The ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Russian princes in the context of Russian-byzantine relations (11th - mid-15th centuries)

The problems of the development of ecclesiastical justice in Russia attract the attention of both historians and jurists. The relevance of this issue is associated with the interest of contemporaries in the relationship between the state and the Church, the novelty of the study lies in the consideration of the problems of the implementation of church justice in relation to representatives of secular power - the Russian princes, in the context of the legal relations of Russia and Byzantium, is a development of the author’s ideas expressed in the monograph “Legal Status of Church Property in Russia in the Pre-Patriarchal Period”. The article analyzes scientific approaches and assesses the essence of relations between the state and the Church in Kyivan Rus, puts forward the author’s concept based on a legal analysis of facts and their scientific interpretation. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the metropolitan over secular princes and the well-known cases in history of exercising the right of ecclesiastical court over secular authorities are considered not only as a domestic phenomenon, but also as evidence of the limitation of the external sovereignty of princely power by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Byzantine state. The author comes to the conclusion that with the fall of Constantinople, the jurisdictional restrictions for the Russian princes on the part of the suzerain - the Byzantine Emperor - disappear, which becomes the basis for the reception in Russia of the Orthodox political and legal doctrine of the “symphony of authorities”. The article was prepared on the basis of a report presented by the author at the 5th Barsov Readings at St. Petersburg Theological Academy on December 13, 2021.