Elena Vladimirovna Belyakova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia, e‑mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
On the Changing Status of Priests in the Russian Church in the 16th Century
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-2-6
The article examines the change in the status of the parish clergy in Russia in the 16th century. Among the sources are not only the decrees of Church councils of 1503 and 1551, but also church teachings, forms of charters, act materials, articles from canonical miscellanies, Pseudozonar. This research shows that in the 16th century there was a change in the content of many concepts related to the Church structure, which greatly complicated the understanding of the documents. Thus, the concept of “parish” in the Acts dating from the 16th century and in Stoglav denotes a source of income, and only in some cases does it begin to signify people who come to church. Attention is paid to the institution of church wardens as managers of the church economy who made an agreement with priests for service. The practice of hiring a priest was not in line with church canons. Vacants priests were hired to serve liturgies, which was associated with both the practice of liturgical commemoration and the possibility of replacing penances with liturgies. The institute of “priest wardens”, introduced by the Council of 1551, was an attempt to extend the self-organization of the Novgorod and Pskov clergy to the entire metropolitanate. At the same time, the meeting of this institution has undergone a significant transformation acquiring new controlling functions. A new phenomenon was the change in the concept of “spiritual fathers”, which Stoglav extended to all priests.
Publishing: 28/04/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 11.12.2021
How to cite: Belyakova E.V. On the Changing Status of Priests in the Russian Church in the 16th Century // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 2 (22), pp. 92–112. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-2-06.pdf]
The article was prepared with the support of the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 20-18-00218 “Institutes of Governance of the Russian Church in the 16th century”.
Links: Issue 2 2022
Keywords: Stoglav, church institutions, parish, canonical miscellanies, parish clergy, spiritual fathership