Trial of bishops in the recent practice of the Russian Orthodox Church

The article sets the task of considering church trials of bishops that took place in the period from 1989 to the present. The relevance of the task is due to the lack of analysis of the compliance of the court decisions with the norms of substantive and procedural church law. The methodology of legal and canonical analysis of documents is used. The novelty of the study lies in the generalization and systematization of the ecclesiastical judicial practice of the chronological period under consideration, which can be used to improve ecclesiastical judicial documents and the practice of their application. Conclusions are drawn about the correspondence of each of the considered processes to the procedural church law in force at that time, with some minor remarks. The norms of substantive ecclesiastical law as a whole were also observed, however, the application of some of them was carried out by analogy or provided for a more stringent sanction, which indicates a lack of uniformity in the practice of interpreting and applying the canons. It is also noted that in two of the cases considered, the Supreme General Church Court, for the first time since its creation in 2008, worked at first instance, considering cases against bishops. The article was written on the basis of a report made by the author at the 5th Barsov Readings (St. Petersburg Theological Academy, December 13, 2021).