitan Peter (Mogila), at the same time one of the rare most enlightened Russian people of his time, should have used when compiling his article on marriage for the Trebnik he published - then - at carefully comparing these sources with his article. These searches and comparisons, made with full knowledge of the matter and thoroughness, reveal to the readers, so to speak, the internal process of the author’s work of Peter Mogila, the essence of which, in the words of A. S. Pavlov, was “the complete conversion of the Roman Catholic article to Orthodoxy (p. 11). The changes and additions that the article of the Roman Catholic breviary suffered from this work of the Orthodox theologian were so significant that without any doubt it could take and still takes its place among articles of a strictly Orthodox character both in spirit and in origin - in any case, so significant that no pope would allow and will not allow it to be tolerated in the Roman Catholic breviary, and even less will he allow himself to place it in his bull: for it had already lost its Roman Catholic character and took on its Orthodox character in its place. But for that, the Moscow publishers of the Helmsman’s Book willingly accepted this article, so Orthodox that they probably “did not even suspect its Latin origin,” accepted it from the Trebnik compiled by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv, although again they could not resist making in it, although “not numerous, but more or less significant abbreviations” (p. 15). This process of whitewashing the Mogila Breviary and the Helmsman's Book from accusations of Latinism does not take up many pages in the book under review, pp. 8–15, but they are precious! The next twenty-five pages (15-40) of the book under review contain an indication of the original Greek for the second part of the 50th chapter. For a reviewer who has neither the authority nor the deliberate art of accurately portraying the real value of works that exceed his own creative ability, these beautiful pages of the book under review would have led to an extremely difficult position in determining their scientific value, if, fortunately for him, they had not found parallels in the above-mentioned book of Professor Fr. Gorchakova. This parallelism makes it possible to evade one’s own assessment, and instead offer the reader data from one and the other book and then judge the merits of the book in question and leave it to him to make his own judgment based on these data. The question of the sources and origin of the second part of the 50th chapter, the article “on affinities in the secret of marriage,” - one can still say, says A. S. Pavlov - has not been touched upon at all in our historical and legal literature. Professor Gorchakov is the first to have the honor of printing, if not a direct source, then at least the prototype of this article - the work of the Chartophylax of the Church of Constantinople Manuel, written in the second quarter of the 16th century, during the patriarchate of Jeremiah (1525-1540) and on his orders. But this is not the only scientific merit of our canonist. Having found neither in Russian nor in foreign libraries copies of the first printed editions of Manuel’s work (the 16th century), which Greek bibliographers speak of, the venerable professor decided to publish the original text of this monument himself according to two copies, Paris and Vienna, indicated in Chizhman’s famous major work: “Marriage Law of the Eastern Church.” This publication clearly resolves the question of the relationship of the second part of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman to the work of the named Greek canonist: the Slavic text in a significant part of its content turns out to be a literal translation of this work, but on the other hand, it also contains a lot that points to another source (pp. 15–17). What kind of work did Fr. Gorchakov, this is his merit to the Russian literature of canon law, this can be clearly evidenced, by the way, by his own following testimony: “The work of Chartophylax Manuel received, as we will show below, important significance in the history of marriage law not only of the Church of Constantinople, but also of the Slavic churches - Serbian and Russian.” It, in all likelihood, has not yet been published in the very form in which it came from the pen of the author, and if it was printed, then printed copies of it currently constitute such a bibliographic rarity that it turns out to be inaccessible to those living in Russia. Despite all our efforts to obtain information about the printed edition of Malaxa’s work (probably should read: Manuel) personally - in the Paris library and through correspondence with some persons who could find copies of this publication in the Florentine, Venetian and Viennese libraries, if they were in these libraries, we could not obtain any information about them. With greater ease, thanks to the enlightened