Legal and Economic Organization of the East Orthodox Church in Kievan Rus‘

Simon Malmenvall

Legal and Economic Organization of the East Orthodox Church in Kievan Rus‘

Key words: Kievan Rus‘, East Orthodox Church, history of law, economic history, middle ages

Abstract:
This article brings a synthesis of the legal and economic organization of the East Orthodox Church on the territory of Kievan Rus‘ from the official adoption of Christianity at the end of 10th century to the middle of the 12th century. The author of this article tries to show that the strengthening of Christianity among the East Slavs was not spontaneous or accidental but rather structural, achieved primarily through cooperation between ecclesiastical institutions and political authorities. He suggests the legal and economic history of the Church in the given period be divided into two phases. The first phase corresponds to the time immediately after the official adoption of Christianity, when the political rulers were responsible for the financing of the ecclesiastical institutions; the second phase is characterized by the rise of an increasingly independent Church that was capable of supporting itself also with its own sources of income.

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