Chapter Пути конфессионализации в России XVI века: Стоглавый Собор между традицией и новациями

Overview & Synopsis

This article situates the Stoglav Council within the reformist program of Metropolitan Makarii and the «Izbrannaia rada» at the end 40-50s of the 16th century. The study interprets these events through the historiographical frameworks of early modern state building and "confessionalization," extending this concept from Western Reformation scholarship to the Russian Orthodox context. The author argues that the Muscovite state actively intervened in confessional self-determination through intensified conciliar activity. Consequently, despite the Council’s rhetorical appeal to «starina» (old times), its resolutions substantively advanced modernization. The study concludes that the Stoglav Council was pivotal in establishing new representative institutions and consolidating the Russian ecclesiastical legal tradition, thereby aligning the Church with the structural exigencies of the emerging early modern state.