assistance of the authorities of the St. Petersburg public library, we had the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with handwritten copies of Manuel’s works belonging to the libraries of Paris and Vienna. According to the communication of the authorities of our domestic book depository, as a result of our request, the Parisian and Viennese libraries in 1878 sent the said manuscripts to St. Petersburg for temporary use 3 . “We come to the conclusion,” Fr. says on page 104 of his book. Gorchakov - that the tables of degrees of kinship, placed in the Petromogily Trebnik and in the printed Helmsman's Book, were translated from one of the printed publications of Zechariah Skordilius, which appeared in Venice in 1588 and 1589. Unfortunately, these publications now constitute a bibliographic rarity that the public libraries of St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna do not possess, and which only such Greek bibliographers as Vretos, Safa and Dmitrokopud could have at hand.” We present this handwritten testimony of a Russian scientist about his works, which he had to undertake to find the sources of his science. For the Russian scientific canonist of the present time, it is not enough just the private, so to speak, feats of reading, comparison, analysis and, in general, penetrating into the depths of ready-made tomes; no, with this cell feat he must combine a very troublesome activity, sometimes associated with insurmountable difficulties of the most diverse nature, to find these very volumes in different corners of his fatherland and abroad. Only with the combination of these two kinds of feats is it possible to resolve many fundamental issues of our canonical law: and good, of course, if these searches and searches are crowned with success, then the ascetic is crowned with honor and glory; but how often do they end in decisive failures and force the zealous prospector to express a bitter confession, like that expressed, for example, by the “unforgettable Rosenkampf”: this problem cannot be solved, because we do not have the original that was sent from Bulgaria to Russia 4, and there are a great many such problems.. In the studies of A. S. Pavlov one does not encounter such complaints, and yet, these studies clearly indicate the great exploits of the researcher and are aimed at solving problems “that cannot be solved” for the above reasons and according to the own consciousness of other Russian scientists. How A.S. Pavlov acquired such art - only he himself knows. May the readers, and above all A.S. Pavlov himself, forgive us for these explanations that are apparently irrelevant to the essence of the matter! We were forced to do them in order to characterize as accurately as possible the properties of the scientific research that we undertook to consider. In the study under consideration, A.S. Pavlov took the trouble to indicate not the prototype - what has already been indicated by Fr. Gorchakov, and the original for the translated Slavic text of the second part of the 50th chapter of Kormcha. As this prototype, Fr. Gorchakov pointed to the Ἔ κθεσις of Manuel Chartophylax of the Church of Constantinople in the 16th century. Moreover, he published this work in his book based on two manuscripts from the Parisian and Viennese libraries 5 . Moreover, Fr. Gorchakov, following Chizhman in researching the further fate of Manuil’s ecthesis, was on a clear path to finding that edition of this ecthesis, which served as a direct original for the publishers of the Mogilyan Trebnik and the printed Kormcha, but due to the above-mentioned difficulties, which he himself talks about in his book, he did not reach the end. “For the purposes of our study,” he says, “the edition of Zechariah Scordilius is of enormous importance” (p. 55). But... “not having the opportunity to familiarize ourselves directly with the work of Skordilius, we cannot judge his relationship to the work of Chartophylax Manuel through a detailed comparison of the texts of the works of both (p. 56). “A comparison of Manuel’s work in the form in which we print it above with the edition of the table of degrees of kinship in which it is found in the nomocanon of Malaxa, and with the contents of the chapter of the Peter Mogila Breviary “On the Mystery of Marriage,” and the 50th chapter of the printed Helmsman’s Book, undoubtedly convinces us that the compilers of the Petro-Mogila Breviary used the work of the charterphilax Manuel, but not directly, but through a subsequent edition, which could only have been an alteration of Zechariah Skordilius, or Manuel Malaxa.” The venerable professor Fr. came to such results, accompanying this path with instructions from difficult circumstances. Gorchakov on the subject he studied. And again - an unpleasant impression, his book evokes sad thoughts in the reader. What a harsh fate is this that befalls the Russian scientist! With hard work he makes his thorny path: now he is