Simony: gifts or purchase? On some features of the canonical-legal consciousness of Ancient Rus'

Simony is one of the most ancient vices of the inner church life. With all the seeming clarity of what actions are covered by this concept, the phenomenon of the rootedness of the sin of simony in the ecclesiastical environment of Ancient Russia remains meaningless. Within the framework of this article, an attempt has been made to analyze the practice of the so-called. “Gifts” associated with obtaining certain material benefits and achieving a certain hierarchical status. An analysis of the situation allows us to conclude that the problem of rootedness among the Old Russian clerics of simony is largely due to the special culture of the church environment. One of the tricks to avoid accusations of simony was the practice of gifts or a kind of sacrifice. Such an interpretation of bribery or extortion, firstly, opened up the possibility to build mutually beneficial relations between the donor and the person being gifted, and secondly, it allowed to discard responsibility for the committed and accept the situation as something natural and even approving, designed to serve high goals and good deeds.