UDC

94(47):348.5

DOI

10.17238/issn2227-6564.2019.6.34

Authors

Aleksandr R. Pavlushkov
Vologda Law and Economics Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (VILE of the FPS of Russia); ul. Shchetinina 2a, Vologda, 160002, Russian Federation;
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8838-5459 e-mail: apavlushkov@yandex.ru

Abstract

This article is an expansion of the scientific research into various aspects of church interdict. Previously, the author considered the genesis of this institution in the history of the Catholic Church, while this work is based on the material of Russian Orthodox practices of ecclesiastical punishment. The subject of the study is the attempt to introduce interdict into the punishment practice during the period of gathering of the Russian lands and centralized state formation, when whole populations of large territories were subjected to excommunication. The interest in this issue was fuelled by the atypical nature of such mass punishments. The analysis of the revealed facts shows that, for a number of reasons, the institutional features of Russian church interdict failed to develop. It was used both as a form of ecclesiastical punishment and as a means of political pressure, as well as for punitive purposes. Hence, church interdict is hard to assess due to the intersection of punitive, political and ecclesiastical elements. The article attempts to correlate these elements and describe the church interdict at different stages of the development of the Russian state, as well as to explain the reasons behind its use. The author comes to the conclusion that church interdict in many cases represented a distorted version of the understanding of canonical norms by bishops, which ultimately predetermined its further degradation. Moreover, the paper explains the internal contradiction in the interpretation of interdict and substantiates the notion’s Greek origin. Thus, interdict is considered here as a social, legal and political instrument that performed various tasks for the Church and the princes.

Keywords

church interdict, Russian Orthodox Church, ecclesiastical punishment, state–church relations, Russian statehood formation

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