already at the goal of his labors, but then he encounters an insurmountable obstacle and moves back, bowing his head and consoling himself only with fortune-telling, undoubted assumptions that there, behind this insurmountable obstacle, lies a clear solution to the difficult riddle proposed to him and tormenting him... This is not the book under consideration by A.S. Pavlova! Here there are no complaints, no insurmountable obstacles, no heavy doubts; here, on the contrary, everything is clear, categorical, calmly confident. On this issue, A. S. Pavlov’s book produces on the reader that joyful feeling experienced by a person who has been wandering along country roads for a long time in the middle of a dark night, and suddenly at dawn he sees a big road in front of him. Regarding the personality of Manuel and his ecthesis, A. S. Pavlov’s book illuminates the following dark places in the messages given on this subject by Fr. Gorchakov: a) Greek bibliographer Safa, followed by Fr. Gorchakov confuses the personality of Chartophylax Manuel, the author of Ἔ κθεσισα with Manuel the Rhetor of the Great Church - a writer more famous than the first, but of the same era. A. S. Pavlov corrects the Greek bibliographer and points out clear features distinguishing two persons mixed into one. One was a rhetorician, another was a chartophylax, one was a native of the Peloponnese, or Corinth - Πελοποννησιος, Κορ ί νθιος; the other - Asia Minor, the city of Xanthus - Εανθιν ό ς. “Kafa not only confused our Manuel with the great rhetorician of the same name and contemporary to him, but also divided him into two persons, of which one - under the name of Manuel the rhetorician and hartofalix remained in the 16th century, and the other - with only the last title - became one of the little-known writers of the second half of the 17th century.” b) But the main work of A. S. Pavlov is devoted to bibliographic research of Manuel’s Ecthesis, the characteristics of this work and its extremely important significance in the history of marriage law throughout the Eastern and in particular the Russian Church. He found the best and most ancient copies of Ecthesis: “undoubtedly standing very close to the autograph of Manuel himself.” There are two of them: both are in the Venetian library of St. Mark, one in the form of an alligator for a magnificent glassine collection of canons of the 11th century, the other as part of a collection of the same content from the 16th century. And then “Sevastyanovsky of the 16th-17th centuries, located in the Moscow Public Museum, in a collection of various excerpts from Greek manuscripts under No. 532 (5th excerpt) 6” belongs to the same category with these. Having found the best lists of this work, A. S. Pavlov presents a characteristic and historical criticism of it (pp. 20–26). It turns out that as sources for his treatise, Manuel the Xanean had a list of kinship and properties in the surnames “Radin” and “Sklpr”, which Manuel could have as a separate essay and read in the so-called Prochivon auctum (Added prochiron), where it occupies ch. 98–129 tit. VIII.; then M. Vlastar’s treatise: on the degrees of kinship in relation to marriage, found in his Alphabetical Syntagma (Lit. B. ch. 8). “Manuel hartophylax undoubtedly,” says A.S. Pavlov, “used these manuals, especially Vlastar, but – to be fair to him – he used them independently, critically” (p. 20). On further pages, up to the 27th, a detailed and at the same time concise and clear analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of Ecthesis is offered. We refrain from presenting this analysis, because in order to be accurate in this presentation, we would be forced to convey it in its entirety: it is so condensed, so not verbose, that it is impossible to find a word in it that could be omitted without distorting the strength of the original! Pages 27–36 deal with the editions of the Ecthesis by Manuel Malax and Zechariah Scordilius - Marathara. Νομικ ό ν (this is the name of the collection) by M. Malax, almost entirely containing the Ecthesis of Chartophylax Manuel, contributed to the wide dissemination of the latter in the Eastern Church and in Moldavia; for here Νομικ ό ν Malaxa enjoyed wide popularity - this is on the one hand; and on the other hand, from this it was the Nomicon that in 1643 Manuel’s paintings of kinship and properties were reprinted in the Greek Irmologion of Anthony Julian and are still published in the Greek Irmologions. But in general, the Nomicon of M. Malax is a bad source for getting acquainted with the Ecthesis of Manuel Chartophytax “out of his eight lists,” says A.S. Pavlov, known to us personally and from other people’s descriptions, we cannot point out even two in which the Ecthesis of Manuel Chartophylax wrote down the same place and had the same edition” (p. 27). And besides: M. Malax’s collection was not only not popular in Russia, but was hardly even known at all. Not to M. Malax, but to