Elena Vladimirovna Belyakova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
On the Specifics of the Terminology of Church Administration in Russia in the 16th Century
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2026-2-5
The article draws attention to the existence of different layers in the terminology of church administration in the 16th century. These are untranslated Greek terms denoting hierarchical ranks, which in the 16th century received an interpretation included in the printed Kormchaya and the Three-Part Collection with the Alphabetical Syntagma of Matthew Blastares. The second group consists of archaic terms denoting church duties (“marten tax”, “tribute”), which required conversion into monetary equivalents. The third group consists of terms corresponding to the terminology of princely administration, of both common Slavic and Old Russian origin (“boyars”, “dvoretskie”, “desyatinniki”, “nedelshchiki”, “tiuns” etc.). The appearance of these terms in the Stoglav is due to the fact that the principles of governance of the princely and ecclesiastical courts coincided; moreover, the princes themselves appointed boyars and d’yaks to the metropolitans. The article points out the polysemantic nature of terms and analyzes in detail the use of the word “d’yak”,which denoted both a low-ranking cleric and a high-ranking administrator. Even in the Stoglav, this word has multiple meanings depending on the context in which it is used. The oldest copy of Prince Vladimir’s Charter does not classify “d’yak” among church officials. As an analysis of the little-studied text “The Order of Choosing to the Priesthood” has shown, “d’yaki” (readers) were considered the only candidates for the priesthood. The ambiguity of the term “d’yak” led to the addition of the adjectives “zemstvo” and “church” and, apparently, the origin of the term “d’yachok” widely used in the Novgorod Dozornaya Kniga. The status of the church “d’yak” remained ill-defined as early as the 16th century. Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod introduced appointment charters for “d’yak”, but this practice apparently did not become widespread. All categories designated by the word “d’yak” were linked by their literacy.
Publishing: 28/04/2026
The article has been received by the editor on 14/11/2025
How to cite: Belyakova E.V. On the Specifics of the Terminology of Church Administration in Russia in the 16th Century // Historical Courier, 2026, No. 2 (46), pp. 80−94. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2026/ISTKURIER-2026-2-05.pdf]
Links: Issue 2 2026
Keywords: Сhurch administration; terminology; church dues; election to the priesthood; “d’yak” (reader, clerc)