The Varieties of Symphonia and the State–Church Relations in Russia

Abstract

Symphony as a legal concept was formulated in Late Antiquity by Justinian I, a famous Byzantine Emperor, in his Novella 6 of 535 C.E., and it is readily utilized by the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church as the model of ideal church-state relations even at present. The question we ask in this article is if this model, in the manner it was laid down in the policy documents of the Russian Orthodox Church, is compatible (and, if so, to what extend) with the principle of the rule of secular law. This problem will be analyzed in the present paper on the example of the Church’s attitude toward the constitutional principle of secularity and separation of state and church. In Russia, this principle from Article 14 of the Constitution in fact collides with the church-supported tradition of their “harmonious cooperation” which is called “symphony of powers.”