another person, namely the Greek priest Fr. The Orthodox Russian people, who hitherto have an excellent understanding of kinship and property even in their lower classes, owe their acquaintance with the Ecthesis of Manuel, the best guide on this subject that has ever come to light, to Zechariah Skordilia-Marafara. What kind of person she was, what works or publications belonged to her - Fr. introduced these questions to the Russian public. Gorchakov, in his book “On the Mystery of Marriage” (pp. 54–56), introduced as much information as he could get about this in the Greek magazine: ελληνομν ή μων (Athens 1843), in the biographies of Safa and some other Greek bibliographers. He was the first, at least in print, to suggest that “one of the editions of Skordilius is of enormous importance” for determining the source of the second half of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book. But what kind of publication is this? where can I find it? To these questions Fr. Gorchakov could only give the following sad answers: “we could not find the Skordilyev Orologion” (p. 55, note. 2); “not having the opportunity to familiarize ourselves directly (and with other) works of Skordilius, we cannot judge his attitude to the work of Chartophylax Manuel through a detailed comparison of the texts of the works of both authors” (p. 56). The Russian canonist again encountered a question “that cannot be solved,” and again A. S. Pavlov responded to this challenge, and in the book under consideration he resolved this question - completely without any trace. On pp. 29–36 he gives the most detailed instructions where the reader can find the book of Scordilius and detailed descriptions of its most important editions; then in the “appendices”, on pp. 238 – 331, the original text of it, in parallel with the text of the Helmsman’s Book, and at the bottom with excellent comments and options explaining the relationship of the book of Scordilius to the Ecthesis of Manuel Chartophylax and other sources that he used. Thus, on these pages (29–36 and 238–331) of the book under consideration, the reader (both the learned specialist and the reader of secondary education) has before their eyes the hitherto hidden source from which the second part of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book emerged in the 17th century. This source was found, cleared and presented in complete integrity to the primitive and scientific world by the Russian scientist A.S. Pavlov. Here, in brief, is information about the works of Skordilia-Marafara, which are closely related to the Helmsman’s Book: “The first edition of Skordilia’s book was published in 1564. It coincided with the greatest national celebration of the Greek colony in Venice - the consecration of the first Orthodox church there (in the name of St. Great Martyr George), in which Father Zechariah was the vicar of the then Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople (1549–1566). At the end of the publication there were a) poems by the publisher himself in honor of the newly consecrated church; b) the inscription inscribed above its doors, and c) the following typographical news about the publication of the book: “this book about marriages was printed in Venice in the house of Jacob Leoncinus, to whom the most illustrious Venetian government was given the privilege so that for 10 years no one would dare to print this book; and it was printed with the intention and diligence of the priest 3axapia Skordili the Cretan, nicknamed Marafar, the viceroy of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Kur-Josaph in the year of the dispensation in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ 1554 in the month of Genbar.” In the first (capital) place are printed: a) on the front side - a different image on wood of Zechariah Skordilia with the initial letters Π on the sides. Z. (παπ ᾶ ς Ζαχατιας or πρ ό σωτον Ζαχαρ ί ου) with the signature of the following couplet: Χαρτοφύλαξ πάρος ἀγχιστει ὠ ν πεισματα λῦσεν Ἑ ρμε ίῃ τ ώ χνη νῦν δἐ ί ερευς ἀλιτρ ό ς [Ie: First, Chartophylax, with the art of interpretation, unraveled the ropes of family ties, and now (did this) an unworthy priest]; b) on the reverse side is a table of five types of kinship, indicating the extreme limit to which the prohibition of marriage in each of them extends.” The only copy of the first edition of the book of Scordilius is now in the Venetian library of St. Mark in one common binding with other small Greek brochures under the sign 1953. CXCI. 7. In the continuation of the 16th century. Skordilia's book was reprinted several times. The surviving copies of these reprints have reached us partly in the form of alligations to the Greek Book of Hours (ωρολ ό γιον) of various editions of the 16th century, partly in the form of separate books, but both without typographical information about the time of their printing, with the exception of one edition, published as a separate