universal theocracy. The project of universal theocracy and the idea of ​​God-manhood

letters. - divinity, from the Greek. teos - god and kratos - strength, power) - a form of state-va, with which the management of the state is carried out preim. priesthood or clergy, and the head of the church. hierarchy has the highest spiritual and secular power. East Examples of “pure” Tajikism (which has its roots in archaic ideas, when God is considered the supreme ruler) are rare, but its elements were strong in a number of states in antiquity and the Middle Ages. For the first time this concept and the term "T." used by Josephus Flavius ​​(op. "Against Apion", Russian translation, 1898) in relation to political. building the kingdom of Judah, where theocratic. the power of the priests, headed by the high priest, was established in the 6th century. BC e. In Zap. In Europe in the Middle Ages, the popes were theocratic. rulers of the Papal States and sought to establish papal tyranny over the entire "Christian world" (theocratic programs of Popes Gregory VII and Innocent III). The Protestant variety of Teaching was represented by the reign of J. Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century. The concentration of spiritual and temporal power in Tibet in the hands of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617–82) led to the establishment of Tibet in Tibet, which existed there without any major changes for several centuries. From the theocratic ideas came from the Muslims. state law (see Caliphate, Imamat), according to Krom, the caliph combines in one person spiritual power - the imamate and political power - the emirate (in fact, however, most often the secular elements of the caliph's power prevailed over the spiritual). In modern times, to return to this political. form called for some reactions. romance (Bonald, Joseph de Maistre). Despite its extreme archaism, tambourine (or its elements) has survived to modern times (the Vatican; before the sevolution of 1962, the kingdom of Yemen).

Traditionally, the specificity of the organization and exercise of state power is revealed in legal science through the category form of the state. Following the traditional understanding, many scholars see theocracy as a form of state.

This point of view is contained in the Great and Historical Soviet encyclopedias, as well as in the works of some foreign researchers55. According to the author, this statement cannot be accepted.

The form of the state is taken as a whole three sets of relations: the form of government, the form of government and the political regime. When defining state theocracy as a form of state, a reasonable question arises: which of the components of the state form determine its theocracy? It seems that the definition of state theocracy as a form of state should indicate at least one of the parameters of the form of the state, i.e. on the form of government, or form of government, or political regime. The identification of theocracy simply with the form of the state does not reveal the qualitative, political and legal certainty of the theocratic state and leads to an unsystematic, eclectic enumeration of its features. While the problem of the theocratic state is precisely in determining its specific, typical properties.

Preferable in this regard are judgments that interpret theocracy as an independent form of government, or as one of the types of monarchy or republic. The point of view, according to which theocracy is understood as a kind of monarchy, has received the greatest distribution both in domestic and foreign Western science. So, according to Carl Schmitt, the peculiarity of the theocratic monarchy is that the head of state receives authority from no one else, but only from God and rules in the likeness of God56. Many other researchers hold similar views57.

Externally, theocracy and monarchy are very similar. Such signs as perpetual, legally irresponsible and one-man rule bring them very close to each other. However, the hereditary order of replacement of the supreme power, characteristic of the monarchy, is not only an optional institution for the theocracy, but essentially an unacceptable institution. From the point of view of the theocratic ideal, the inheritance of power is unacceptable due to the fact that its sovereign owner is God, who has the exclusive right to decide on the transfer of power. The head of the theocratic state considers himself the successor of God or his closest follower and therefore cannot bequeath the supreme leadership to his descendants. And how can they get from theocratic leaders who personify the authority of faith, if the latter in some cases provides for a vow of celibacy?!

The inheritance of supreme power, found in ancient Egypt, in the Sasanian kingdom, in Saudi Arabia, is not a rule for theocracy. The history of examples of non-hereditary theocracies knows a lot. These include the Papal States, the Vatican, the state of Tibet, Iran and a number of other states. It should be added that hereditary theocracies also have their own characteristics, which do not allow us to speak, in fact, about monarchical rule, since in such states the clergy play an important role, limiting the autonomy of the king, including in matters of succession of power.

An example of this is Ancient Egypt.

Religious canons refer to monarchical power as a delusion, as a forced necessity. When the elders of Israel come to the prophet Samuel with a request to "put a king over them", he dissuades them and turning to God, receives the following answer: "... Listen to the voices of the people in everything that they say to you; for they did not reject you, but Me, so that I do not reign over them

Islamic theorists argue that it is inadmissible to consider theocratic government as a kind of monarchical power. In accordance with the ideas of the sovereign and all-encompassing power of Allah, the monarchies that have ever existed in the history of Islamic society are regarded by Muslim theologians as a departure from the norms of religion and are condemned. Here, for example, is what the great theocrat of our time, Imam Ayatollah Khomeini, said about this: “Islam declares the monarchy and the inheritance of power to be unfaithful and unfounded. The Prophet called for the destruction of monarchical forms of government ... Only Allah is the true monarch and He does not need partnership”58.

Muslim political and legal thought in the issue of the typology of the theocratic state is of particular interest, since it focuses on the concept of one of the types of theocratic state - the concept of the caliphate. It should be noted that not all Islamic scholars put an equal sign between the caliphate and theocracy. For example, the well-known modern Arab political thinker Abdel Qader Uda believes that the head of a Muslim state, unlike the leader of a theocracy, does not act as a representative of God on earth and is limited in exercising his powers by the community of believers and Islamic law59. According to Subhi al-Saleh, the caliph is in the power of faith and, as a result, cannot commit arbitrariness, referring to the will of the Almighty. a typical theocratic state, since its main goal is to protect and implement the norms of the Islamic religion. Absolute lack of control and infallibility of power are not obligatory for a theocratic state. All the features of the Caliphate considered by Muslim scholars thus characterize a theocratic state.

In Islamic studies, there is no consensus on the issue of state and legal certainty of the caliphate. Some scientists, analyzing the essence of the Caliphate and comparing it with known forms of government, classify the Caliphate as a kind of parliamentary or presidential republic, demonstrating solidarity with Western political scientists in identifying theocracy with one of the types of government. According to the Egyptian political scientist Suleiman Mohammed at-Tamawi, the organization of power in the caliphate is fully consistent with the principles of parliamentarism, and the legal status of the caliph, who performs the functions of the head of state and government, is close to the position of the president in the republic61 Among the advantages that elevate this type of republican government over Western models of parliamentarism theorists note lawmaking limited by the norms of religion, which does not allow arbitrariness and lack of rights on the part of the authorities, the uncertainty of the term for electing a caliph, which ensures the stability and continuity of the state system, participation in the representative bodies of legal experts, which guarantees against incompetence and unprofessionalism in lawmaking and public administration.

The vast majority of Muslim researchers tend to think that the caliphate, like a monarchy and a republic, is an independent form of government. It seems that this position should be accepted. State theocracy is essentially different from the known forms of government and cannot be identified with any of its types. The differences between a theocracy, on the one hand, and a monarchy with a republic, on the other hand, are drawn according to the criteria by which a monarchy differs from a republic, namely: by the methods of formation and the nature of the competence of the highest bodies of state power, by the source of state sovereignty and the peculiarities of the responsibility of the head states. Theocracy, therefore, must occupy at least the same rank with the monarchy and the republic.

The procedure for the formation of supreme power in a theocratic state is not limited to either monarchical inheritance or republican election. She is versatile. The variety of ways of transferring the prerogatives of government in a theocratic state is due to a number of reasons. First, in accordance with religious beliefs, the relationship between man and God is deeply intimate and personal. The derivation of power from a god cannot be directly confirmed by anyone but the divine successor himself. The people around are excluded from direct communication between God and man (even if this happens), due to which it is impossible to objectively determine whether this or that person is really a protege of God, or there is no connection between him and God. Often the communication of the divine chosen one and God occurs in a dream, which emphasizes the secrecy and mystery of the divine-human connection. According to legend, God appeared to Muhammad several times during his sleep. The first time - in a cave, located in the desert, the second - in the garden. The Roman emperor Constantine also received a blessing for the approval of the Christian religion in the world in the form of a cross with the inscription "Conquer with this" in a dream.

The theocratic leaders' chosenness by God can only be guessed on the basis of circumstantial evidence confirming their superhuman abilities and ability to perform miracles. The Bible says that the Lord God, giving Moses religious and political power, as a confirmation of God's chosenness, endows him with the gift to work miracles. "And Moses answered and said: what if they do not believe me, and do not listen to my voice, and say: "Has the Lord not appeared to you?" And the Lord said to him: What is this in your hand? He answered: a rod. The Lord said Throw him on the ground. He threw him on the ground, and the rod turned into a snake, and Moses fled from him. And the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand and take him by the tail. He stretched out his hand and took it, and it became a rod. in his hand. This is so that you may believe that the Lord has appeared to you..."62 For greater persuasiveness, God endows Moses with the ability to instantly infect and heal a hand from leprosy, and also turn water into blood. "If they do not believe you and do not listen to the voice of the first sign, they will believe the voice of another sign."63 The chosenness of Muhammad and Constantine was confirmed in the eyes of believers by their military successes. Such methods of divine selection of theocratic leaders, due to their mystical nature, can be called sacred. They differ significantly from the principles of the formation of monarchical and republican power.

Today, the procedure for replacing the post of the Dalai Lama and the election of the Pope "by inspiration" should be attributed to the sacred methods of electing the head of supreme power. After the death of the "great lama", with the help of predictions and fortune-telling, on the basis of certain signs, a newborn is found, who was born no earlier than 49 days and no later than one year after the death of the Dalai Lama, which, according to believers, is his next incarnation. The boy is brought up by the monks as the future spiritual mentor of Tibet and, having reached adulthood, begins to lead. According to the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, the election of the Pope is considered to be held "by inspiration" if the cardinals at the conclave unanimously declare the candidacy of the Supreme Pontiff. In this case, it is believed that divine grace descends on the cardinals, which allows the issue of the succession of the pope to be resolved without much difficulty.

Secondly, the procedure for transferring the power received from God is not regulated in any way by religious texts. “The first and main problem facing the charismatic power,” wrote M. Weber, is the problem of the successor to power64. If for the legitimacy of monarchical power it is enough to inherit it, for republican power it is enough to be elected, then the legitimacy of theocratic power is mediated by special procedures, which, according to the participants in theocratic relations, guarantee its being chosen by God and legitimacy. In the course of the historical development of theocracy, several ways of replacing the supreme power were developed. All of them are connected with the state-legal traditions of political divine power and originate, as a rule, in the practice of the most authoritative theocratic leaders, who are considered gods, representatives of gods, or deputies of divine governors.

The most common way to acquire supreme power in a theocratic state is through elections. The institution of elections is associated with the traditions of tribal self-government and in a theocratic state is the "sacred" legacy of primitive communal democracy. In accordance with the principle of electivity - "ash-shura", developed within the framework of the concept of the caliphate by the Sunni and Kharijite branches of Islam, power is being formed in Muslim theocratic states. The issue of replacing the post of the Supreme Ruler of the State of the City of Vatican City is submitted to a secret ballot.

At the same time, the election of the head of a theocratic state cannot be regarded as evidence of its republican character. The majority of the population of the state participates in the formation of republican representative bodies, and only a part of society, its spiritual elite, participates in the election of a theocratic leader. In Muslim states, these are mujtahids, faqihs, in the Vatican - cardinals, in state Tibet, monks were engaged in the search for a successor to the Dalai Lama. Although the theory of the caliphate provides for the election of the caliph by the community (ummah) as one of the ways to replace the supreme state power, this does not mean the vote of the population for one of the contenders for the post of head of state. These elections are more like a simple agreement of believers to rule the community by a certain person. It should also be taken into account that Islamic theologians understand by ummah not only the totality of believing Muslims, but also extra-spatial, timeless connections between the faithful. Therefore, according to theologians, the will of the people cannot fully reflect the interests of the ummah. Only religious leaders can handle this better.

