On the issue of legal status of children of clergy in church and society (XIth-XIIIth centuries)

One of the most important social strata of pre-Mongol Rus was a group of so-called church people. Their socio-legal status was ambiguous and interpreted differently in Russian historiography. Te special position of this group is fixed in the princely statutes of the church and is partially traced in a large complex of sources: in chronicles and in canonical-legal monuments. In the scientific literature the life of pastors and some other categories of church persons was repeatedly considered. However, the children of the clergy of the pre-Mongol period almost did not attract attention from professional historians. Brief reports of sources about children of priests do not allow to create a harmonious history of this category. However, the situation does not seem desperate. In this article, an attempt is made to evaluate the place of children of priests among church people. Analysis of disparate information opens the opportunity to see the legal status of children of the clergy in the church environment and in Old Russian society. No less interesting is the position of the children of the clergy in comparison with other categories of persons. As 154 Христианское чтение № 3, 2018 already noted, most observations do not allow answering a multitude of emerging questions. Nevertheless, the researchers are given the opportunity to see a more complex and interesting picture of internal church life in Russia in the XIth-XIIIth centuries.