Opposition to corruption in ecclesiastical administration and judiciary in the 16th century according to the Stoglav: the struggle of differing approaches

In the 16th century, a number of contradictions intensified in Russian society, and this was expressed in the increase of the levels of crime, the acute perception of abuse in the sphere of governance and the judiciary, and specific cases of moral corruption. Many abuses and vices assumed the satisfaction of private interest to the detriment of the public, that is, they contained an essential sign of a corruption offense. There are no special studies in the scholarly literature on the identification of specific historical forms of corruption and measures to combat it in the 16th century. Meanwhile, as part of the fight against these crises, secular authorities put forward and partially implemented a broad program of anti-corruption measures; they tried to implement a similar program in the field of church administration and the judiciary. At the Council of 1551, different approaches to understanding the causes of the existing crisis phenomena and an effective program of measures to overcome them were encountered. Anti-corruption measures proposed by Ivan IV and the most radical part of church thinkers were only partially approved at the Council, which ultimately led to the conservation of a number of problems.