The next way to fill the position of the head of the theocratic state is to inherit power, carried out through her will (when the successor is appointed by the ruler), or in the form of automatic transfer of power to the legitimate heir. This procedure for the formation of the supreme power brings the theocratic state closer to the monarchical state, but at the same time does not reduce it to it. As noted earlier, inheritance is far from the only and not the most common way to acquire theocratic leadership in the state, and monarchical rule is not identified exclusively with the hereditary principle of replacing the highest state power. There are other more significant differences between a monarchy and a theocracy.

The inheritance of theocratic power has a number of features. In this regard, attention should be paid to the Muslim concept of power. Shiism provides for the inheritance of supreme power, recognizing only the rule of Muhammad's relatives and his son-in-law Ali as legitimate. However, this procedure for the transfer of power differs from the procedure for succession in monarchical states. From the point of view of the Shiite religion, "divine grace" and the right to lead a theocratic state (imamate) passes from one member of the clan to another not due to personal discretion, but were originally predetermined by the divine successor - Muhammad and are preserved by his descendants through Ali. The appointment of a successor as Caliph, as stipulated by Sunni legal doctrine, must be supported by the approval of the entire community. The inheritance of power in the so-called Muslim monarchies can in practice be mediated by the sanction of religious authorities. This was the case, for example, in Saudi Arabia in 1964, when King Faisal formally received power from his predecessor after the decision of 12 leading ulemas.

Islamic political thought also knows such a way of replacing the supreme power in the Caliphate as "recognition under duress." The established power can be recognized as legitimate if it is dictated by the interests of the community of believers and the conqueror takes an oath to restore order based on the norms of Islam. In this case, power is also mediated by the recognition of the community.

The variety of ways in which power is formed in a theocratic state leads researchers to identify it either with a monarchy or with a republic, while this feature, in our opinion, should be considered as an independent characteristic of a theocratic state.

The issue of the competence of the highest bodies of state power is resolved in various ways in the monarchy, republic and theocracy. The principle of separation of powers operates in a republic and a constitutional monarchy. In a theocracy, all power is concentrated in the hands of a political leader, who has the right to engage in executive, administrative, legislative and judicial activities. But theocracy should not be ranked as a variety of absolute monarchy, since the head of the theocratic state is limited in his actions by religious canons and may be held responsible for their violation. The power of an absolute monarch is not institutionally limited.

Monarchy, republic, and state theocracy differ among themselves in terms of the source of state sovereignty. In the first case, the bearer of the fullness of state power is the monarch, in the second - the people, in the third - God. The sovereignty of God is an essential element of theocratic statehood, which has been enshrined in the Fundamental Laws of many theocratic states. The Iranian constitution determines that the management of the affairs of the state and the entire Muslim community is eternally and permanently in the hands of the twelfth imam. In Saudi Arabia, the sovereignty of God is manifested in the fact that the Basic Law here is the book of divine revelations - the Koran. Also derived from the divine power of the head of the Vatican. According to the norms of canon law, in the Bishop of Rome "there is a ministry, in a special way entrusted by the Lord to Peter, the first of the Apostles, and to be transferred to his successors"65.

A weighty argument in favor of the fact that theocracy is not a variety of any of the known forms of government is also the qualitative composition of its authorities. In a theocratic state, the functions of legislation, the court, and sometimes the supreme leadership are carried out by religious leaders. As a rule, they are part of an advisory body under the head of state (the Advisory Council under the monarch in Saudi Arabia, the Council of Experts under the Head in Iran, etc.), and in some cases the head of state is also the leader of the clergy (Iran, the Vatican, the state Tibet, etc.).

The above arguments clearly demonstrate in favor of the fact that the state theocracy is neither monarchical nor republican government. Theocracy should be considered an independent form of government. Such an interpretation of it is much more true than referring theocracy to one of the types of monarchy or republic. But in general, it is necessary to recognize this definition of theocracy as unsatisfactory, since it, being limited to expressing the order of formation of the highest bodies of power, does not contain all the peculiarities of the theocratic state, including the religious and legal regulation of social relations and the main directions of activity of power institutions for the implementation of religious and legal prescriptions.

It is impossible, in our opinion, to reduce the state theocracy to another structural component of the form of the state - the political regime, which was reflected in a number of scientific works66. So, according to K.V. Aranovsky, theocracy is a kind of political regime characterized by the ownership of real power by spiritual leaders, or directly to a deity and the regulation of social relations by religious prescriptions and canons67 In the definition of state theocracy, the researcher quite correctly points to its signs. But if we take into account that before that, among the main criteria that define the concept of political regime, he singles out the legal status of the individual, the nature of the relationship of the subject of power with society and its minorities, as well as the degree of centralization of the administration of the territory, it turns out that the definition he gives of one of the types of political regime does not correspond to the generic concept of a political regime. The author's definition of theocracy as a political regime is very similar to the definition of theocracy as a form of state, but taking into account one more feature - the regulation of social relations by religious prescriptions.

If we take into account those signs that, in the author's opinion, characterize the actual political regime, it turns out that they do not exhaust the concept of the state form of theocracy. The latter implies not only specific methods and methods of exercising state power, a special legal status of an individual and a special nature of relations between the state and society, but also covers the direction, purpose of power, as well as the system of bodies and regulatory means by which theocratic power is implemented. , which eludes the analysis of the state theocracy as a political regime. The theocratic state is a concept that is broader in its logical scope than a political regime, so it is undesirable to attribute it to one of the varieties of the latter. If we do this, then we will impose restrictions on the study of state theocracy without expressing its essence. The definition of state theocracy through the category of political regime may turn out to be a Procrustean bed for it, which cannot contain its internally necessary properties.

It does not follow from this that the notion of a theocratic regime should be abandoned in the typology of state theocracy. It carries a certain semantic load and can be used in state-legal science, in particular, to identify whether a theocracy belongs to democratic or anti-democratic types of states. On the coverage of this aspect of the theocratic state, according to the dissertation, it is necessary to dwell in more detail. The very approach to the problem of the political regime, which presupposes the division of states into democratic and anti-democratic in relation to the eastern states, and it was there that the theocratic model of power relations was mainly implemented, is not entirely successful. The view that evaluates political regimes through the prism of democracy is characteristic of the Western worldview. For centuries, the democratic structure of the state and society has been one of the main objects of political and legal research here. Since the era of modern times, democracy has established itself in the minds of many Western thinkers as the best form of socio-political life. From about the same moment, discussions about theocracy acquired an extremely negative meaning. The Enlighteners, who condemned the guardianship of the Catholic Church, identified political divine power with arbitrariness and tyranny. According to Rousseau, theocracy, becoming exclusive and tyrannical, makes the people bloodthirsty and intolerant, so that it only breathes murder and massacre, and thinks that it is doing a pious deed, killing anyone who does not recognize the gods. For Fichte, theocracy was the result of narrow-mindedness and blind faith. Hegel believed that in the theocratic splendor the individual is drowned out in lack of rights3. At present, the idea of ​​democracy is a universally recognized value in the West, the authority of which is unshakable and the attitude towards theocracy has remained the same. In the East, as a rule, democratic institutions of power, if they were considered, were not a constant object of scientific interest. They were studied in connection with other problems of the state system and were not, as in the West, a value imperative. Here, other models of organization and functioning of state power were developed, including theocratic ones. The axiological potential of the theocratic model of power in the East is no less than that of the idea of ​​democracy in the West. Such structural components of theocratic statehood as the sovereignty of God, the centralization and deification of power, spiritual elitism, mono-ideologicalism are in clear contradiction with the democratic principles of power. According to these criteria, the theocratic state can be classified as anti-democratic. However, when classifying a theocratic state as anti-democratic and assessing it in this way, from the point of view of generally recognized standards, as politically underdeveloped, the sign of weak development must be applied only to the political system of the theocratic state. It often happens that in the views on the theocratic state, a negative attitude is manifested towards its entire socio-cultural system as a whole. It should be borne in mind that the political regime is a category that characterizes mainly the political system of society. Theocracy covers not only the political sphere, but also the relations of culture, law, religion, ethics, and partly the economy. Theocracy is a cultural and historical phenomenon. In the system of culture of individual peoples, for example, Tibetan or Muslim, theocracy belongs to one of the central places, since religion, which determines the meaning and direction of theocratic power relations, is the main component of culture. According to Paul Tillich, "religion is the substance of culture"69. The theocratic model of power relations is reproduced from generation to generation through the assimilation of beliefs, ideals, standards of behavior and the inheritance of the entire previous way of life by people. Theocratic institutions determine the spirit, the national character of a people and therefore cannot but manifest themselves in its political system. A. B. Zubov drew attention to the archetypal properties of theocratic structures. In his opinion, the examples of the charismatic power of the ancient Eastern peoples of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Assyria, India, China, etc., due to their deep rootedness in the collective consciousness, were inherited in certain variations by modern peoples. “... Both on the Bosphorus and on the Tiber, the ancient pre-Christian polytheuma of the tsar-savior did not die with the “death of the god Pan”, but as the extremely spiritualized society of the first centuries of the good news became more dense, it began to manifest itself again, even if in not fully realized forms. As part of the psychosomatic composition of the social body, as a collective subconscious, this political concept could not disappear, but reproduced itself again and again”70

Cultural norms and values ​​organize people, ensure the integrity and unity of society, form a sense of belonging to one group, orient cultural representatives towards solidarity, trust, mutual understanding. As a paramount link in the culture of a particular people, theocracy acts as a sense-forming factor of social order, a program of social activity, a cultural and value matrix of civilization, linking together a person, society, the world-historical process, nature and space. On the value scale of individual societies, it objectively occupies a higher place than any other political values.

The deep rootedness of the theocratic model of power in the culture of society, it seems, is not a barrier to its democratic transformations. Democracy, as the most acceptable form of political leadership in the present conditions, can be implemented in the future in theocratic states, and without violating their cultural, historical, civilizational identity. In order for society and the state to follow traditional religious patterns and preserve their cultural identity, the state does not have to be theocratic. It has already been noted earlier that religious prescriptions practically do not regulate the sphere of political and power relations, and the issues of political leadership in a theocratic state are resolved on the basis of traditions and models of the exercise of power established in antiquity. Illuminating the concept of the Caliphate, JI.P. Sukiyainen wrote: “... Muslim law knows very few norms of the Koran and the Sunnah that regulate power relations. These sources do not contain specific prescriptions regulating the organization and activities of the Muslim state or defining its essence. They do not directly speak ... neither about the monarchy, nor about the republic, nor about democracy, nor about despotism, nor about theocracy»71. The abstract nature of the expression of the few religious norms that regulate public administration makes it possible to legitimately establish various forms and regimes of government, including democratic ones.

In addition, democracy has historical and national-cultural parameters determined by the mentality and civilizational stereotypes of a particular people. In each historical epoch, in various civilizations, the ideas of democracy and divine power were refracted, acquiring their own special national and cultural appearance, and in such a way that elements of theocracy are easily found in democratic states, and democracy in theocratic states. Israel and Lebanon serve as examples of states where theocracy and democracy are combined. In them, the system of popular representation, ideological pluralism and a multi-party system coexist with religious and political structures. In Israel, the latter exist in the form of rabbinic courts, which are supported by the state, village councils and municipalities, in the institution of religious marriages and in the fusion of religious and state education, in Lebanon - in the form of a system of parliamentary representation based on religious principles. All this testifies to the potential possibilities of theocratic states to move along the path of improving social relations, adapting centuries-old cultural traditions with the modern conditions of political life.

In connection with the above, the political processes taking place today in Chechnya and Tibet require a more balanced and cautious approach. It seems that with the recognition of state integrity, in the first case - Russia, and in the second - China, the peoples of these entities should be given a wide opportunity to use traditional religious and customary norms in the regulation of social relations. It must be assumed that the connection of the legal system of the metropolis with the legal system of the theocratic education in its composition should not always be based on the principle of the supremacy of federal legislation. In the areas of family, household and ritual life, i.e. those areas that are the main object of religious regulation, priority can be given to religious and legal norms. Harmonization of the legal systems of theocracies with national legislation is complex and requires taking into account the interests of both parties, since this is not only a matter of law, but also of religion, culture, and the entire way of life of the peoples of theocratic formations.

