Clergy Participation in Elections, Political Parties and Government from the Perspective of Secular and Church Law

This article presents a comparative analysis of solving the issue of Orthodox clergy's participation in elections, political parties and public bodies previously and in modern times from the standpoint of secular and church law. At different stages of history, there were both times when the clergy took active part in the legislative bodies of our country and abstained from it. The relevance of this question is conditioned by the following fact: while the Church is unified and its establishments are inviolable, there are historically many states of many types, and the relations between them should always be adjusted specifically to each case. There is no general theoretical formula that would suit them all. The clergy participated in political parties, elections and the State Duma before the revolution, but the results of this participation were very mixed. In the post-Soviet years, after the constitutional crisis of October 1993, the Church made the only right decision. At an expanded session on October 8, 1993, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a resolution that instructed clergy to refrain from participating in the elections to the Federal Assembly as candidates for deputy, and to abstain from membership in political parties under the penalty of prosecution. As for the Church law, the canons of the Orthodox Church do not permit clergymen to hold secular positions of authority. This is confirmed by the Apostolic Rules and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Adopted in 2000 by the Jubilee Council of Bishops, “The Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church” reflected the official position of the Moscow Patriarchate in its relations with the state and secular society . The Fundamentals formulate a concept of the state-church relations, the key concept of which is “the cooperation between state and church”. However, by prohibiting the clergy to participate in government bodies, the Church emphasizes its another resource: the participation of Orthodox laymen in the activities of government bodies and parties. The contemporary challenges include an enormous increase in the influence of the Internet, mass media, the ethical problems of modern technology, the lack of an Orthodox component in educational programs — they are only a few problems and challenges to the dialogue between church and state.

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