THE RECEPTION OF ST. SAVA’S ZAKONOPRAVILO IN RUSSIA: REASONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES
THE RECEPTION OF ST. SAVA’S ZAKONOPRAVILO IN RUSSIA: REASONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES

Summary/Abstract: Even though it was back in 1869 when Russian canonist A. S. Pavlov discovered that at the request of the Metropolitan of Kiev Kirill II, in 1262, Bulgarian Despot Jacob Svetoslav had sent to Russia the Serbian Kormchaia and not the Bulgarian one, the contemporary academia, Serbian especially, has not written much about the reasons that had allowed the reception of St. Sava’s Zakonopravilo (also known as St. Sava’s Kormchaia) in Russia in the second half of the 13th century. Compared to the old Slavic translation of Nomocanon in 14 Titles (the socalled Ephraim Kormchaia) which had been in use in Russia since the 11th century, Zakonopravilo boasted many advantages. Among the most notable of them are the translated comments of the 12th-century Byzantine canonists, Aristenos and Zonaras, which the older, Ephraim Kormchaia was missing. In addition, Zakonopravilo featured mostly the abbreviated versions of the canons, while the older translation included the complete canon texts. The Kiev Metropolitanate needed a new version of the Nomocanon because the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus left the Church’s treasuries and libraries in ruin and without many manuscripts, including the old Slavic Kormchaia. The copious records of his thirty years as the metropolitan make it clear that it is no mere coincidence that it was Kirill II who initiated the adoption of Sava’s Kormchaia as the official canonical collection of the Metropolitanate of Kiev at the Council of Vladimir in 1273/4. It is obvious that he, just like St. Sava of Serbia, had a clear plan to lay the foundations – canonical and organizational – for the establishment of a national, autocephalous Church of Russia, where the reception of Zakonopravilo, it seems, played a crucial role.

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