Волинський благовісник (Oct 2019)
CANONICAL AND HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF THE PRACTICE OF “MONTHLY COURTS” OF THE KYIV METROPOLITANATE ON THE BASIS OF THE CERTIFICATES OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH
Abstract
Prior to the partition of the Kyiv Metropole in 1448 into Kyiv proper and Moscow ones, we possess some historical evidence of the existence of extremely interesting and original practice of “monthly courts”. Based on the sources that have surivived until our time, we receive testimony about “monthly courts” as the right of the Metropolitan Bishop of Kyiv to come to Novhorod once in every four years, in person or by outsourcing that to special clergy, and to hear court cases within one month. Considering the facts that this practice is inherent only in our metropolis as our own canonical tradition and that nowhere else in the history of the Local Churches do such judicial precedents occur, the subject for debate among scholars and the field of canonical research are a number of questions. First and foremost, what the “moon court” actually was. That was a court of appellate jurisdiction for those dissatisfied with the decision of their own archbishop’s court or full consideration of a wide range of issues, both of a purely ecclesiastical nature and related to civil lawsuits, which at that time princely law were within the purview of the ecclesiastical authority of the ecclesiastical court. Secondly, the reasons for the origination of this practice and the question of its extension to the entire territorial jurisdiction of the Kyiv Metropolitanate. Thirdly, the canonical assessment of the jurisprudence created in our metropolis in terms of the canon law and traditions of the Orthodox Church. Taking into account the fact that the ecclesiastical judicial power is an integral element of the definition and ecclesiological expression of the nature of the higher ecclesiastical authority, the canonical and historical assessment of the practice of “monthly courts” makes it possible to outline the competence of the Metropolitan of Kyiv to the subordinate diocese, the title of archbishop and certain special privileges, such as wearing a white hood and bishop’s roves with crosses on them. The integrity and completeness of this study stems from the fact that information about the said practice of “monthly courts” derives directly from the documents of the Ecumenical Patriarch Anthony, preserved to these days, to whom Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kyiv, repeatedly appealed seeking council and support in his conflict with the diocese of Novhorod. Due to this, we get a complete picture of the place of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the structure of the hierarchy of the higher management of the Kyiv Metropolitanate.
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