On the other hand, theocracy should not be identified with the most developed forms of democracy. This approach is found in the works of Muslim thinkers. Ayatollah Khomeini, for example, wrote: “Islamic government cannot be totalitarian or despotic, it is constitutional and democratic. In this democracy, however, laws are not established by the will of the people, but only by the Qur'an and the traditions of the prophet. The Muslim statesman al-Reyis argues that the Islamic model of democracy contains the principles of popular government known to the West, ensuring individual rights and freedoms, separation of powers, harmoniously combining them with the material, spiritual, religious and humanitarian interests of people73. According to Mohammed Kamel Leila, Muslim democracy is higher and more progressive than any other, since it is based on moral and spiritual principles2

It seems that Muslim democracy, which so far can be discussed as a theoretical model of power, is one of the specific varieties of democracy, and not its highest form. It differs from other types of democracy only in the originality of the source, limits and goals of power. If the traditional understanding of democracy links the sovereignty of power with the nation, then Islamic democracy is based on ideas about the sovereignty of Allah and the Muslim community. The sovereignty of Allah is embodied in the precepts of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Their norms are binding and under no circumstances are subject to change or cancellation. In fact, the sovereignty of Allah sets the limits of the competence and powers of any authorities, ultimately limiting the people's will. Restrictions on the expression of popular will are also associated with ideas about the sovereignty of the Muslim community. Due to the fact that the Ummah has not a spatial (state-territorial) dimension as a nation, but a religious one, it is practically impossible to reveal its will. The goal of Muslim democracy is to ensure the spiritual and religious interests of people, connected, moreover, with their existence in the earthly world and in heaven. The Muslim model of democracy, therefore, is a limited government of the people.

Due to the fact that the concept of state theocracy is broader in its logical scope than the category of "political regime", we can also talk about the types of political regime in a theocratic state. With regard to a theocratic state, therefore, one can speak of both the presence and absence of democratic or anti-democratic features in it, including authoritarian, totalitarian, despotic, and others. In modern theocratic states, such elements of democracy as the participation of the people in the choice of government bodies and local self-government, the practical implementation of the principles of social justice, equality before the law and the court, ensuring socio-economic rights and individual freedoms can manifest themselves. Anti-democratic signs include: violation of freedom of thought and speech, freedom of conscience and religion, persecution for dissent, lack of publicity, multi-party system and real opposition. However, the practice of theocratic states shows that the process of establishing democratic institutions on religious and political grounds is very long and complicated.

In our opinion, the whole variety of religious and political relations that develop in theocracy at various levels of power can only be reflected using another category. The most adequate understanding of the state form of theocracy is its definition as a system of state power. With this approach, the very concept of state theocracy is significantly enriched, since the approach is based on a more voluminous and flexible matrix of state-legal relations, which makes it possible to take into account all the diversity of the properties of political divine power. The view of the state itself is also changing, which is considered as an integrity formed by various power connections and relations, i.e. analyzed as a system. In accordance with the systemic understanding of the state form of theocracy, the theocracy of statehood is conditioned not so much by the peculiarities of the organization of the highest bodies of state power, but by the ways of communication between the elements of state integrity.

State-power interactions can be distinguished into relatively separate complexes of relations: political, territorial, and organizational-structural. The activity of the state is also aimed at ensuring the regulatory relations of society. The specificity of the theocratic system of power is determined by organizational, structural and regulatory interactions. Organizational ties characterize, first of all, the elemental composition of state power, its mechanism, while regulatory ties characterize norms, values ​​and ideals that integrate and regulate interpersonal interactions in the process of exercising state power. Regulatory relations, in turn, depending on the characteristics of the regulatory impact, can be divided into ideological (value) and legal. Let's try to consider the theocratic state as a system of state power and start with the study of regulatory relationships.

Of paramount importance in a theocratic state belongs to religious norms and values. Religious postulates, as the main components of theocratic statehood, are combined into a powerful ideological system of social and normative regulation. On this occasion, M. Reisner wrote: “Theocracy ... is, after all, the strongest ideology, the most stable, having the greatest ability to detach from reality and exist until the last possible minute”74. Theocratic state is a kind of ideocracy, i.e. a system of power based on the implementation of a certain ideology. It is no coincidence that Johann Bluntschli identified theocracy with ideocracy in his studies. The unity of value orientations, attitudes and views leads to the totalitarianization of theocratic power relations. There are no differences between society and the state: they merge. In the theocratic state, a complete all-encompassing spiritual and political control over the life of each individual is exercised. The pervasive religious and legal regulation of social relations, the ideologization and nationalization of all aspects of social life, the state monopoly in the dissemination of information puts the theocratic state on the same level as the totalitarian state.

The meaning, programs of social activity and functions of state power in a theocracy are primarily determined not by the conditions of the socio-economic and political life of society, but by the need to implement religious and legal prescriptions. All the interests and values ​​of the theocratic society are concentrated in religion. Views and orientations that are not connected with the dominant dogma are unacceptable for the theocracy and are suppressed. In order to maintain uniformity of opinions and interests of members of society, the state authorities strictly regulate information flows, preventing the slightest dissemination of ideas that contradict religious canons. The media in modern theocracies are state-owned. The creation of private television and radio is not allowed. There is strict censorship in the state. For example, in Iran, only officials of ideological departments have the right to watch Western TV programs, while video libraries are formed by the Ministry of Islamic Orientation. The dominance of the interests of the state in the theocracy, which seeks to strengthen and extend its power in society by any means, testifies to the etatist type of the theocratic model of power. The fundamental principles of etatism - the state interest, the state's concern for self-preservation and increasing its own power75 - are among the priorities of the theocratic state.

Maintaining a strict unity of views and beliefs leads to significant restrictions in the field of political rights and freedoms and the absence of a multi-party system. Significant violations of human rights occur in the area of ​​freedom of thought and conscience. Iran has a legally defined list of religions that citizens can profess on an equal basis with Islam. These include Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Other creeds are prohibited under threat of punishment. In Saudi Arabia and Oman, the activities of any non-Muslim religious associations are persecuted by the authorities, and freedom of conscience is not mentioned at all in the legislation1. Atheism is also banned in theocratic states.

This practice of giving advantages to one religion at the expense of others violates many provisions of the main international legal instruments in the field of freedom of conscience, religion and the creation of religious associations, in particular, the norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Elimination of All forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or beliefs and a number of other documents.

The absence of conditions for the formation of various interests, the underdevelopment of the organs of people's and party representation determine, on the whole, the underdevelopment of the political system of the theocratic state. The political process coincides with state activity, since there are simply no participants in political relations independent of the state in such a state. The creation of political parties is strictly prohibited. As a sanction for this, the death penalty can be provided (Saudi Arabia). Trade unions, socio-political movements and organizations, if they exist, are under the close supervision of the state and can only act in unison with the government's course.

Modern theocratic states are characterized by the presence of socio-political organizations and movements that assist the government in ensuring the implementation of religious and legal prescriptions. In Iran, such activities are carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Saudi Arabia - by the League for the Protection of Faith and Morality. In many ways, the functions of these public organizations resemble the police.

The interests of the dominant dogma are manifested in the religious qualifications for holding many of the highest government positions. In all theocracies, only representatives of the dominant religion have the right to be head of state. Following religious dogmas, theocratic power creates inequality in the legal status of men and women. Women are deprived of voting rights, they are prohibited from marrying non-Christians, and legal barriers are created for them in their professional, scientific and creative activities. Restrictions on human rights existing in a theocratic state based on religious criteria create potential conditions for internal political tension and do not contribute to its integration into the system of international relations.

From the point of view of religion, all levels of being, both earthly and heavenly, are theocentric, hierarchical, subject to the laws of harmony and expediency.

And if the divine being meets the value imperatives of the religious worldview, then earthly life is far from such perfection. Social relations in political theology tend to be likened to cosmic ones, in order to achieve in this way their correspondence to the divine world order. Researcher of the power structures of the Middle East I.L. Fadeeva noted: “The emergence of the Muslim state was accompanied by the introduction into the mass consciousness of the concept of the need to obey the will due to the cosmic world order”76. Theocracy is an attempt to direct social life into the mainstream of a single cosmo-social order by subordinating interpersonal relations to the natural-cosmic laws and rhythms of the universe.

The theocratic state is cosmocentric. It lives in the earthly world, but its ideal is in the heavenly world. Describing the ideology of the Middle Ages, which was the peak of the heyday of theocratic states, S.S. Averintsev emphasized its cosmology. The world was considered as a cosmos, as “a structure, as a law-like subordination of the sensible and the supersensible, as a hierarchy that invariably resides in timeless eternity77. The cosmo-social connection is an important link in the system of theocratic power relations. It gives a higher, transcendental character to theocratic government, raising to the utmost degree the significance of the authority of power.

Like many other aspects of the life of a theocratic state, cosmo-social ties are considered mysterious and incomprehensible to the human mind. Their true essence can only be conveyed allegorically, in myth. Literally the whole system of social relations of the theocratic state is built on myths. The fabric of theocratic social ties is woven from myths about the divine predestination of historical development and the absence of alternatives to political divine power, about the beginning and end of the historical path in God, about divine sovereignty, about the possibility of an earthly paradise, about the human fall into sin and the inevitable divine judgment at the end of time. Myths are so deeply embedded in the everyday life of the theocratic state that the lines between fiction and reality are sometimes blurred. The blurring of the lines between real and fictional is especially noticeable in the names and official titles of theocratic leaders. For example, the Dalai Lama is called the Most Holy Sovereign, Gracious Majesty, Lord of Speech, Full of Wisdom, Ocean of Wisdom. The official title of the Pope is Bishop of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ, heir to the prince of the apostles, patriarch of the West, servant of the servants of God.

Myth-making plays a significant role in the life of a theocratic state. The power structures of the theocracy are primarily interested in it, since myths strengthen faith, ensure the meaningfulness of human existence, form models of proper behavior and ultimately strengthen the religious and legal order.

The mythical nature of theocratic connections is also expressed in various symbols and rituals. One of the widespread rituals emphasizing the cosmocentricity of theocratic power is enthronement. In almost all early class states, the enthronement ceremony was understood as an integral part of a single cosmogonic process. In ancient India, during the enthronement, the ruler raised his hand, staging the rise of the axis of the world, and at the moment of anointing, he already held two arms outstretched, symbolizing the cosmic axis. The throne of the theocratic leader thus became the center of the earth and the universe. It was believed that the crowning of the divine protege is not only the result of the influence of the cosmic rhythm, submission to it, but also has the opposite effect - the renewal of the cosmos. "... The King becomes responsible for the stability, prosperity and fruitfulness of the entire universe. This means that cosmic renewal now begins to coincide not only with cosmic rhythms, but also with the rhythms of people and historical events"78.

Cosmological motifs of theocratic power relations of the early class states are clearly reflected in the architectural monuments that have survived to this day. Grandiose, even according to modern ideas, ancient temples, towers, pyramids and steles personified the hierarchy of cosmic connections, acting as material-figurative projections of divine-human relations. One of the main purposes of these architectural complexes is the maintenance of public order, corresponding to the ideas of universal harmony. Recent studies by the Australian scientist R. Bauval on the problem of building ancient Egyptian pyramids have shown that the location of the three giant pyramids in Giza exactly corresponds to the location of the three stars of Orion's Belt. According to the scientist, the area of ​​the Memphis necropolis was considered by the ancient Egyptians as an earthly reflection of a section of the starry sky of the constellation Orion79. And if, moreover, we take into account that the Nile resembled the Milky Way and was called by the Egyptians nothing more than a "starry river", then many cosmological myths, symbols and cults of the Ancient Egyptian and other theocratic states become clear.

The cosmocentrism of the theocratic state is not the fruit of an idealistic religious consciousness divorced from life. It has an objective basis. During the period of transition from an appropriating to a producing economy, when the first early class agricultural states began to form, people needed a deeper knowledge of environmental phenomena. In many ways, giant structures were erected for this, which made it possible to observe various natural elements, adapting to them, or adequately responding to their threatening consequences. The monumental works of the era of the first states that have survived to this day in various parts of the world had practical significance in their time, performing mainly the function of auxiliary means of studying environmental phenomena. Their cosmic symbolism is thus associated with quite earthly needs, namely, with the provision of new economic conditions for people's lives. The cosmological components of modern theocratic statehood, which carry an important value-semantic load, are a legacy of past times.

The transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one determined not only the cosmocentric nature of the statehood of early class societies, but also the very emergence of theocratic states. On the basis of the known patterns of natural cycles in early agricultural societies, normative models and rules for social, political and labor activity were developed. They were clothed in a religious and legal form and expressed in the form of myths, cults, rituals, and were recorded in the form of agricultural calendars.

The whole life of the early class states was determined by the religious-legal system of social regulation. In agriculture, as scientists note, "strict adherence to agricultural calendars becomes the basis of the entire production, social, and personal life of members of the early agricultural community." The change of rulers of theocratic states seemed to be a natural result of a change in the power of the gods, which, in turn, was identified with the natural rhythms of the alternation of the seasons.

Religious and legal regulation contributed to the rise of the priesthood, which monopolized the knowledge of the natural world order. The priests began to perform the functions of maintaining social order and bringing it into line with the cyclical changes in nature, and the temples turned into organizational, economic, distribution, information and religious centers81. Researchers of the Mayan culture have established that the priestly class controlled all public life. “Priests - writes V.I. Gulyaev, indicated the time of the performance of military detachments and merchant caravans. They followed the deadlines for all work, especially agricultural work, and performed rituals associated with the birth, initiation, marriage and death of the inhabitants.

The political practice of the early class theocratic states was reflected in the divine theory of the origin of the state and law. The latter is not only a logical consequence of the Christian dogma of divine creation, but is based on real historical events. The thesis of Thomas Aquinas about the eternal law that exists in God and is the source of other types of law - natural and human, is consistent with the dominant ideology and political and legal practice of early class states, where models of proper behavior were clothed in religious forms. Due to the religious-mythical worldview that dominated at that time, the norms and patterns of required behavior could be recognized and fulfilled only if they received religious legitimation.

The recognition in the early class state of the primacy and independence of existence behind the divine world logically led to the recognition of the divine predestination of earthly power, state and law. This is the basis of another fundamental postulate of the divine theory of the state and law of Thomas Aquinas: "The state genetically appears earlier than the citizens organizing it"83. The divine theory reflects many real-historical regularities in the formation of the state and law. It contains a rational principle and has not lost its cognitive potential even today.

The process of the emergence of the state and law is complex. It is caused by many factors, among which not the last place belongs to religious ones. The dogmatized Marxist approach to the essence of state-legal phenomena that dominated earlier in domestic science focused only on consideration of the economic causes of their development. At the same time, other circumstances of the genesis of political structures were considered secondary and pushed into the background. The analysis of the theocratic state allows us to take a different look at the origin and meaning of the state and law, to assess the role of religion and the church in the formation of political and power structures. The very fact of the existence of a theocracy clearly shows that the state and law also have a spiritual, moral, and religious purpose. Law should not only mediate the economy and politics, regulate social life, delimiting the subjective interests of participants in social relations. Its task also consists in the approval of ethical patterns of behavior. In state activity, along with the prescriptions of law, spiritual and moral norms should also be observed.

The universal hierarchy of being is reflected in theocracy in the form of relations of strict subordination both between individuals and between social groups: castes, varnas, professional corporations, etc. Social stratification determines the caste nature of a theocratic society. Religious dogmas, fixing the caste system, justify this with divine justice, which, from the point of view of religious consciousness, consists in the performance of a duty by a representative of each group, determined by his social position. The pyramidal structure of social ties was an integral attribute of the states of the Ancient East, pre-Columbian America, and feudal Europe. The organization of power in modern theocracies - the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. - is built on the principles of a rigid hierarchy. The highest place in the hierarchical structure of the theocratic state belongs to persons who, from the standpoint of religion, perform functions similar to those of the divine. The upper floors of social stratification in political divine power are occupied by its leaders: gods embodied in people, prophets, military-religious leaders, spiritual-political heads of state, and religious authorities.

Hierarchy, as a principle of organizing religious, including religious and political structures, is manifested to one degree or another in all theocratic states. The hierarchy of the religious worldview determines, first of all, the nature of the organization of religious structures: churches, denominations, sects, etc. The Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church states: "The fundamental principle valid in the field of ecclesiastical authority is the principle of hierarchy"84. Religious organizations built on the principles of strict hierarchy and subordination can have a huge impact on the formation of state power, introducing into it relations of hierarchical order. This is especially true for the formation of states in the zone of the spread of the Christian religion. According to the prominent legal historian Harold John Berman, the Catholic Church became the prototype of the Western states of modern times. The scientist writes that in the period when independent and independent Western European states had not yet been formed, the Catholic Church, after the pontificate of Gregory VII, "acquired most of the distinctive features of the state in its modern sense"85

In some cases, states may arise directly from the religious communities themselves and borrow from the latter the basic principles of organization. So, from the religious community of Muslims - the Ummah, the Arab Caliphate grew up, from the lamaist monasteries of Tibet - the state of Tibet, from the Roman Catholic Church - the Vatican.

In turn, with close cooperation between the state and the church, political power also has a noticeable influence on the organization of religion. Byzantium is a vivid historical example of this. With the adoption of the Christian faith by the emperor Constantine, the Christian church becomes state here and receives great privileges. By decrees and decrees of Emperor Constantine, and then his successors, the clergy are endowed with state powers and turned into officials, the church-territorial division is likened to an administrative one, and the state system is likened to a church one. Under Emperor Theodosius, the bishop of Constantinople receives the highest hierarchical rank after the bishop of Rome and, as a result, power over the East of the empire. The emperor, in turn, achieved the highest position in the church, thus taking full control of the clergy. As the researchers note, under Theodosius, the merger of the state and the church was brought to its logical end. “With all measures, the emperor created an Orthodox state. The state de jure has become a church.”86

The close interaction of political institutions and religious organizations, primarily the state and the church, is one of the essential properties of theocratic states. Attention is drawn to this circumstance in almost all studies of the history of the state and law of both Western and Eastern civilizations. In countries where Buddhism was the state religion, the Sangha (Buddhist Church) was considered by the political authorities as the most important part of the state apparatus, “an intermediary between the state and the people, as a “pillar” of royal power”87. The political partnership between the state and the church is very often mutually beneficial. Trying to achieve recognition, the government appeals to spiritual values ​​and religious traditions, the bearer of which is the church. Therefore, in order to gain stability for the "city of the earth" it is necessary to find support in the "city of God". The church, on the other hand, from this cooperation receives additional opportunities to influence the flock through state structures and the mass media, which are under the control of the state. She is also provided with legally fixed benefits and advantages for the purposes of her own craft, sometimes far from being divine. This makes it possible to push back confessional competitors and strengthen the material and financial position of spiritual institutions.

From a theoretical and legal point of view, the structure of state-church relations includes: subjects, object and content. The participants in state-church relations are the state and religious associations. The object of such interactions is the provision of freedom of conscience and religion. To achieve this goal, the state, on the one hand, determines the legal status of religious associations, establishes the basic principles of their preaching and other religious activities, and religious associations, on the other hand, perform their functions, observing the norms of domestic law. These mutual rights and obligations of the state and the church constitute the content of state-church relations. In theocratic states, the structure of such relations undergoes certain changes. The unity of the goals of the state and the church in the theocracy determine their joint activities to implement only public, collective interests that characterize these institutions as certain social groups. The spiritual needs of the individual, underlying the creation of religious associations, are not taken into account. The object of state-church relations in the theocracy is no longer the individual's exercise of freedom of faith, but mainly the strengthening of political and ideological unity in society.

The hierarchical orderliness of the theocratic state is reflected in its normative-value system. From the point of view of the religious worldview, the dominant place in the cosmo-social universe belongs to the divine absolute. God unites the disparate elements of empirical reality, giving them true being. With this understanding of the connections between the structures of the universal whole, a person is thought of as an elementary particle of the cosmic world order. This aspect of the theistic paradigm becomes dominant in theocracy, leaving other complexes of the relationship between God and man in the shade. The one-sided vision of the cosmo-social order, cut off from the general religious meaning, logically leads to the priority of the public over the private, the collective over the individual, the state over the personal. In the theocratic states, the rights of collectives and the state are protected to a greater extent than the rights and freedoms of the individual. A person can count on ensuring his interests only when he acts as a representative of any group: religious, caste, professional, etc.

Theocentrism in the religious worldview correlates with centralism in the social sphere. Life in a theocratic state "closes" on its leader. He is the center and goal of the social organism. A theocratic leader can be simultaneously a high priest, a military leader, a judge and a ruler. By virtue of his position, the personal qualities of the head of a theocratic state can be extolled to divine heights. The deification of the power of the ruler is an invariable sign of theocracy, the knot of its social ties. The decisions of the divine governors or their deputies are endowed with the highest meaning and are carried out almost implicitly. Thus, the political decisions made by the Pope of Rome have the highest legal force in the Vatican and are subject to strict execution by all organizations, officials and citizens. This also applies to his religious powers. According to canon 331 of the Code of Canon Law, he is “head of the College of Bishops, Vicar of Christ, and Shepherd of the whole Church on this earth; therefore, by virtue of his ministry, he enjoys in the Church the supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power, which he can always freely exercise. The sign of the fullness of power indicates that it is sufficient to fulfill its main goal - the salvation of human souls, as well as competence, which includes issues of a religious, organizational and managerial nature.The immediacy of the power of the Pope is determined, firstly, by its direct action, not needing any mediation, and secondly, the ability of believers to apply directly to the Pope, bypassing the corresponding bishop.The universality of papal power is characterized by its extension to all Catholics of the world

The spread of theocratic power, not only according to political, but also according to religious criteria, is an essential factor in its sustainability and stability. Another consequence follows from this property of theocratic power: if the political power of the theocratic state covers its territory, then religious influence is not limited to the spatial isolation of the state. In relation to this, we can talk about such a sign of the theocratic state as borderlessness.

The limitlessness of theocratic power follows logically from the concept of God's sovereignty. In accordance with this doctrine, the theocratic state, representing the power of God on earth, has tasks and functions similar to it. One of the main goals of religious activity is to convert people to the true faith. The theocratic state, as a representative of divine power, takes on the fulfillment of a sacred mission and acts from the standpoint of the bearer of absolute political power. Theocracy's infinity can only be spoken of as a theory. In practice, it is, of course, limited by the sovereignty of other states. But the desire to realize the theocratic ideal of a universal state of believers without national borders sometimes gets a real embodiment in reality, which of course should be considered as a gross violation of international law. Theocratic values ​​can potentially provoke interference in the internal affairs of states, as well as military interventions and terrorist acts against independent subjects of international politics. This once again confirms the original thesis about the anomic nature of the theocratic idea and the possibility of the emergence of deformations of legal consciousness on this basis.

It is believed that theocratic power, sanctioned by God himself, has a special divine gift - grace (charisma), called in some cases royalty. In many states of antiquity, only one who had royalty could be considered a legitimate theocratic ruler. As a rule, it was not associated specifically with the bearer of power, but belonged to the royal family (Egypt) or city (Mesopotamia) and, as an exception, to individuals. Today, echoes of the ancient idea are reflected in the procedure for replacing the post of the head of state of Iran. Only the descendants of one of the righteous caliphs, Ali, have the right to power, since from the point of view of Shiism, the dominant religion of Iran, power over the Muslim community remains in the Ali family, who received it from the Prophet Muhammad himself, whose son-in-law he was.

Due to the special importance of the functions performed by the head of the theocratic state, increased requirements are imposed on him. A particularly thorough approach to the candidacy of a religious and political leader can be traced in many theocratic teachings. Theocratic ideologists paid close attention to his mental, moral, psychological and physical qualities. Al-Mawardi, for example, believed that the caliph should have prudence, high moral reputation, knowledge in the field of theology, intact organs of hearing, vision, speech, a healthy body, courage and fearlessness to defend Islam and wage war against the infidels. In Russian political thought, the question of the ruler's personal qualities was first raised precisely in connection with the realization of the deep religious roots of political power. According to Joseph Volotsky, who considers state power as a divine institution, the high purpose of power can be realized only if its bearer is able to curb personal passions, directing the activities of the entire state to achieve the common good. He believed that a king suffering from such vices as unbelief, blasphemy, anger, love of money, guile, pride89 could not be God's servant.