book in 1588. Of the copies woven into the Book of Hours, two are known: one with the Book of Hours of the Moscow Synodal Printing Library of the 16th century, but of an unknown year, the other with the Book of Hours of the British Museum of 1581. Both of these Books of Hours and the alligates that belong to them undoubtedly represent two completely different publications. Thus, according to the available bibliographic data, it is possible with full probability to count four editions of Skordilia’s book: two with a specific date - 1564 and 1588 and two without a date: one with the Moscow Printing Book of Hours, the other with the London Museum of 1581. Scordilius himself undoubtedly owns only the first edition. All later reprints were made without his participation (pp. 31, 32). As a literary work, Skordilia’s book is characterized as follows: “Scordilia was not only the publisher of Manuel’s Ecthesis, but also the author of various additions to it. He marked some of them with a special inscription: και ἄννως or και έτερως others indicated directly, but most of the articles in the book are left without any hint of their origin, so that an accurate and unmistakable distinction between the copyrights of Manuel and Scordilius is made possible only with the help of two Venetian copies of the Ecthesis, already known to us, representing this monument in its original, authentic and complete. From a comparison of these lists with the printed book of Scordilius, it turns out that he worked most of all on the last section of Manuel’s work on spiritual kinship. This section is supplemented by Scordilius: 1) a table of spiritual kinship; 2) numerous and often quite extensive extracts from various sources about the dogmatic foundations and canonical significance of this kinship as an obstacle to marriage. It can be said without exaggeration that almost everything that could be found on this subject in the sources of canon law and the theological writings of the fathers of the Greek Church, namely Dionysius the Areopagite and Simeon of Thessaloniki, is collected here. From a historical and canonical point of view, especially remarkable are the excerpts published by Skordilius, known only from his book, from the charters of the contemporary Patriarchs Dionysius and Joseph. In addition, Fr. Zechariah, not finding in his sources a direct and decisive answer to several casuistic questions about spiritual kinship that occupied him, placed them in his book with answers on his own behalf.” Despite these undoubted advantages, Skordilia's book is not without some shortcomings. “In the mass of extracts from his sources, Scordilius could not help but notice those contradictions about the boundaries of spiritual kinship with which Manuel Chartophylax also dealt, but he was unable to emerge from them with such honor as his predecessor.” “The absence of any system in the presentation of the material and the lack of solid logic in the development of the main idea constitute the distinctive character of the author’s activity of Fr. Zechariah, how much it manifested itself in the book that occupies us. Undoubtedly, he was a very industrious compiler, carefully noting the most insignificant variations in his sources, but not the kind of thinker who could create from his material one harmonious whole, like the Ecthesis of Chartophylax Manuel. The book of Scordilius, respectfully accepted in the Greek Church, became famous in the Slavic churches. From the beginning of the 17th century. Lists of its Serbian translation have reached us in various canonical collections, which undoubtedly had very important practical significance in the Yugoslav churches. One list, for example, is in the Serbian nomocanon of the Pogodin Ancient Repository (Imperial Publ. Biblioteka No. 243). About half of the same century, this book became known here in Kiev, but not in the finished, now mentioned Serbian translation, but in the printed original. The Kiev Metropolitan, the famous Peter Mohyla, used this book as one of the sources for the canonical article on marriages, which he placed in the Trebnik, before the “rite of betrothal and wedding.” Here, Skordilia’s book is not presented in a complete and accurate translation (as in Serbian), but only in extracts and with various alterations. The Kiev translation retains almost the entire text of the Ecthesis of Manuel with its tables, but most of the additions made by Scordilius outside this text are omitted (p. 98). The exact and clear relationship of the Kiev translation to the original is presented in the appendix, which contains the beautifully published book by Scordilius from a copy of the printing library. We examined only the first part of the book (pp. 1–40) by A. S. Pavlov. The next two, more extensive parts, contain 1st: historical and canonical analysis of the first part of the 50th chapter, 2nd: historical and canonical analysis of the second part. Both of these parts resolve the