Каноническое право: пути служения. Сравнительно-правовые очерки - Александр Александрович Вишневский

быть сделано одинаковыми каноническо-правовыми средствами. По этой причине разница в содержании канонических норм является, по сути и природе своей, не отступлением от древних канонов, а средством решения одной и той же задачи в различных социально-политических условиях.

Несколько заключительных слов…

Во введении мы обозначили свою задачу – как подготовить небольшую, написанную простым языком книгу по сравнительному каноническому праву, которая познакомила бы интересующегося читателя с каноническими правилами о путях служения, открытых для христиан в католической и русской православной традициях.

Возможно, прочитав нашу работу, читатель будет удивлен, что, оказывается, в этих двух традициях, которые обычно принято противопоставлять, автор находит больше общего, чем это можно было ожидать. Впрочем, возможно, кто-то таким подходом будет расстроен или даже возмущен.

Наше изучение канонического права подвело нас к простому пониманию, что каноны – это не вечные истины, но выражение вечных истин применительно к обстоятельствам места и времени, применительно к поставленным церковным законодателем задачам. В зависимости от поставленных задач внутренний смысл канонов предстает по-разному: иногда он вскрывает те вечные истины, что за ними стоят, а иногда наоборот. И в зависимости от того, что мы захотим в них увидеть, будущий мир предстанет по-разному – как земное воплощение этих вечных истин или как их земное разрушение.

Ну, а дальше – вопрос человеческого выбора… В том числе и в выборе цели – нравственной цели изучении канонического права – останемся ли мы в плену религиозных или идеологических предубеждений, «защищая свое единственно правильное», построив из них очередные стены, нас разделяющие, или же увидим общее за внешними различиями и станем друг к другу ближе.

Canon Law: ThE Ways Of ThE Ministry

A comparative law surveys

Summary

This book provides a general picture of the canonical rules applicable to the different ways of ministry in the Christian Church – the ministry of the laity (in this case marriage), the ministry of the clergy, the ministry of the monks and religious, as well as the ways the two main Christian Churches – Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox – are canonically organized.

The primary audience of the book are lay people, including the lay Christians, who are not, as a general rule, very much sophisticated in canon law. This is the reason the book is written in a simple language, understandable for non-professionals.

Another remarkable feature of the book is that it is a comparative law survey. It should be put very clear from the very beginning that the approach of the author – the approach of a secular scholar, free from ideological and religious perceptions – is leading to an understanding of the canon law of different Christian denominations (in our case, Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy) as different ways of expression of the same primordial values of Christianity, which are rooted even deeper than in the Ancient Church but go as deep as to the basic values of the Torah, to say the least.

The Foreword provides a brief overview of the history of Canon law in the Western and in the Eastern traditions, mostly the history and logic of its main sources. Though the sources of canon law in the East and in the West are looking different, in substance there is a common feature of the sources of the law of the Church which just reveals itself different on the surface of the matter. This common feature is presented in the book as “teaching-authority paradigm”. Indeed, this is a remarkable characteristic of the sources of canon law – they not just command, they explain. This tradition goes back to the Old Testament times, when the legislation of the Torah was enacted as Revelation explained by Moses to the sons of Israel, not as a statebased legislation in a conventional understanding. In substance of the matter Moses could be the legislator up to the extent he was able to teach the people.

A similar approach is visible in the canon law of the Early Church – as far as modern historical science allows us to consider as the very initial “law” of the Church such sources like the Didache, the Didascalia: the sources are very didactive, teaching by its nature and content. And though later the canons of the Church councils are more authoritative in style, they still contain brief references to the teaching seeds upon which they are based, but even more than that – the canons of the Councils are accompanied in the course of the historical development of Canon law by the Rules of the Holy Fathers, which is actually a canonical expression of their teaching as the Church scholars, both in substance and in style.

After the end of the “Councils’ era” the teaching authority paradigm continues:

– as a “symphony” of the Emperors’ legislation on Church matters (“authority” aspect) and the Rules of the Holy Fathers (“teaching” aspect) in the East, and

– as the Popes’ decretals in the West – indeed, the decretals are the source of canon law combining in one the teaching and authority elements due to the mere fact that the popes themselves were combining these two elements in the political history of Western Europe.

In other words, if viewed through the prism of the teaching-authority paradigm the “difference” in the sources of Canon law is but different ways of expressing the same common feature of the Canon law as a religious legal system in a different social and political environment. Thus, there is no reason for the Eastern Church to blame the West for “papal dictatorship”, as well as there is no reason for the Western Church to blame the East for caesaropapism – both Churches were doing a similar job using different tools available in different historical circumstances.

Chapter one deals with the laity, which reflects the growing recognition by the Church authorities of the role of the lay Christian faithful in the Church (unlike it was, e. g., in the Code of Canon law of 1917). In substance the first chapter of this book is the