The Rudder of the Church: Late Eighteenth Century Greek Orthodox Ecclesiastical Jurisprudence

A study of the Pedalion (1800).

The aim of the dissertation is to study the Pedalion (Leipzig: 1800; rev. ed. Athens: 1841), an annotated collection of canons, as an example of Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical jurisprudence in the late eighteenth century.

A study of the Pedalion is interesting because (a) it was compiled as an “authentic” edition of the sources of Greek Orthodox canon law; (b) it is a legal monument which shows how the canons were interpreted in a socio-historical context which was very different from their original context; (c) it is an example of legal reasoning which aims at deriving coherent doctrines and rules from a repertory of authoritative legal sources originating from various socio-historical contexts; and (d) the doctrines and rules found in the Pedalion still influences contemporary discourses on canon law in the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

The results of the study will (a) help us to understand how the phenomenon of law functions in societies characterized by legal pluralism; (b) see how legal theory and method have developed in another cultural context than the Western; and (c) give us insights in how legal reasoning functions in Eastern Orthodox canon law which may be of use for contemporary ecclesiastical jurisprudence.