following problem “since the articles of the Helmsman’s Book, borrowed from the Trebnik of Peter Mogila, are younger than all other sources of marriage law adopted in the same Helmsman; then questions naturally arise: how do they relate to the content of these ancient sources? Do they give any new definitions and norms on marriage law in comparison with them, and if so, to what extent have these definitions and norms been adopted by later Russian legislation and practice, and do they, in any respect, retain their direct effect in marriage law to the present day? We will not consider these parts: this consideration would lead to the need to write a book no less than the one about which we decided to write our review; for the characteristic property of the venerable author - to express a lot in not many words - was reflected in these parts of his book to the same extent as in the first. To fulfill our bibliographic task, we believe it will be enough to point out the general conclusions to which the venerable author came with his research. As for the nature of these studies themselves, the process, the path by which he reached his conclusions: they are the same as those discovered in the first part and which - we allow ourselves to hope - have been sufficiently clarified by us. And here is the same comprehensiveness in the study of sources and literature, the same deep penetration into their spirit; the same amazing accuracy in reporting historical information, the same amazing acquaintance with fresh, raw material (especially with the “cases” and unpublished legislation of St. Synod and finally the same slow, deeply thoughtful, but concise and completely categorical speech, which expresses provisions, judgments, conclusions, as in the first part of the book. Here is a list of the results of the entire study, obtained using the means we characterized by our Russian canonist, expressed in his own words (only with some abbreviations that we allowed). 1) “The origin of the components of the 50th chapter from sources that do not have legislative authority for the Orthodox and, in particular, for the Russian church, cannot serve as a condemnation of its canonical dignity... In the sphere of its law, as in the sphere of teaching, the church acts according to the rule: keep everything that tempts you good (1 Sol. V.21). What is “good” for church life, the church can take from anywhere and, after temptation on the touchstone of its faith and the foundations of its right, turn it into its “good”. This is what she did in the present case: the article of the Catholic Ritual, as we have already seen, was accepted by Peter (Mogila) into his missal with significant changes in the meaning of the Orthodox dogmatic teaching on marriage and as required by the modern practice of Russian marriage law. In the same way, the composition of the Constantinople chartophylax in the printed version already known to us served for the Kyiv hierarch only as material, which he used quite freely and authoritatively for his guidance to the local clergy during marriages. In turn, the All-Russian patriarchs, accepting the article of the Kyiv Trebnik in Kormchaya, made some amendments, reductions and adaptations to the peculiarities of local church practice in both parts. Only in this form and only in the meaning of a legislative act of the Russian church authorities, an article compiled from the specified material has become one of the most important sources of marriage law for our practice.” And in essence, that is, in content and character, the 50th chapter of the Helmsman has every right to have this meaning: “it does not contain anything that disagrees with the primary sources of Orthodox marriage law. Compared with other articles on marriages accepted (and not accepted) into the printed Helmsman, Chapter 50 has the undeniable advantages of completeness and clarity. It contains several new and very important instructions, some of them completely unknown to the previous sources of our marriage law, some of which served as a necessary addition and clarification for practice of what was contained in these sources. If in the 50th chapter there are some inaccuracies, even contradictions, then these shortcomings are so insignificant that previous practice, generally speaking, did not notice them at all. In any case, they did not detract from the comparative dignity of the chapter as a whole and, with greater attention from the highest spiritual government to the text of the printed Helmsman, could easily be corrected in further editions of this book. All this refers to the 50th chapter of the Helmsman’s Book, as a source of Russian marriage law. But for practice, it was mainly important as a technical guide to the precise determination of the degrees of kinship and properties prohibited for marriage. In this capacity, it stands immeasurably higher than all previous leadership used in the Russian and Greek churches itself until the 16th century. We still do not have another, at least official, manual, which, in terms of the clarity and completeness of the descriptions of kinship and property (especially the latter), could be put on the same line with the 50th chapter of the Helmsman.” 