When forming the power structures of modern theocratic states, many aspects of the personality of candidates are taken into account. In political divine power, the possibility of occupying high positions by unprepared and uneducated people is practically excluded, since these positions, as a rule, are formed from authoritative representatives of the clergy, which implies that candidates have high professional qualities. In accordance with the Iranian Constitution, all key positions in the state must be occupied by faqihs - experts in Islamic law. To become a faqih, one must possess many virtues, including: a deep knowledge of the norms of Islam, a high spiritual and intellectual level, a pious lifestyle, abstinence, an impeccable moral reputation, etc.90. The candidate for the post of leader of the Iranian state is subject to constitutional requirements of competence in issuing fatwas (official judgments) on various issues of Islamic state law, justice, piety, and the correctness of the worldview91.

The social ties characteristic of theocracy are determined in many respects by the special relation of religious consciousness to the historical process. The theistic vision of history is teleological. With this view, the direction of the world course of events is predetermined by God. God is the beginning and end of universal history. The movement of the natural, cultural-social and personal universes is directed towards it. However, the achievement by people of the Kingdom of God, from the point of view of the religious worldview, is not absolutely guaranteed. Man, being a spiritual being with free will, has the right to determine the paths of life independently. His choice may be at odds with the divine plan. The elements of chaos and decay that act in the material world, which have a corrupting effect on a person who has a spiritual and bodily essence, also resist the universal desire for the Kingdom of Heaven. The forces of divine harmony and the behavior of the individual, consistent with the divine will, on the one hand, and the cosmo-social elements of decay that oppose them, and the behavior of the individual that is inconsistent with the divine will, on the other hand, acquire the ontological status of good and evil in theocracy. History is experienced by religious consciousness as an arena of the struggle between good and evil that does not stop in time. Evaluation of socio-economic, political, spiritual and other processes not on the basis of their correspondence to the realities of a changing life, but through the prism of ideas about the eternal confrontation in a society of divine and demonic forces dulls the sense of time, creates the illusion of theocracy being ahistorical. The patterns of thinking and behavior established in such a society, the mechanisms of social control, due to the absolute significance recognized for them, remain for a long time. The invariability of social ties, corresponding to religious patterns, guarantees the triumph of the forces of good in the political power of God and personifies the victory of man over chaos.

The rejection of the dynamic processes of empirical reality, largely determined, from the point of view of religion, by the manifestation of the elements of chaos in earthly life, is inevitably associated with the desire to establish a new order that meets divine harmony. Theocratic structure

social ties challenges the habitual way of life of people that adequately meets the external conditions of the social environment. Theocracy is trying to interrupt the evolutionary changes in society that seem to it a "vicious circle" and to establish its "eternal truths". The radicalism of the theocratic idea is also stimulated by religious eschatology. The outcome of history, known not on the basis of rational arguments, but with the help of faith, must end with the cessation of time and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Theocracy perceives the "end of the world" actively, directing social interactions towards the implementation of religious and legal prescriptions. Only in the Kingdom of God, in accordance with the theistic paradigm, will the imperfections of the world cease and the problem of human salvation will be resolved. j

The norms imposed, in turn, by the religious and political authorities are so much at odds with the standards of thinking and behavior accepted in society that they literally blow up, revolutionize the reformed socio-cultural environment. It is enough to recall the depth and scale of the consequences of such historical events as the reform of Akhenaten in Ancient Egypt, the Mosaic theocracy in Israel, the "Papal Revolution" in Western Europe, the Shiite Revolution in Iran, to be convinced of the cardinality and novelty of theocratic transformations.

Like any other socio-historical event, the emergence of theocratic states has objective economic, socio-psychological and ethno-religious reasons. The confluence of circumstances necessary for a radical reorganization of society, combined with favorable subjective, random factors, can contribute to the formation of theocratic societies at any time. Theocracy is not a historical relic and an anachronism. It is a phenomenon of the modern stage of human development and a potential opportunity for future structures of interpersonal interactions.

The purpose of the theocratic state is the protection and implementation of religious dogmas expressed in "sacred" sources - the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, etc. The goal is a system-forming factor of religious and political relations in theocracy. The activities of all power structures are aimed at its achievement. Steady adherence to religious patterns is manifested in the fact that in the system of social regulation, a priority place is given to the norms of religion, and the rules of conduct developed by public authorities are subordinate to them. For example, Oman, Saudi Arabia do without the Constitution. Its role is played by the Koran. The basic law of Iran provides for the primacy of Islamic principles.

Due to the fact that the religious and legal regulation of social ties, which is one of the components of the regulatory relations of the system of theocratic power, is a necessary feature for theocracy, it can be assumed that political divine power is, as it were, a prototype, a distant reminder of the rule of law. Let us analyze the similarities and differences between the legal and theocratic states. According to the author, this will allow a deeper understanding of the essence of the state theocracy, as well as a better understanding of the meaning of the defining feature of the rule of law - the rule of law.

In a theocratic state, as in a legal state, the role of the judiciary is high. Dispute resolvers are the most authoritative members of society here. The judiciary has wide competence, a high degree of independence, and its decisions, backed by divine sanction, are carried out almost without fail. The high authority of the judiciary is due to its understanding as a divine institution. Theocratic leaders of tribal unions and states, revered as gods or successors of the gods, combined in their person the functions of administration and court. The duties performed were considered similar to the functions of the gods.

One of the defining features of the rule of law is the separation of powers. Piotr Barenboim, for example, argues that the doctrine of the separation of powers was founded in the Bible. “The authors of the Bible,” he writes, formulated the most important doctrinal thesis about the divine origin of the judiciary and its independence from the king in the “Book of Judges”92. According to the researcher, the judiciary was even primary in relation to the monarchical power93. It turns out that the separation of powers also appears for the first time in a theocracy? It seems that it is somewhat premature to talk about a coherent doctrine of the separation of powers during the writing of the Book of Judges. It originated in modern times. The opposition and open clash between Judge Samuel and King Saul, cited by the scientist as proof of his position and witnessed by the Bible, does not reflect the integrity of the nature of the organization of power in ancient Jewish society. The norm of power relations in ancient Israel was the combination in one person of the powers of a judge, a supreme ruler and a military commander. This is proved by the fact that both the predecessors of Saul as the political leader of Israel - Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and successors - the ancient Israelite kings David and Solomon, in addition to governing, also carried out the court. The fusion of administrative, judicial and military functions in one person among the Jews took shape during the tribal system and was inherited by the state. In ancient Israel, it is more appropriate to talk about the distinction between royal and prophetic power. Samuel criticizes Saul, first of all, as a prophet, as an exponent of the divine will. A direct prophetic connection with God gives Samuel the right not only to oppose the king, but also to oblige him to follow instructions emanating from God himself.

Following the divine command, Samuel enthrones Saul, then sends him to fight with his neighbors, and when the king ceases to fulfill the divine will transmitted through the prophet, he anoints David to the kingdom. Although the separation of prophetic and supreme political power in Israel was not always implemented consistently, nevertheless, this correlation of powers can be considered one of the first models of the system of checks and balances that characterizes the rule of law.

The restraint and balancing of political power by religious power, which first manifested itself in the theocracy, has played and continues to play a noticeable positive role in the history of society. Religious leaders and the church, bringing to the world samples of spirituality, high morality and morality, have repeatedly opposed the willfulness, violence and terror of state power. This is especially characteristic of the period of absolutism, when only the church could resist the elevated royal power. In Russia, for example, church hierarchs repeatedly protested against the cruel and inhuman policy of the autocratic power of Ivan the Terrible, for which they suffered severe punishments from him. Metropolitan Philip first paid with his metropolitan rank for open denunciations of the royal oprichnina, and then with his own life. In modern Iran, where there is no political opposition to the regime of the imam, there are nevertheless views that do not approve of the course of the supreme leadership, which, however, receive a religious rather than a political justification. The reasons for the actions of the clergy against the secular authorities are varied and are not limited to ethical considerations alone, but without any doubt they largely contribute to the establishment of the moral and legal foundations of statehood.

The separation of the judiciary into an independent branch was not inherent in other theocracies either. “The theory of the Muslim state did not know the fundamental separation of the judiciary from the executive,” writes JI. R. Sukiyainen94. As a rule, the caliph and his deputies considered court cases independently. The caliph was also considered the supreme judge. In general, it must be recognized that in political theology, the judiciary, due to its divine character, acquired a high social status, and prophecy stood out as a social institution separate from state administration, capable of limiting state power to a certain extent; the principle of the authority of the court and the system of checks and balances, which determine the structure of legal statehood, began to be implemented for the first time in the theocracy.

Another important institution of the rule of law - the principle of the rule of law for the first time received its consolidation also in the theocracy. Theocratic power is limited by the norms of religious law and its activities are subject to the implementation of religious legal prescriptions. “Islamic government is the rule of law,” said Ayatollah Khomeini. ... The government in itself does not mean anything, it is only an instrument for the implementation of laws”95. The religious and legal nature of theocratic statehood has allowed some scholars to identify theocracy with "nomocracy", i.e. with the rule of law. According to the Muslim jurist al-Reyis, the caliphate (in our understanding, a theocratic state) can be defined as a nomocracy, since it is based on Islamic law, the implementation of which is the main task of the caliphate96. But when comparing a theocratic state with a legal one, one essential reservation should be made that does not allow talking about their any close similarity: in theocracy, it is not law that completely dominates, but divine law. It is understood as the divine will emanating from the outside, the obligation to follow the patterns of behavior established from above. Divine law expresses the universal cosmic order, opposing the forces of chaos. It is objective, stable, conditioned by the chain of predetermined events of the world. The legal norms contained in the divine law are based on the ideas of natural-divine justice acting on the scale of the universe. In ancient Egypt, it was called maat, in ancient India - rita, in China - tao, in Greece - dika, etc. Changing the divine law was considered unacceptable, as it violated the natural order of justice. It was also dangerous, because it entailed the inevitable punishment of the gods.

The concept of law, in contrast to the divine law, includes a subjective-personal meaning. It provides for the possibility of behavior consistent not only with universal necessity, but also with the personal interests of the individual. Law focuses on the manifestation of one's own will and involves behavior based on the freedom of personal choice, and not established by the necessity of the law. So, in Sharia, the difference between law and law is that law (Arabic - haq) involves the interaction of two points: faith and willpower. “The realization of rights and their protection require strength and will from a person ... Faith and strength are interconnected and rely on each other. The only creator (subject) of faith and power is only man. The state where law prevails involves the process of harmonizing patterns of behavior with the subjective interests of participants in legal relations. It is characterized by constant changes in the system of legal norms. A person in a legal state is not an object, but a subject, a creator of law. His fundamental rights and freedoms are the highest value. They are recognized as an inalienable and inalienable character. The state of divine law embodies the constancy and immutability of the standards of life that follow from the universal order of the cosmos. Man is considered as one of the objects of application of divine forces. He is not recognized as a subject of lawmaking. At best, people have the ability to interpret the norms of divine law or, having a high religious position, establish new rules of behavior, but only developing and not violating the divine ones.

The transition from the state of divine law to the state of law marked the greatest revolution in the meanings and values ​​of human society. In the political sphere, a similar upheaval took place in ancient Greece, where for the first time in history there are legal norms established by people without any divine sanction. The emergence of human law was due to the shift of social priorities towards the individual. She began to be assigned a central position in the hierarchical order of cosmo-social existence. The change of the natural-divine paradigm to the subjective-personal one was expressed in the words of Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things." As noted by B.C. Nersesyants, "... the turn of thinking from the objective-divine to the subjective-human complex of phenomena and problems was the great historical merit of the sophists, who made a fruitful attempt to look at the world through human eyes and drew radical conclusions from their new approach"98.

