Οἰκονο&ία and Custom in the Canonical Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon

Abstract

Οἰκονομία in Orthodox Canon Law shares a family of meanings and represents an overlap of philosophical and theological terms, rhetorical techniques and multiple canonical appropriations. Attempts to study and define the meaning of οἰκονομία have so far focused on οἰκονομία as a technical legal tool seen through the lens of similar legal tools existing within and outside of Eastern Canon Law. Both external and internal perspectives have been influenced, and to some extent contaminated, by such a comparativist approach. The present text draws on existing scholarship which examines the multiplicity of meanings of οἰκονομία and argues that it is critical to understand the interdependence of this plurality of usages in order to understand and define the meaning, the role and the place of οἰκονομία in Eastern Canon Law. The text proposes that an examination of the multiplicity of usages of the term of οἰκονομία may have produced a particular category mistake in modern Canon Law by using οἰκονομία as a substitute for custom and argues that a recalibration of a robust understanding of the interplay of law and custom and the place of oikonomia within the context of this interplay is a critical element in any recalibration of modern Orthodox Canon Law. The text examines how this dichotomy has operated in the Canon Law of the twelfth century and proposes that, despite overlaps, without a clear understanding of the difference between the strictness of law and custom as sources of positive law on the one hand, and strictness and οἰκονομία within an act of judgment on the other, the use of οἰκονομία risks losing its relevance in a contemporary Orthodox context and beyond the Orthodox context.