2) In the historical development of the dogma of Russian marriage law, the significance of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman is determined by the extent of the norms of this law adopted from it, or established under its influence. This includes the provisions of current laws, ecclesiastical and civil: 1) On the need for mutual consent of the bride and groom for marriage; 2) about the non-marriage of monogamous non-Christian spouses who have been baptized; 3) about the threefold announcement of the upcoming marriage; 4) about weddings being celebrated in the parish church, by parish priests and in the presence of witnesses; 5) on non-celebration of marriages without special episcopal permission in consanguinity and two-parent relationship beyond the 4th degree and in tripartite relationship beyond the 1st degree. For all that, some rules of the 50th chapter still retain direct effect in our marriage law: 1) rules about the times of the year in which marriages should not take place; 2) a rule requiring that those getting married know the rudiments of the Christian faith; 3) a rule indicating the closest degrees of illegitimate relationship as an obstacle to marriage. 3) The teaching of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman about the “form of the mystery of marriage” was generally accepted in Orthodox dogma of the 16th and 17th centuries. Although this teaching was formulated not by the church at councils, but by the Western Russian theological school under the influence of Catholic scholasticism, but included in the Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogila, it received recognition from the entire hierarchy of the Eastern Church and thus became church dogma from a school dogma. It is also justified by the tradition of the Universal Church, which recognized Christian marriage as a sacrament by its very essence, and not by the form of its conclusion. And since the mutual consent of the spouses undoubtedly relates to the very essence of the marriage union, the external expression of this consent, as a necessary form of performing the sacrament of marriage, should constitute the same, that is, an absolutely necessary accessory to the church rite of marriage. This is required by the very analogy of marriage with other sacraments. If the Missal and Breviary give a special, strictly defined formula for the performance of each sacrament, then why should the sacrament of marriage alone be left forever without one or another formula corresponding to its essence? 4) Actually, Russian church legislation on various types of kinship, which constitutes an obstacle to marriage, weakened the binding force of Byzantine church laws set out in chapters 50 and 51 of the Book of the Helmsman. This especially needs to be said about the provisions of our legislation, which directly allow marriage in the second degree of spiritual relationship and indirectly in the first. 5) “Since, according to the exact meaning of the decree of January 19, 1810, diocesan bishops cannot but give permission for marriages in kinship and affinity (two-parent) exceeding the fourth degree, then this permission is nothing more than a simple formality, the abolition of which would not cause any damage to church truth, but the observance of which is often associated with great inconvenience for interested parties. As for the injunction set out in the synodal decree of March 28, 1859, according to which parish priests cannot, without special episcopal permission, solemnize marriages even in the 4th degree of the trigender, and diocesan bishops should in no case prohibit the solemnization of such marriages, then the abolition of this injunction, as based solely on the mistake of the publishers of the printed Helmsman, would even direct restoration of church truth." 6) “The complete analogy established in the 50th chapter of the Helmsman between spiritual kinship and kinship by establishment must be maintained in the current marriage law. If the current church law does not allow marriage between persons who, according to spiritual kinship, stand to each other in relation to parents and children, brothers and sisters, i.e. in the first and second degrees: then simple moral decency requires that these two degrees remain prohibited for marriage and in established kinship.” 7) “Physical or illegal kinship (if, of course, it is known) must be recognized as an obstacle to marriage to the same extent as legal kinship, i.e. up to 4th degree inclusive" 8) “The new method of calculating degrees of property, according to which each of the spouses, in relation to the other’s blood relatives, is taken as a special degree, must be rejected once and for all, as directly anti-canonical.” 