An Analysis of the Interaction Between Orthodox Practical Theology and Legal Science on the Example of Theological Research of the Legal Category of Justice

Abstract

The objectives of this article are to substantiate the fundamental influence on the viability and functioning of the modern Russian legal system of its theological foundations, which are at the same time traditional values for it, as well as to determine the properties of interdisciplinary theological research, within which such scientific disciplines as theology and jurisprudence interact and differentiate. In order to form the principles of the methodology of practical theological research in terms of the study of the Church’s entry into legal reality, the problems of distinguishing the legal and historical sciences that arise in connection with the conduct of these studies in a certain chronological framework are considered. In addition, in theological studies aimed at studying the issues of the Church’s participation in legal relations, which are currently classified as practical theological studies, using the example of applying the methodology of legal science to the principle of «justice», the use of theological approaches to assessing this element of legal reality is demonstrated. The authors draw conclusions about the theological attitude to the legal principle of «justice», expressed already in the Holy Scriptures, as well as about the attitude to this category in the works of legal philosophers, jurists and in the legal positions of the highest judicial instances of the Russian Federation. A theoretical understanding of the influence of Orthodox theology’s approaches to legal categories on the example of practical court decisions leads the authors to the conclusion that the principle of justice operates in the legal sense, the basis of which is developed within the values traditional to the Orthodox Church, culture and Orthodox legal consciousness, and therefore the application of this fundamental legal principle in legal reality is impossible outside of its Orthodox theological conceptualization by the methods of Orthodox practical theology as an academic scientific discipline.