Church Marriage "Baffled Questions"

Abstract

Marriage legislation is an area of human community, relevant in any era of the earthly existence of the Orthodox Church. The clarification of the application of canonical norms of marriage law contained in the definition of the Holy Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (2017). «The Canonical Aspects of Church Marriage». It was an important stage in the development of church legislation in this field. The article analyses certain provisions of this document in its relation to State family law and the Orthodox Canon heritage. Using the traditional method of answering «perplexed questions» of a specific canonical issue for the Russian Church and legal tradition, the article specifies some aspects of the application of the norms of this document in parish and diocesan practice. A conclusion is drawn as to the principle nature of this document, which requires further work on the formulation of a church-legal response to the challenges of the present in the field of marriage law and family law.