# Church Statute of Prince Vladimir

Church Statute of Prince Volodimir is a source of church law in Old Rus', defined legal authority of church and legal status of clergy by the state: prince (knyaz) and his administration. Vladimir's Statute was a short legal code, regulated relationship between the church and the state, including demarcation of jurisdiction between church and princely courts, and defined index of persons and organizations within the church jurisdiction. The church also got under its supervision the system of weights and measures, and monthly support: tithe from all princely income. The statute was written at the beginning of the 12th century and remade during many centuries. The statute was written in Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic. It was one of the first church sources of Kievan Rus' law. The Church Statute of Prince Yaroslav and other Kievan Rus' princely statutes served closely related purposes. One of the sources of the statute was Byzantine law, including the Kormchaia (derived from a Byzantine nomocanon).
The statute opens with the words: "Behold, I, Prince Vasilii, called Volodimir," (Old East Slavic: Се аз, князь Василий, нарицаемыи Володимир, romanized: Se yaz, knyaz' Vasilii, naritsayemy Volodimir,) "son of Sviatoslav (...) having consulted with my Princess Anna and with my children".

## Dating

It is not precisely known when the text of the Statute was first written. Scholars Evgeniy Bolkhovitinov, Konstantin Nevolin, Makariy (Bulgakov), Vasily Klyuchevsky, Vladimir Beneshevich, Aleksandr Lototskiy, George Vernadsky and Mikhail Tikhomirov considered that the statute went back to the era of Kievan Rus' before the Mongol invasion (before 1237). Serafim Yushkov, Aleksandr Zimin and Yaroslav Schapov referred the archetype of the statute to the beginning or to the first half of the 12th century. Nikolay Karamzin, Yevgeny Golubinsky attributed the basis of the statute to the 13th century; Altksey Pavlov to the 14th century. Serafim Yushkov (1925) considered that the basis was a short "confirmative" charter (gramota) by prince Volodimir (the end of the 10th – the beginning of the 11th centuries), authorized use of church law and defined scope of jurisdiction of the Rus' church. Yushkov reconstructed this charter: a part of the lawsuits were passed from the princes, boyars and their judges to the church and the bishops. According to Yushkov, the protograph of the first and second redactions was formed at the beginning of the 12th century, also reconstructed by the scholar.
The Statute of Vladimir had a wide distribution within Kievan Rus', and was also known abroad. Development of the statute redactions reflects evolution of Kievan Rus' church law and the relationship between church and prince over the course of centuries.

## Copies

The original text of the Statute has not survived. The Statute has been preserved in more than 200 copies from the 13th to 19th century, grouped into seven redactions. These copies are a part of various Kievan Rus' collections of laws, including the Kormchaia. The oldest surviving copy of the Statute is contained in the Synodic Kormchaia of 1282 (found in Veliky Novgorod).

## Collection of Church Statutes and Charters

Some copies of the statute are often a part of the Collection of Church Statutes and Charters, including church statutes of Prince Vladimir and Prince Yaroslav, the Rule on Church People and the Rule of 165 Saint Fathers. The Collection concludes with Confirmative Charter of 1402 by Vasily Dmitrievich, Grand Prince of Moscow, and Cyprian, Metropolitan of Moscow, mentioning about Vladimir's Statute (the Charter confirmed rights and privileges, given to church by princes Vladimir and Yaroslav, and metropolitans). Thus the Statute of Vladimir could be applied up to the 15th century in Grand Duchy of Moscow and it could be later.