To the issue of the concept of reform of the spiritual court by T. V. Barsov. Review of the article by Dmitry Voluzhkov “Professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy Т. V. Barsov on the reform of the spiritual court of the Russian church (based on articles in the scientific journal “Khristianskoye chteniye”, 1870-73)”

The article contains a critical analysis of T. V. Barsov's perceptions of a possible reform of the spiritual court in the context of D. V. Voluzhkov's attempt to identify the supposed concept of such reform. Contradictions revealed in the interpretation of theoretical-legal and historical-legal representations of T. V. Barsov on the evolution of the spiritual court. It has been suggested that Barzov saw the fundamental difference between church law and secular law in its significant spiritual and moral potential. This difference was evident in the features of the spiritual court, which was characterized by an informal character and focused on “Christian justice”. It can be assumed that as a kind of development of this feature T. V. Barsov saw another property of the spiritual court - its consistent implementation, which is a consistent increase of influence on the offender in order to correct it. A comparison of the principles of spiritual and secular courts was carried out, as opposed to the study of D. V. Voluzhkov, on the basis not of a modern secular court, but of a post-reform court of the 19th century.