Ironically, the first secular laws that have come down to us were inherently anti-human. Their name has gone down in history forever and has become a household name. These were the laws of Draco, the tyrant of ancient Athens. Maybe this is the revenge of the gods for the falling away of man from a single divine-cosmic world order?

The establishment by people of norms of behavior, not conditioned by divine approval, was a major step towards the formation of not only a legal, but also a secular state, as it marked the beginning of the process of secularization of society. “Secularization, as the famous American theologian Harvey Cox writes, is the liberation of man from the guardianship of religious and metaphysical systems, the change of his interests: he turns away from other worlds and turns to this world”99. In a secular state, in contrast to a theocratic state, the fundamental principles of the social structure, norms and values ​​are not considered initially given by God and, as a result, are eternal and unchanging. They can be revised, supplemented, if necessary, the state can refuse some of the principles. The value-normative system of theocracy is based on the dominance of religious attitudes in the behavior and thinking of people. As the main guidelines and social regulators of the theocratic society are religious ideals and behavioral models, the change of which is taboo. It should be noted that the comparison of the theocratic and secular structure of interpersonal relations allows not only to more fully describe the signs of theocracy, but also to reveal the content of the secular political organization of society. The constitutional principle of a secular state, enshrined in the legislation of many states, is not always sufficiently implemented in practice. One reason for this is the lack of clearly defined criteria for secular power.

The Christian religion also plays an important role in the process of secularization and building the rule of law. The Christian doctrine brought into the world the most important norms of a legal and secular state. First of all, they are expressed in the words of Jesus Christ: "give what is Caesar's to Caesar, and God's," "my kingdom is not of this world," "it is impossible to serve two masters at the same time." A deep meaning lies in the words of the Apostle Paul, who called on believers to rise above the law given to Abraham and accept the grace brought by Jesus Christ. “And that no one is justified by the law before God, this is clear, because the righteous will live by faith... You who justify yourself by the law have remained without Christ, fallen away from grace. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us.”100 Justification by faith became the central tenet of the Protestant religion. From it flowed the demand for the equality of all believers before God, the denial of the intermediary mission of the church in the salvation of people, and the abolition of the priesthood. The Reformation undermined the age-old theocratic foundations of the Roman Catholic Church, based on the norms of divine law, and created the conditions for the practical implementation in Western Europe of the ideas of a secular and legal state. The words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul contained the legitimization of state life, not bound by strict regulation of divine law and religious activity, free from state guardianship. Christianity foreshadowed a period of free, but at the same time, responsible life: “So stand in the freedom that Christ has given us, and do not again be subjected to the yoke of slavery”101. Features of the second type of regulatory relations in the system of theocratic power - legal, are also contained in the very nature of legal, or rather, religious and legal regulation. Consideration of this aspect of the problem under study seems important, since the religious and legal regulation of social relations is a defining feature of political divine power and is inherent only in the theocratic system of power.

The specificity of religious and legal regulation is determined by the peculiarity of religious influence on human behavior. The goal of religion, which, like law, is a normative system, is to bring human behavior in line with the normative patterns established by them. However, unlike law, religion is also a certain worldview, i. a set of views, ideas, attitudes and orientations that not only normalize people's activity, but also determine its direction, and also express a person's attitude to his actions. Thus, both the behavior of people (social relations) and their consciousness act as an object of religious and legal regulation. The impact on human consciousness through the formation of attitudes and value orientations, which in the future can guarantee the required forms of all human conscious activity, allows religion to carry out its social functions without resorting to more detailed regulation of social relations, as law does. The sphere of public relations regulated by religion is narrow and covers mainly the issues of performing rituals and certain aspects of family and everyday life.

Religious and legal regulation has both its advantages and disadvantages. Religious prescriptions are not unambiguous in their semantic context. They are designed for a multi-level, polyexistential perception of the surrounding reality. An adequate idea of ​​the purpose and content of religious norms can only be formed on the basis of a deep and comprehensive understanding of all the dogmas of faith. Moreover, the interpretation of divine revelations goes beyond the usual one-dimensional worldview and is also designed to activate the irrational structures of the human psyche. It is difficult for individuals to choose behavior that corresponds to religious patterns, and in relation to one situation it can be different, including sinful. Religious and legal regulation of social relations, due to the vagueness and ambiguity of mandatory regulations, or, in other words, due to the low quality of the original norms, potentially contains prerequisites for illegal behavior and can lead to social conflicts.

The second drawback of the religious and legal regulation of social relations is the archaic nature of some religious norms due to obsolete historical conditions. The use of some of the religious prescriptions has lost all relevance today, and the implementation of some of them contradicts both the patterns of behavior that have developed in modern human civilization and the norms of international law. No one can guarantee their non-use, since theocracy does not contain mechanisms for the abolition or change of God-established norms.

Due to the dominance of religious means in the regulation of theocratic social relations, one of the main ways to influence people's behavior is the establishment of prohibitions. It is known that religious maxims are often expressed negatively, i.e. in the form of a taboo: do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, etc. Taboos apply to those objects that are considered sacred, having special properties - "mana", "grace". In a theocracy, this applies primarily to its leaders. Thus, the Pope of Rome is infallible in matters of faith, his decisions are not subject to discussion and are carried out unquestioningly. Iran has imposed the death penalty for insulting the name of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Imam Khomeini, and his follower, Ayatollah Khamenei.

The actions of a person who recognizes religious ideals as the highest social values ​​are determined not only by religious norms, but also by patterns of behavior demonstrated by the gods and prophets themselves, as they are presented in canonical texts. Religious sources describe not only cases of worthy and highly moral behavior. They also tell about the extremely irreconcilable attitude of the gods and their closest followers to acts of non-fulfillment of religious commandments. The gods, enraged by human vices, destroy villages, cities, and sometimes entire nations. So, Yahweh punishes people for apostasy with a global flood, exterminates the population of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Avestan god Mitra, in accordance with religious dogma, "immediately destroys that house, village, city, country, where someone acts against him and his oath"102. The prophet Moses, taught by God, arranges "Egyptian executions" for the pharaoh's refusal to let the tribe of Jews go to Palestine, turning the waters of the Nile into blood, hitting the state with locusts, toads, death of the first-born and in other ways. In its ultimate foundations, religion overcomes morality, becoming "beyond good and evil." Sergei Bulgakov wrote: "... Religion, which they want to reduce entirely to morality, in its integrity is above morality and therefore is free from it: morality exists for a person within certain limits, like a law, but a person must be able to rise above morality" 2.

Religious-legal means used in political theology as the main regulators of social relations, thus, can not only create potential opportunities for anti-social, illegal activity, but also stimulate and encourage it. The dominance of religious norms in the regulation of social relations due to their unsystematic use and the multifaceted nature of religious understanding is fraught with danger. The theocratic structure of social ties creates the prerequisites for illegal behavior and social conflicts, and can legitimize them.

Among the negative properties of the religious and legal regulation of social relations, which determine the low level of development of theocracy, one should add its isolation exclusively on the internal problems of human existence. Other areas of human activity, associated with both the necessary socio-political and natural-transformative activity, have no actual significance for theocracy. Lawful behavior in a theocratic state, in contrast to a secular one, is not socially active behavior. Preoccupation with the implementation of religious and legal prescriptions, focused mainly on the internal, spiritual and moral improvement of the individual and indifferent to issues of macroeconomics, politics, science and culture, cannot stimulate the development of these areas of social life. The legal system of the theocratic state is not progressive, i. meeting the socio-economic needs of society. Extensive existence is characteristic of the theocratic state.

In socio-historical terms, the theocratic concept of power is opposed to the technocratic one. General welfare and happiness, which are the ultimate goals of the development of both the first and second types of societies, are achieved in absolutely opposite ways. In a technocracy, the improvement of social relations and the individual himself is carried out through the constant expansion of industrial production, increasing labor productivity and improving the organization of management. The driving force behind the organization of power and social development as a whole here is science, based on rationalized knowledge and the values ​​of "production-consumption". Technocracy, unlike theocracy, asserts belief not in God, but in the human mind.

Technocratic life is conceived as the constant progress of the technical equipment of society, the desire of man for an artificial machine civilization.

But the religious and legal regulation of social relations should not be interpreted exclusively as a negative, and the technocratic organization of power - as an indisputable achievement of human thought. The theocratic structure, while remaining in opposition to total industrialization, saves nature and society from many of the negative consequences of the impact of technology. More caring about the moral state of people, the political power of God in the face of religious imperatives puts strong barriers to harmful changes in the socio-ecological environment. In the distant historical perspective, it is impossible to say with complete certainty what is more humane and contributes to the survival of mankind: theocracy with its numerous taboos, tendencies for the conservation of social development and focus on the spiritual and moral aspect of human interaction, or a technocratic society that initiated the endless race to create an increasingly autonomizing technology with its mechanization and depersonalization of man, threatening to turn into the death of all living things.

As positive aspects of the religious and legal regulation of social relations, a relatively low level of offenses should be singled out. Experts in the field of Muslim law note the stability of lawful behavior in those states where the Shariah plays the main role in regulating social relations. Yes, JI. R. Sukiyainen writes: "Religious incentives are so strong that in certain spheres of social relations the norms of Muslim law are implemented practically without state intervention, since cases of violation are extremely rare"103 In the sphere of effective enforcement of religious law, the secular state has something to borrow from the theocratic one.

The reasons for stable behavior that does not deviate from the norm are due to a combination of social and psychological factors of religious and legal regulation that have a complex effect on people's behavior. When evaluating the lawful behavior of people, the theory of state and law takes into account: a) knowledge of legal norms by participants in public relations; b) attitude to the requirements of law; c) motivation of lawful actions104. Let's consider this question.

In social terms, the stability of lawful behavior is determined by the high level of knowledge and authority of religious and legal norms. For a long period, religious norms remain unchanged in a theocratic state. From generation to generation they are passed on as fundamental principles of human life, turning into maxims of individual and social consciousness. Deep assimilation of religious and legal norms is determined by the coincidence of the goals of the state, which has taken these norms under protection, and other participants in theocratic power relations, embodying religious and legal prescriptions into reality. The high level of legal awareness of the population, its interest in observing religious and legal norms create favorable prerequisites for the effectiveness of law in the theocracy.

The effectiveness of religious and legal norms is facilitated by a powerful system of religious education. The function of education and training is one of the highest priorities in a theocratic state. The activities of a whole network of educational institutions - churches, monasteries, theological schools, etc., are aimed at the formation of knowledge, value orientations and social attitudes of participants in theocratic interactions, where religious and legal education and training begin in early childhood and may end in late old age. The teaching of religious disciplines is compulsory in all educational institutions of theocratic states. “In no Arab country, scientists say, today the school is separated from the church”105. Purposeful educational activity is conditioned in a theocratic state by the need to form behavior adequate to religious and legal patterns. Ultimately, it serves as a guarantor of the successful religious and legal socialization of members of the political power of God. Along with the religious and legal regulation of social relations and the political leadership of the clergy, religious education is one of the defining properties of the theocratic state.

Concern about religious education and strict observance of religious and legal norms can go beyond common sense in a theocracy. So, in some of them, ensuring adherence to the canons of dogma was achieved by suppressing the personal freedom of students. Describing the inner life of the Jesuit order in Paraguay, V.V. Svyatlovsky noted: “Actually, the whole life of a Paraguayan Republican was one continuous upbringing. Education ended with marriage or marriage, but edifying instruction and moral instruction did not stop until the grave ... The system of education and the routine of the way of life did not give room for personal freedom in Paraguay”106. The total ideological impact on subject individuals confirms the thesis about the obvious discrepancy between the practice of implementing theocratic ideas and religious dogma.

A great influence on the exact adherence to religious and legal prescriptions is also exerted by their indivisibility, as a result of which legal norms have a high moral potential, justice, and religious and legal prohibitions are supported by both measures of state and social influence.

The relatively low level of deviant behavior in theocracy is also explained by psychological factors. An illegal act in a theocracy is not only immoral, but also sinful. This circumstance has a positive effect on the low level of offenses, since the sense of responsibility of offenders is enhanced by religious ideas about the inevitable retribution for all sins and about the eternal torment of apostates who have committed the most terrible, from the point of view of religion, offenses.

