Church Court and Secular Court: General and Different in Principles

In order to find general and different legal principles, the article compares the current Statute of the Church Court of the Russian Orthodox Church of 2008 and the procedural legislation of Russia. It is shown that in church litigation six principles are used that are similar to the fundamental principles of secular procedural law. Particular attention is paid to the two most important principles for a secular court — competition and justice. Only a formal comparison of the principles does not provide a full understanding of the essence of the similarities and differences between the two systems. The conclusion is that in a secular court the search for truth and concern for justice is not a statutory duty of a court; the used concept of “inner conviction” does not correlate with the concept of “truth”. The church court, in the form of a confession, seeks the truth and seeks justice, the formalities of evidence are not so important for him. This article was written on the basis of a report made by the author on May 15, 2018 at the Round Table “The Legacy of Bishop John (Sokolov) and Actual Problems of Church Law”, organized by the Historical Society of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy.