By Deacon Andrei Psarev
In his
artilce Professor of Canon Law shares his experience
of teaching this subject in Holy Trinity
Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, NY
Canonical to…
I have
recently had occasion to address one of the dynamically growing parishes of the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia regarding the canonicity of rules in the
Orthodox Church. It must be said that at present it is very hard to find a
parish in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia without Russians who have
emigrated in the past 10-15 years. The demography of such a parish differs
markedly from customary norms. They have very few members who are representatives or descendants of the
post-revolutionary or post-war waves of emigres. My address concerned certain
thoughts from the introductory course of lectures on church law regarding which
church rules do not impose any prohibitions as such, but are invoked by
legitimate church power, which employs canons as a means of spiritual healing,
and thus serve the salvation of the soul.
The
questions put to me after my address, such as: Is it “canonical” to be
inside church without a headscarf, or
what is the canonical rule for crossing oneself –reflected the parishioner’s
conception of “canonicity.”
From
personal experience I can say that such an approach is perfectly normal for
people who have come to the Church in maturity; therefore it is logical that
church law is studied in the final course in seminaries, when it is obvious to
the students that an Orthodox approach presumes the consideration of a given
problem in context.
A Creative Approach is Essential
An
adequate comprehension of the “intentions of the lawmakers” of church rules and
their proper application requires knowledge of the Holy Scripture, Church and
Byzantine history, moral and pastoral theology. Naturally, the main purpose
of seminary is to prepare parish
priests, not specialists in canon law. However, pastoral service calls for an understanding that in work
touching upon canons, there must be an interdisciplinary approach. The
experience acquired by students prior to studying this subject enables
conducting the lessons in a sufficiently freestyle regime.
For me,
the main point of reference in this matter is the approach of Protopresbyter
Thomas Hopko, whose lectures at the St Vladimir Theological Academy were based
on team work, and who strove, together with the students, to determine what is
the Orthodox position on any question, while avoiding the assumption that the
lecturer is endowed with some kind of presumption of infallibility even when
speaking ex cathedra.
It is my
view that that the main importance in the purpose of these and other subjects
is not to load the students with a mass of information they may have recourse
to in any circumstances, but help them to reach an independent understanding of
an Orthodox view of the world, to give them experience of a correct positioning
of questions and seeking answers to them. The fact that it is impossible to
activate the prescriptions of canon law without a personal creative approach
ensues from the circumstance that the content of many rules is not self-evident
and requires reference to various auxiliary aids; I should note that the last
Ecumenical Council of significance for the Orthodox which attempted to regularize the canonical
corpus of the Universal Church took place in the VII century.
Canonical Limits
From the
very beginning of the course we find ourselves in the difficult position (books
do not contain answers to all questions) when it emerges that even
authoritative interpreters are frequently unable to explain how certain
excesses of church life can be reconciled with the “theoretical part.” One can
only reiterate that in order to avoid complex situations, the priest must
approach his archbishop on all disputable matters, and the quality of one
decision or another may be amenable to resolution only in the future, maybe in
a future century.
The
question why certain church rules are not observed in everyday life brings us
right up to the broad subject of church oikonomia, the principles of which in
the sphere of spiritual counselling are set out in the 102nd rule of the
Council in Trullo (indicating that an imposed penance must be commensurate with
the spiritual state of the penitent).
A
preliminary study of church history helps students to examine the issue of
oikonomia in the broader context of church creativity. For instance, in
discussions concerning historical events in the recent period of the Russian
Church lies the question of the limits of oikonomia (“house building”) in
anomalous conditions of life, be it under a totalitarian regime or in the
diaspora.
Can a Cleric be a Mathematician?
As the
Holy Writ is a constant presence in the life of a Christian, the same cannot be
said of canon laws that comprise an integral part of the Holy Heritage of the
Orthodox Church. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the first semester is to
enable students to develop a clear understanding of the content of the Book of
Rules, where to find the rules regarding one or another theme.
The
canons constitute the foundation for mastering the materials of the course, and
their study is accompanied by interpretation, which allows the students a
direct approach to the problems of our subject. In the course of studying the
question regarding demands faced by the clergy, the students discover that the
Greek words mathematikous in the 36 rules of the Council of Laodicea, Pedalion
in English translation, reflect as “mathematicians”, while the Book of Rules
defines it more clearly as “astrologers.”
A good
example of canonical exegesis allows the students of the aforesaid Council,
which set itself the task of regularizing the canonical heritage of the
Orthodox Church at the end of the VII century – the Council of Trullo, the 16th
rule of which looks at the evolution of
the institute of the diaconate, studies the problem in both historical and sacramental dimensions.
Our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in
North America
Without
an introduction to Orthodox canon law in the first semester, it would be
impossible in the second to turn to the subsections linked specifically to the
Holy Trinity Seminary.
Most of
the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia are located on the
North American continent, therefore it is not surprising that questions
regarding it are based mainly on the experience of those parishes, established
in the 1920s by representatives of the post-revolutionary emigration. The
experience of the diocese existing from pre-revolutionary times, with its
missionary purpose and multicultural, multinational composition, differed
radically from the experience brought by the clergy and parishioners from their
Great and Small Russian dioceses. Suffice it to say that the Russian Orthodox
clergy abroad received the permission of the Holy Synod to cut their hair short
and wear frock coats when not serving in church.
Yet
nowadays, decades later, traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church in tsarist
Russia such as the wearing of long cassocks and long hair in North America have
value, especially for those coming to Orthodoxy in mature age, seeking a home
within an authentic, generally accepted contribution of the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside Russia in Orthodoxy on the North American continent.
An
important specific feature of the ROCOR lies in that having constitutionally
guaranteed freedom of speech within the American pluralistic society, it could
expose apostasy in its various manifestations – ecumenism, modernism, and
servility – through the efforts of its spiritual writers, such as archbishop
Averky (Taushev) or archimandrite Konstantin (Zaitsev).
The ROCOR
has never seen itself as independent, but rather a temporarily independent
entity, apart from the section of the Russian Orthodox Church that was under
political duress. This act of ring-fencing from political pressure was a
significant factor in the relations of
ROCOR with other Local Churches. Relative isolation caused an absence of
dialogue, to the direction of orthodox ecclesiology represented by such
theologians as proto-presbyter Nikolai Afanasiev and Metropolitan John
(Zizioulas) which did not find a timely response in the ROCOR.
Nonetheless,
the situation is changing: speaking at the IV Council of the ROCOR in May 2006,
the respected Archpriest Fr Victor Potapov stated that “the perception of the
problems of an Orthodox parish in our time rests, among other things, on then
works of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) and
Protopresbyters Nikolai Afanasiev and Alexander Schmemman.”
The
aforesaid is also applicable to the position of the ROCOR regarding
non-orthodox Christians. The basis of this position is the theology of the New
Holy Martyr Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky) of Vereisk, expressed in his work
“Christianity or the Church.” In a practical sense, in 1971 ROCOR adopted the practice approved by the
Council of the Constantinople Patriarchate in 1755, requiring the christening
of all the non-Orthodox wishing to be received into the Orthodox Church. The
question of the limits of oikonomia arises again, in this instance regarding
reception into the Church.
The Great
metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of the ROCOR frequently reminded his students
that the canons are a living, not inert material. The importance of conveying
this concept to the minds of the laity today is clear from the questions I
faced in the discussion that took place in the parish on the role of canonical
rules. In order to change the situation, it is essential that the study of
canon law should inspire students to devote themselves to the not particularly
popular, but much-needed sphere of theology – church law, to become serious
theologians, and even better – serious clerics.
Translated
from Russian by Alena Kozhevnikov
CONVERSATION