Zaozersky, Nikolai Alexandrovich

Born in 1851 in the Uglich district of the Yaroslavl province (now the Bolshesselsky district of the Yaroslavl region ) in the village of Novoleontievsky on Yukhti ^[1] , in the family of the priest of the church Leonty, bishop of Rostov .

He graduated from the Yaroslavl Theological College (1866), the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary (1872) and the Moscow Theological Academy (1876) - the first undergraduate in the practical department. He taught literature, history, literature and logic at the Kostroma seminary . He prepared a master's thesis “Church Court in the First Centuries of Christianity” (1878), which attracted the attention of both spiritual and secular specialists; On September 29, 1878 he was awarded the master's degree in theology (approved on 10.10.1878) and determined as a teacher of the Moscow Theological Academy - from November 10, 1878 he was an assistant professor at the department of church law, from April 1895 an extraordinary professor , from August 1895 - an ordinary professor ( doctoral dissertation - "on Basic principle of ecclesiastical authority, the nature and manner of use of ecclesiastical authority in the church different forms of the device according to the teaching of Orthodox canon law." ^[2] ), with December 1903 - professor Emeritus, the rights of members eniya - in 1911, an honorary member - since 1911.

Since May 6, 1903 - a valid state adviser . He was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir , 4th art. (1906), St. Anne of the 2nd Art. (1899), St. Stanislav 2nd art. (1882) ^[3]

In 1905-1907 he was chairman of the Council of the Brotherhood of St. Sergius. In 1906-1907 he took an active part in the work of the Pre-Council Presence - the commission created by the Synod to hold the never-held Local Council . In 1909-1912 - editor of the journal Theological Bulletin .

He graduated from teaching in 1911. In 1912, he was nominated as a candidate for membership in the 4th State Duma , participated in the 1st All-Russian Congress of Co-religionists.

In 1915 he was an honorary foreman of the Yukhot orphanage orphanage in the village of Novoye ^[3] .

He died on July 2, 1919 in his homeland, in the Uglich district.

In September 1883, he was awarded the Uvarov Gold Medal for reviewing the composition of the priest A. Serafimov (later Bishop of Astrakhan and Enotaevsky Sergius ) “Rules and Practices Regarding the Accession of Orthodoxy Christians to Orthodoxy” (Kostroma, 1882); in April 1892 he was awarded the Makariyev Prize .

In addition to his dissertations, his works were published:

• “Historical review of the sources of law of the Orthodox Church” (Issue I. - M., 1891)
• "On the sacred and government power and on the forms of the device of the Orthodox Church" (M., 1891)
• “On Deacons” (Sergiev Posad, 1892)
• “What is a schismatic marriage” (Sergiev Posad, 1895)
• "The attitude of St. of the Orthodox Church to peace and war according to the teaching of its canon law ”(Sergiev Posad, 1896)
• “State, church and people” (Sergiev Posad, 1896)
• “A clergyman with the rank of arbitrator ” (Sergiev Posad, 1899)
• “What is the basis of church jurisdiction in marriage affairs?” (Sergiev Posad, 1902)
• " Nomocanon of John Postnik in his editions of Georgian, Greek and Slavic" (1902)
• “On the means of strengthening the power of our higher church government” (Sergiev Posad, 1903)
• “On the essence of church law” (Sergiev Posad, 1911)
• “What is an Orthodox parish , and what should it be” (Sergiev Posad, 1912)

N. A. Zaozersky opposed the "theory of the disenfranchised Church" of the Leipzig professor R. Zom , who argued that the idea of ​​law "is not characteristic of the nature of the Church." Zaozersky pointed out the existence of a legal factor in the life of the church as a social institution: “The nature of the Church of Christ is not only not opposed to the nature of law, but, on the contrary, human law finds improvement in the divine law of the Church. Improving human justice is one of the Church’s calling. ”

The most perfect was the catholic-patriarchal church-state system based on the combination of the principle of catholicity and patriarchal leadership. Zaozersky was convinced of the need to involve the laity in matters of church administration and court and proved to be an active supporter of the earliest possible convening of the Local Council in order to determine the canonical principles of the church structure and to establish “certainty and fundamentally legal stability” in the church administration. In his opinion, the idea of ​​collegiality does not consist in the predominance of the majority, but in complete inner unity - not only of all bishops, but of all members of the Church in general. The Russian Church, according to Zaozersky, should have consisted of societies acting autonomously, but united internally by the “unity of creed” and the legal connection of their “power representatives” at different levels: in the form of the local Council and the Patriarchal Synod, the Metropolitan Council and the Synod, the diocesan Council and council, county bishop and council under him, parish meeting and parish council.

He regarded the relations of the church and the state as allied and considered it correct to clearly separate the areas of competence. He condemned state intervention in the personnel policy of the church, since it is an autonomous non-political and non-national community.

In the field of family law, Zaozersky called for marriage to be considered not only churchly, but as a church and civil institution. However, he pointed out that a civil marriage is “always lower” than the church one, but “it can be justified by socio-political reasons”. He believed that the church is obliged to “educate and fully support the ideal height of marriage in the minds and lives of its members”, and the state - to help the individual and family where “under the guise of marital relations violence against the individual nests”, as well as in case of marriage relations have already been destroyed de facto, precisely to protect the high dignity of the sacrament and the disappearance of fictitious marriages. He himself had to deal with difficulties in the field of marriage law, in case of divorce (since 1886 he was married to the daughter of the church priest Sergius of Radonezh in Rogozhskaya Sloboda, Maria Simeonovna Pospelova) and remarried in 1909. The second wife of Zaozersky - Lidia Nikolaevna Sokolova - the daughter of Professor N.K. Sokolov .

• Bertash A. Zaozersky // Orthodox Encyclopedia . - M .: Church Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia" , 2008. - T. XIX. - S. 600-606. - 752 s. - 39,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89572-034-9 .
• Volkov V.A., Kulikova M.V., Loginov V.S. Moscow professors of the 18th - early 20th centuries. Humanities and social sciences. - M .: Janus-K: Moscow textbooks and cartolithography, 2006. - P. 102. - 300 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 5-8037-0164-5 .
• Zaozersky, Nikolai Aleksandrovich // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• Zaozersky Nikolai Alexandrovich to the Theologian. Ru
• Proceedings of N. A. Zaozersky on the website of the Tver Diocese
• Zaozersky Nikolai Alexandrovich at the Rodovod . Tree of ancestors and descendants