The Role of the Church in the Development of the Legal System of Rus’ (The Archbishopric of the Novgorod Republic as a Case Study)

The author gives the author’s approach to defining the role of the Church in the formation of the legal system of Rus’. The paper elucidates the particular significance of the Archiepiscopal See of the Novgorod Republic in the history of the state and legal development in Rus’, given the direct involvement of the people of Novgorod in creating the first native legal monuments, as well as their extensive political and economic contacts that facilitated the transformation of canon law into a regulator of secular life. The study examines the influence of the political environment, as well as social, ideological, and intra-church conflicts, on the development of the system of legal regulation. It highlights the importance of adopting Western European experience in the reception of Roman law for enriching domestic legal practice with a universal conceptual framework — one that made it possible to frame complex and contentious issues of both ecclesiastical and secular life within the structure of academic debate and formal legal documents. The paper substantiates the relevance of researching the lawmaking, judicial, and administrative practices of the Archiepiscopal See of the Novgorod Republic in order to identify the decisive factors in the state and legal development of Rus’. Based on an analysis of historical sources and scholarly approaches to the issues addressed, the author concludes that it is necessary to formally recognize the role of theological doctrine as a source of law at the initial stage of the formation of the national legal system.

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