“The science of church law will inevitably deal with legal consciousness in the church…”: review of the Barsov society round table “Church legal consciousness: status, problems and approaches”

The article presents data on the work of the round table “Church legal consciousness: status, problems and approaches’, which was organized by the Society for the Study of Canon Law named after T. V. Barsov (Barsov Society) of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The introductory report of A. A. Khokhlov is presented in full, followed by individual provisions of the discussion of the round table participants, based on the results of which a number of preliminary conclusions were formulated: 1) at present, legal consciousness of the episcopate is of key importance; 2) the role of the state in the process of formation and development of church legal consciousness is the subject of an ongoing discussion; 3) we should talk not about church legal consciousness, but about church legal consciousnesses; 4) when studying church legal consciousness, it is important to take into account the state of culture of society; 5) in the Church, statutory legal norms give way to the primacy of morality over canons and church laws; 6) sanctions in the church tradition appear in moral and ethical (spiritual) categories that determine the background of the entire legal culture of the Church. In conclusion, it is noted that in the future, the science of church law will inevitably deal with legal consciousness in the Church.