The View of the Bishop of the 21st Century on the Discussion of the Reform of the Spiritual Court in the Late 19th - Early 20th century
The article presents an overview analysis of the opinions of prominent Russian canonists (A. F. Lavrov-Platonov, T. V. Barsova, I. S. Berdnikov, N. S. Suvorov, M. I. Gorchakov, M. Krasnozhen, N. A. Zaozersky, F. I. Titov, Ya. I. Barshev) in relation to the problems of reforming the church court in the late 19th - early 20th centuries from the point of view of the modern diocesan bishop. The spectrum of judgments on this issue, belonging to specialists in the ecclesiastical field, was quite varied. All of them were united by the idea of reforming the outdated institution of the ecclesiastical court through a return to the canonical foundations of the Ancient Church and a return to the canonical foundations of legal proceedings and bringing the legal proceedings into uniformity with the civil court of the Russian Empire. Among the shortcomings of the spiritual-judicial system were considered the bureaucracy and heaviness of the ecclesiastical court, carried out by the spiritual consistory, as well as the formalism of ecclesiastic legal proceedings. The most fruitful discussion during the period of reforms was caused by the topic of convening a Local Council, an instance of the highest judicial authority in the Russian Orthodox Church. At present, it is possible to objectively assess the arguments of the opposing sides from the point of view of the modern church system and the established relationship between the state and the Church. The modern ecclesiastical and judicial system of the Russian Orthodox Church is an exclusively corporate body that extends its competence to clergy, less often to parishioners. Thus, the decisions of the ecclesiastical court from the point of view of the state have no legal force, but only of intra-group significance. This feature is associated with the current legal status of the Russian Orthodox Church in the modern legal field of the Russian Federation.