9) “The days and times of the year in which marriages should not take place are not calculated completely and with all accuracy in any legislative act of the Russian Church, as a result of which in our church practice cases of disagreement in this regard are still possible. For example: is it possible to get married on Tuesdays and Thursdays before Vespers? From the point of view of the facts of ancient Russian church practice we have cited and on the basis of the modern liturgical charter, according to which the day begins not in the morning, but in the evening (which is why weddings on Wednesday and Fridays after Vespers are not prohibited), the answer to the proposed question can only be given in the affirmative. From this point of view, the same should be said about the eves or vespers of Sundays and holidays. But modern practice, not having direct and clear regulations on this subject in the current church laws, may, in the person of the diocesan bishops themselves, hesitate here and there, that is, in some cases allow marriages to be celebrated on designated days before Vespers, and in others not allow them. We repeat once again: the question, taken in its entirety, is now awaiting legislative resolution, without losing at all the practical importance that the Supreme State Authority itself attached to it in the last century. With this resolution, of course, the contemporary practice of the oldest of the Orthodox local churches, the Greek, must also be taken into account” (pp. 219 – 226). We do not take the liberty to evaluate, much less predict, what practical significance these conclusions will receive in our family law: but as for their scientific significance, the Russian chronicle of the science of canon law of the Eastern Church will gratefully record these conclusions as examples of precisely formulated and completely scientifically reasoned provisions of strictly Orthodox canonical doctrine. The book is supplied, in addition to many footnotes, with an extensive epilogue. This last one contains: 1) The text of the 50th chapter of the Helmsman in parallel with its sources; Among these latter, the full text of the book of Zechariah Skordilia - Marathara, excellently commented by the publisher, is especially important. 2) A list (Greek) of the degrees of kinship and properties in which marriage is prohibited or permitted, compiled by an unknown author around the half of the 11th century. In this exact edition, this painting was translated into the Slavic language at the beginning of the 13th century and, until the printed edition of Kormcha, served as our main guide for calculating the degrees of kinship and property. Its original has not yet been published. 3) Opinion of Daniel, Metropolitan of Ephesus, nicknamed Span (late 15th century), about the marriage between the son of a godson and the granddaughter of a godfather. 4) A treatise on the procedure and conditions for marriage, compiled on behalf of the Holy Synod by St. Petersburg Archbishop Gabriel of Kremenetsky. 5) Instructions for the prevention of abuse during the celebration of the marital sacrament (drawn up in the Holy Synod between 1779–1787). 6) A set of decisions of the Holy Governing Synod that followed in cases of marriages that took place in different affinities - the work of Metropolitan Evgeniy (Bolkhovitinov), stored between the manuscripts of the Kiev-Sophia Cathedral, under No. 65. 7) From the memorial of the private spiritual-civil commission to the directorial commission on the creation of a new code dated June 11, 1769. 8) A., John the monk Zonaras on behalf of the priests - that two second cousins ​​should not marry the same woman; V., His Holiness Theodore Balsamon, Patriarch of Antioch, opinion on the question discussed in the Synod of whether it is possible for one and the same person to marry two second cousins. These articles, with the exception of the last two, either had not yet been published, or in very rare editions they were in such obscurity that finding them required rare acquaintance with the repositories of early printed books and manuscripts, Russian and foreign, as well as with the archives of the Holy Synod. The last two, although they are in fairly public editions, but – in the language of the ancient Slavic saints – “have hitherto been darkened for many by the cloud of wisdom of the Hellenic language, but now they have become obsolete,” i.e. appeared in an accurate and clear translation by A. S. Pavlov. "On the Mystery of Marriage." page 381. Prof. O. M. Gorchakova, On the secret of marriage,” pp. 42, 43. SP6 1880 Rosenkampf. Review of the Helmsman's Book, page 57. Edition 2. See Gorchakov “On the Mystery of Marriage,” pp. 43–53. Ibid., page 18. O. Gorchakov, with great effort, found two very bad lists of this ecthesis in the Paris and Vienna libraries. See his books, 42, 43. 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