The level of theocratic religious-right consciousness is quite high. It is also due to the strong rootedness of religious norms in the psyche of members of the political power of God. The implementation of religious prescriptions, as noted earlier, relies on both conscious and unconscious structures of the personality. The complete subordination of man's inner and outer life to the divine will is one of the main conditions of religious faith. In the Bible, for example, the God of Israel requires: "And love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength"107. The Koran says: "O people! Worship your Lord, who created you and those who were before you - maybe you will be God-fearing!" personality"109. The total orientation of a person to the observance of religious requirements creates favorable conditions for maintaining the religious-legal order.

The problem of legal regulation, which has a goal - the achievement of lawful behavior, organically includes the individual psychological aspects of the legal impact. Law creates models of proper behavior. Before being realized in behavioral acts, they must be realized by a person, must become part of his inner, mental life. Influencing the will and consciousness of a person, seeking proper behavior from him, religious and legal prescriptions essentially create a special type of personality - Homo teokratikus (theocratic person). Homo teokratikus is a psychological type of person who has mastered and puts into practice the behavioral patterns, norms and values ​​of the theocratic society. The vital activity of a theocratic person not only corresponds to the models of religious and legal regulation, but is also a necessary basis for the existence of political divine power. Homo teokratikus is the result and guarantor of the theocratic structure of social relations.

The idea of ​​analyzing the socio-psychological portrait of a typical representative of any political community is not new. Already Plato, when characterizing the forms of government, used a description of human characters, corresponding, in his opinion, to each of the types of state. This allowed the thinker to penetrate deeply into the fabric of political life and reveal the internal, psychological reasons for the rebirth of the forms of the polis structure. An attempt at a psychological and legal analysis of the system of theocratic interpersonal relations at the level of the individual consciousness of its participants, or rather at the level of individual religious and legal consciousness, also has great cognitive value and contributes to a complete and accurate study of the properties of the theocratic state.

The mental state of Homo teokratikus is characterized by a clear awareness of the meanings and goals of social activity. The theocratic person claims in life to achieve the ultimate goal - to become perfect and in his perfection come closer to God. As a result, the motivation of the theocratic person has special qualities. The incentives for him are not material goods, which consist in the acquisition of wealth, social prestige, power, but the values ​​of spiritual life, closely related to the need for self-realization. Satisfaction of other desires, due to more mundane motives, is considered reprehensible for Homo teokratikus. In the hope of receiving rewards on the path of internal improvement, Homo teokratikus is able to do things to the detriment of the interests of personal material gain. This quality perfectly corresponds to the policy pursued in the theocratic state of priority of public interests over private ones, disregard for human rights for the sake of illusory, utopian goals.

Recognition of a higher destiny in the soul of a theocratic person coexists with a sense of his own superiority over people who do not belong to the political power of God. On this basis, a prejudice towards representatives of other faiths is formed in the minds of Homo teokratikus, which is additionally reinforced by a religious attitude that postulates the division of people into "friends" - fellow believers, holders of true divine knowledge, and "strangers" - people who do not profess such views. Homo teokratikus shows antipathy and intolerance towards non-Christians, reaching extreme forms to the degree of cruelty. Aggressiveness is characteristic of theocratic states. The fight against non-believers, heretics, religious wars were the most important element of the policy of the theocratic states of the past. They have been preserved in separate theocracies to this day.

Problems in the relationship between members of the political power of God and representatives of societies who do not adhere to similar religious views also arise due to the closeness of the theocracy. The development of the theocratic personality takes place under the conditions of total domination of religious ideology, deficit and distortion of information about the surrounding socio-cultural space. As a result of biased judgments, Homo teokratikus develops a simplified, stereotyped image of reality. The consciousness of the theocratic personality is conservative and does not accept a different view of the world. Homo teokratikus - dogmatist. It is practically impossible to change the images of the surrounding reality created under the influence of religious doctrine, just as it is impossible to change the theocratic models of social ties. The axiom of religious consciousness: the sacred is inviolable and cannot be changed. At the same time, stereotypes of theocratic consciousness perform stabilizing functions in relation to the political power of God. They support the identification of the individual with political divine power and maintain the stability of theocratic ties. The stability of the theocratic legal order also depends on the severity of sanctions for violation of religious norms. However, this circumstance cannot be considered a positive quality of theocracy. As a punishment, measures of physical coercion are used here. It is no coincidence that the era of the Middle Ages, marked by the flourishing of theocracies, is also distinguished by an inhuman attitude towards criminals. Persons who have committed crimes against faith and leaders of religious and political power are especially severely punished. Noting the harshness of criminal sanctions in the theocracy, I. Bluntschli wrote: “In human justice, the wrath of God is manifested here, the free movement of the individual spirit is condemned as a godless deed”1. In many Muslim states, to this day, there are corporal punishments in the form of stoning, cutting off hands, and blows with sticks. The maintenance of a theocratic law and order based on fear is the most flagrant perversion of the religious idea. The fear of power and God cultivated here creates an authoritarian type of faith, supported not by a free spiritual choice, but by the thought of inevitable punishment for deviations from divine norms. This ultimately leads to the formation of an authoritarian type of theocratic personality.

With the integration and convergence of various social systems, the increase in mutual cooperation, the role of religious and legal regulation is noticeably reduced. This process occurs mainly due to objective internal reasons. Religious and legal means in the increasingly complex life simply will not be able to fulfill the tasks of regulating social relations that they face. Religious imperatives due to the fact that they are religious, i.e. connecting two opposite planes of being, are incapable by their nature rationally, logically consistent and historically adequate to determine the behavior of people. Theocracy as it exists is doomed to die. But at the same time, one should take into account the factor of the unpredictability of human history, which often demonstrates examples of unthinkable, extremely cruel and inhumane social orders.

The implementation of religious norms as the most important social values ​​determines some features of the organization of the theocratic power system. Among its characteristic properties are: centralization, unity of command, indivisibility of power. The judicial activity of the theocratic bodies of state power is not clearly delimited from other management functions. Justice, thus, can be carried out by law-making bodies, administration and the courts themselves.

The fusion of politics and religion, dogma and law gives rise to power institutions that are not found in other systems of state power. First of all, they include spiritual and political bodies, consisting of representatives of the clergy or religious authorities, who carry out law-making and judicial functions in a theocratic state. Law-making religious bodies of theocratic states are represented by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution in Iran, the Supreme Ulema Council in Saudi Arabia, the Consultative Council in Oman, the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican, etc. The main activity of these institutions is the development of legal norms on issues not regulated by religious prescriptions. Depending on the characteristics of a particular state system of power, the competence of religious law-making bodies may go beyond the specified limits. The Council of Guardians of the Constitution, for example, approves all normative legal acts adopted in the state for their compliance with Islam, after which the acts come into force. In addition, he controls the election of the Leader - the head of Iran, the Assembly of Experts, Parliament, President, supervises the holding of referendums.

Secondly, it is necessary to single out secular authorities that perform religious functions. These include the positions of heads of theocratic states, with the exception of the post of the Leader of Iran and the head of the Vatican, as well as the religious police. The significance of religion determines the existence in theocratic states of the highest authorities, coordinating the interaction of religious associations and the state. For example, such as the Ministry of Islamic Culture in Iran.

The system of the state apparatus of theocracy is based on such principles as: -

religious legality; -

the rule of divine law; -

religious and religious-educational qualification in the formation of key government positions; -

irremovability of leaders of states; -

restrictions on holding public office for women.

Summing up the analysis of the features of the theocratic organization of power in the state, it should be noted that the features characterizing it do not allow us to understand the state theocracy as a form of the state, as well as a kind of monarchy or republic. In our opinion, theocratic power can be singled out as an independent form of government. The defining properties of such power should be considered the source of state sovereignty, a special procedure for the formation of the highest bodies of state power and administration, their competence, limited by religious dogmas, their special composition. But the most complete expression of the essential properties of political divine power corresponds to its definition as a system of state power. Theocratic state is a system of organizational and regulatory state power relations that develop in the process of implementing religious and legal prescriptions.

• Theocracy

Theocracy(from Greek. θεος - God and κρατειν - manage) - a system of government in which important public affairs are decided according to divine instructions, revelations or laws. According to another definition - a political system in which religious leaders have a decisive influence on the policy of the state.

Story

As Herodotus describes (History 2:52), the concept of “God” (θεος) was formulated by the proto-Greek tribes of the Pelasgians: “In former times, as I learned in Dodona, the Pelasgians made sacrifices to the Gods, offering prayers, but did not call on the names of individual gods . After all, they did not yet know the names of the gods. The Pelasgians gave them the name "gods" (θεοi) because the gods established (θεντες) the world order and distributed all the blessings according to their will.

Thus, theocracy, according to the views of Herodotus, aims to follow the world order in order to establish harmony (perfect state) in society. The rite of sacrifice itself was intended to clarify the will of the gods according to the state of the victim, and later began to be understood as an offering to God, with the goal of incline him to mercy. The roots of theocracy are lost in the depths of history: it is known that in ancient states (in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico and other places) the rulers were priests and decided things according to their religious beliefs, or even proclaimed themselves to be gods.

One of the examples of theocracy is given by the Bible (the book of Judges and the book of Samuel - in the Russian synodal translation of 1 and 2 of the Book of Kings), which describes that in the early period of the formation of the Jewish state, their society was ruled by judges to whom God revealed his will. For the same purpose, the priests used a special lot: Urim (light) and Tumim (dark) - apparently, these were something like stones that were in a special bag with the high priest. The process of finding out the will of God consisted in the fact that the high priest was clearly formulated a question that should have only two unambiguous answers: yes or no. The priest prayed to God and took out of the bag the stone that he had to - it was believed that God Himself guided his hand. Urim meant yes and Thumim meant no. According to another version, one of the stones began to glow in the hands of the high priest.

Examples of other draws are also described in other places in the Bible: for example, Abraham asked about the future, laying the chopped bodies of animals on the altar, and by their spontaneous combustion he realized that his descendants were destined to own Canaan (Genesis 15:8-18), and during the exodus the Jews they cast lots as to who should be the high priest, spreading wooden rods in front of the sanctuary, and they recognized the worthy one by the fact that his rod budded (Numbers 17:2-8).

The examples from the Bible reflect only the historically determined and rather limited understanding of theocracy by the authors of this book.

Theocracy was the basis of the government of all [ source unspecified 179 days] developed states of antiquity (others simply disappeared and we know nothing about them). So, all the ancient pharaohs of Egypt were priests and proclaimed themselves gods or sons of gods, in ancient Greece decisions were often made on the basis of oracles (special objects, phenomena in which were explained by special interpreters - priests or priestesses) and the ruling circles sent special embassies to the oracles ( theory), as well as on the basis of divination and divination of their own prophets. The ancient Roman Republic was the same theocracy. source unspecified 179 days], in which the highest officials (consuls and others) were simultaneously priests and had the duty to make sacrifices [ source unspecified 179 days] , figuring out the best course of action. Elements of theocracy existed in later times - in the Middle Ages and in modern times, when knightly duels and duels were chosen as the method of resolving disputes (sometimes this took the form of a game, for example, dice or cards), or simply casting lots - it was believed that God himself is on the side of the winner, that is, his victory serves the common good. The existence of theocracies in antiquity is not, however, proof of their necessity or benefit to modern society. On the contrary, the modern understanding of theocracy proceeds from the fact that such a form of government is contrary to the principles of religious pluralism, democracy and the moral principles of modern society.

Flavius ​​Josephus was the first to use the term theocracy in his writings. He wrote that while for the Greeks there are only three forms of government (aristocracy, monarchy and anarchy), the Jews have developed a different system that does not fall into any of the Greek categories.

Theocracy in Christianity

It is known that early Christians (and up to the end of the seventh century) widely used divination from the Bible (especially from the book of Psalms): the book was opened at random, and according to the meaning of the first word of the page (or a randomly chosen word), a prediction was made about the success or result of the action taken or developments.

The rational basis of theocracy is the belief that God arranges the world for good, and therefore actions corresponding to God's providence are the most favorable and prudent, and vice versa: those that contradict them are disastrous. Therefore, in ancient times, people believed that it was more prudent to act not according to their own mind, but to coordinate their actions with the will of God.

