Theological approaches to legal reality using the example of the category “authority” in the context of the history of legal relations involving the Church

This article attempts to apply the methodology of theological research in relation to the legal category of «authority» in the context of legal relations involving the Church. The views available in modern literature on the relationship between Church and state are considered in the context of Church Tradition, but not from the usual standpoint of Church history, but from the standpoint of the legal perception of the internal church structure and, most importantly, taking into account the peculiarities of the theological perception of the institution of power as a legal phenomenon. The purpose of the article is to develop a methodology for theological research aimed at studying legal relations involving the Church and using the tools of legal science within the framework of an interdisciplinary approach when referring to objects of legal reality in a theological context. The key tasks seem to be the application to the historical and legal genesis of the theological method of interpreting the circumstances of the Church’s inclusion in legal reality and the argumentation of the historically formed forms of the Church’s legitimization as an objective internal logic (causal connection with Roman legal culture) and specific properties peculiar exclusively to the Orthodox faith, in particular ecclesiology. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that the primacy of the theological nature of such research is determined by the presence of the Church as the object and subject of research, while in terms of the legal component, such research necessarily requires a researcher to have a legal mindset (legal awareness) and the ability to operate with methods and categories of legal science in order to correctly express the nature of the impact of the Church’s legal characterization on its ecclesiological the model.