However, as history shows, having thus achieved some prosperity, people became corrupted and, driven by their carnal instincts (or, according to other views, falling under the power of Satan), departed from such a theocratic system, replacing it with various charlatan actions that served as a cover for their implementation. greedy desires. Priests, as described in the Bible, for example, demanded that sacrifices be offered only under their control and in their temples, where they could give the sacrificial actions pleasing interpretations and receive recompense for this; a great demand for clarifying the will of God gave rise to numerous soothsayers and sorcerers who use various fraudulent methods to enrich themselves; persons in power began to use similar methods to assert and strengthen their position. All this was achieved with the help of actions imitating divination, but essentially not being such. So, the Jesuits invented, for example, such a way to find out if they belonged to witches: a woman whom they kept under suspicion was tied up and thrown into the water, saying that if she swims out, then God indicates that she is a witch, and if she doesn’t swim out - not a witch. In such a “method”, the will of God cannot manifest itself in any way, since it manifests itself only where there is an appropriate freedom of expression for its manifestation (as, for example, in divination with the Urim and Tumim). Using such techniques, some achieved seeming advantages for themselves and the fulfillment of their desires, and as a result, theocratic rule was replaced by the selfish voluntarism of individuals. Theocracy degenerated into an oligarchy or clericarchy (examples of which can be found in the Hebrew Sanhedrin and modern Vatican and Iran), which inevitably turned into a monarchy (examples are the Egyptian pharaohs and Hebrew kings, the rulers of the Aztecs and Incas, and many other cases, including the Roman empire). Driven by internal contradictions and inconsistency with the providence of God, the monarchy inevitably decomposed, and through the extremes of ochlocracy, democracy arose on its ruins - as one of the forms of theocracy, in which the will of God is manifested in the agreed opinion of the people (as the proverb says "the voice of the people is the voice of God") , in the form of a republic or presidential rule, in which the will of God is found out not explicitly through signs and fortune-telling, but indirectly through the public opinion of citizens. Everything returned to its circles, and continued further in a circle.

In the classical theocracy, the head of the church, being at the same time the head of state, is the “viceroy of God on earth” (the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, the emperors in the empire of the ancient Incas, the caliphs in the Arab Caliphate), the “high priest” (the Pope in the Vatican).

Theocratic concepts in the past and present.

For the first time the term "theocracy" is found in the writings of Josephus Flavius Against Apion(94 AD) in the description of the socio-political system of the ancient Jews in the essay. Subsequently, the understanding of the term "theocracy" and its semantic content changed over time, and different historians and philosophers interpreted it in their own way.

The ideals of Christian theocracy were described by St. Augustine in his famous treatise About the City of God. The concept of Muslim theocracy in its most complete form was reflected in the work of the Sunni jurist Abu l "-Hasan al-Mawardi. He believed that the caliphate is a divine creation, designed to protect the Islamic faith and exercise fair rule over the whole world. The goal of the world caliphate is to conquer and convert to Islam of all "infidels" and the establishment of a single and indivisible power of the caliph over them.In the world Muslim state, the caliph must unite in his person spiritual power (great imam) and political power (emir).

In modern times, the concept of the fusion of religious and political power in its most systematized form was reflected in the writings of Joseph de Maistre. Being an ardent opponent of the French Revolution, he developed the idea of ​​a state built on the principle of a church hierarchy headed by the pope.

It is interesting that in Russia there also existed a theocratic utopia about the need to merge the Russian monarchy with the Catholic Church and build on this basis some kind of ecumenical free theocracy, “within which the Russian people should renounce themselves and recognize the pope as the head of the ecumenical church.” Its supporter was the well-known Russian philosopher and publicist of the 19th century. Vladimir Solovyov.

The concept of theocracy was further developed in his writings by another Russian mystic philosopher and publicist Nikolai Berdyaev, who believed that “Theocracy in political terms is, as it were, anarchism, in economic terms, it is, as it were, socialism, in mystical terms, the autocracy of the One God reigning over aristocratic children Theirs, who through Christ have found universal Sonship of God. He considered theocracy from the positions of Christianity and defined it exclusively as a society of priests.

The utopian nature of the projects for building the "kingdom of God on earth" due to their unrealizability, and the impossibility of putting an equal sign between the worldly and the divine, is best shown in the work Theocracy modern Russian lawyer E.N. Salygin. Systematizing all existing ideas about this phenomenon, he gives his own, broader definition of theocracy as a system of religious and political power relations. Based on his definition, such states as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Iran can be classified as theocratic, although they do not officially consider themselves as such. There is no doubt that the last example of theocracy in its classical sense was the Taliban state in Afghanistan ().

The term "theocracy" was first used by a Roman historian of Jewish origin in the 1st century AD. He used this word in his work "Against Appion", where he argued with a famous grammarian of that era. Although Flavius ​​was a Roman subject and even took his surname in honor of the emperor, he knew only Greek, in which he wrote his works.

Hence the etymological roots of the term. The first half of the word is translated as "god", the second - "rule". Thus, we can conclude that theocracy is a form of government in which the supreme ruler has both state and religious power.

Basic provisions

Often the ruler receives the status of God's vicar in the territory he rules. But this is not the only definition. Another interpretation of the term implies that the supreme person is himself God.

Theocracy is a way of ancient, and then medieval society to explain the universe. Religion played an important role in the views of every nation. This was so important that no authority was considered legitimate unless it was given by a god or a pantheon of deities in the case of the pagans.

Theocracy, clericalism and secularism

The concept of theocracy is closely related to clericalism. This is a political movement within the state that seeks to strengthen the rights and importance of the clergy. By and large, theocracy is the highest measure of clericalism. This term is more often used in the description of modern society as opposed to the traditions that existed in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Today, clericalism is carried out not so much with the help of religious organizations (for example, churches), but through political instruments - social movements and parties.

Contrary to this trend, there is an opposite phenomenon - secularism. According to this concept, the state and religious organizations should exist apart from each other. The principles of secularism are enshrined in the laws and constitutions of many secular states where there is no official religion. One of the most striking and significant examples of the implementation of this concept took place immediately after the revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks who came to power deprived the church of its property and separated it from the bureaucracy. The founder of the idea of ​​secularism is Epicurus, who in his philosophical denunciations argued with the worshipers of the ancient Greek gods.

Examples of theocracies

The first theocracy was the state of the Jews, when the term was introduced by Josephus Flavius ​​to describe the power of his people. Chronologically, however, there have been monarchies with religious rule before. So was the Egyptian kingdom, where the title of pharaoh meant the governorship of God on earth. A similar principle can be found in the Roman Empire, where emperors were recognized as gods. Most of them are the countries of the monarchy. The list can be continued by the Islamic caliphs, who were also considered the heads of all Sunni Muslims.

Islamic theocracy

Among the rest, the Muslim theocracy is distinguished by its special attention to the implementation of divine laws. The rules of Sharia, fixed in the Qur'an, are binding on everyone. Previously, such states were called caliphates. The first of them was founded by the prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. After that, his successors spread the power of Islam in the Middle East, North Africa and even Spain.

However, a lot of time has passed since then. However, for example, in Iran and Saudi Arabia, all courts are still based on the laws of the Koran. The Persians are Shiites, and their religious head has more rights than the president. For example, he appoints many influential ministers, including those responsible for the defense of the state.

In Saudi Arabia, the political form of government is the successor to the Caliphate. The monarch has a person who violates Sharia law can face the death penalty.

Buddhists

Experts often argue about what a theocracy is. The definition has many interpretations. One of them is reflected in the Buddhists. An example is the Central Tibetan Organization, which largely copies the features of the previous state of Tibetan monks. Since the middle of the 20th century, his administration has been in exile after the invasion of the Chinese People's Army.

However, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists - the Dalai Lama - has great authority among his flock, scattered around the world. People consider him the incarnation of God on earth, which makes this system related to the Islamic and some others.

About the city of God

The Christian tradition laid the foundations of theocracy in the treatise On the City of God. It was written in the 5th century. theologian Aurelius Augustine. And although in his work he does not use the term itself, he describes the same principle on his own example. According to him, theocracy is the city of God, where all life is organized according to the law of the Covenant.

Its inhabitants do not violate the commandments and live in harmony. In parallel with this, there is also the Earth city. He is the opposite of his God's reflection. The laws within it are determined by the people themselves, who, in a fit of pride, decided that they could not live according to the Christian tradition. In other words, they denied God. According to Augustine, depending on the choice of the city, a person after death will be judged at a terrible Judgment. All who renounce heavenly laws go to hell, while those who choose the city of God go to heaven.

The work was written shortly after Rome was captured and sacked by the Goths, which increased the fatalistic mood of the author. In the same place, Aurelius Augustine talks about secular power. It is given by God, which means that people must obey it. This principle would be used by emperors several centuries later.

Vatican

The contemporary Christian theocracy is the Vatican. This is the smallest state in the world. It is independent and is governed by the Pope, who is considered the spiritual father of all Catholics.

Until 1929, in its place was the Papal States, which in its best years in the 19th century occupied half of modern Italy. This is a classic theocracy. Authority is considered to be given by God. Sovereignty over the Vatican is determined by the Holy See, which the Pope possesses. In addition, he is also the head of the Catholic Church.

Power over it is not just legal, but complete and independent of anyone's will. The Pope is elected for life by a conclave - a meeting of the main church cardinals. The selection procedure has been fixed since the 13th century.

History of the Papacy

This is an ancient form of government. A periodization table can include many steps. At first it was the heads of closed communities, when Christians were persecuted by the Romans and worshiped their god, being in deep underground. It was only in the 4th century that he recognized religion, and the Pope gained influence. However, at that time it applied only to the flock. But with the fall of secular power in Europe, the institution of pontiffs became of great importance, since it was the only legitimate Christian title at that time. The influence of the papacy extended to all Western European countries of the monarchy. The list of kings who were considered a step below the pontiff was large - it included a dozen names.

These were peculiar forms of government. Royal titles were considered junior compared to papal ones. European rulers obeyed and listened to the Holy Father, especially in the event of conflicts with each other. The popes extended the influence of the entire Church into pagan territories, calling on their kings for crusades, the most famous of which ended with the recapture of Jerusalem.

Struggle for Investiture and the Reformation

The current state of affairs in Christianity exists not so long ago. Prior to this, the power of the Popes was contested by numerous religious movements and even secular rulers. Here we are talking primarily about the struggle for investiture in the XI - XII centuries.

The problem concerned the then form of government. The table of medieval society can describe several classes to us: peasants, merchants, feudal lords. The latter also had their own stairs, at the top of which was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (covering mainly the territory of modern Germany). However, in parallel there was a clergy who acted on behalf of God. The Pope was its leader. The political power of the latter extended to almost the entire fragmented Italy.

The dispute between two classes of society and two titles for the right to be dominant continued for several decades. In essence, it was a dispute about whether the state would be secular or theocratic.

In the end, the Catholic clergy overcame the imperial power, but their supremacy did not last so long. With the beginning of the Renaissance and the development of science in Christianity, a movement of Protestants appeared, denying the supremacy of the Pope and the theocratic idea of ​​Europe (the Reformation movement). After the Thirty Years' War, they covered half the continent. Then theocracy lost the chance to become the basis of power in Europe.

Theocracy in Russia

When our country was a monarchy, the prince or king was considered the vicar of God (the anointed one). At the same time, there was the title of patriarch, which was later replaced by the Synod subordinate to the authorities. Thus, the Russian ruler, although not directly, controlled the Church.

In the 19th century, the existing political form of government was criticized by many thinkers and writers. For example, the Church was criticized by Leo Tolstoy, for which he was even excommunicated from the flock. But he proposed to unite Catholic and Orthodox institutions. This would mean the emergence of a worldwide Christian theocracy. It would unite the two largest flocks in the world, split since 1054.

With the advent of Soviet power, secularization and the separation of the Church from the state took place. The modern Russian Federation is a secular state where there is freedom of religion, and no religious organization has an exclusive status.