Sermon on Law and Grace (Slovo o Zakone i Blagodati)
Слово о Законе и Благодати
Хвалить же похвальными гласы Римская страна Петра и Павла... а мы же — Владимира, крестившаго нас.
Our renderingLet Rome praise in laudatory tones Peter and Paul... but we praise Vladimir, who baptized us.
What it is
Metropolitan Hilarion — personal presbyter to Yaroslav the Wise and the first native-born Metropolitan of Kiev, appointed 1051 — composed this masterpiece of Old Slavic homiletic rhetoric for the Kievan royal court, almost certainly delivered in the Tithe Church around 1049. The sermon contrasts Mosaic Law with Christian Grace using typology drawn from Galatians, celebrates Vladimir I's baptism of Rus, and concludes with a panegyric prayer for Yaroslav and his dynasty. It was both a theological manifesto for the independence of the newly Christianized Rus church from Byzantium and a devotional model of Christian kingship for the Rurikid heirs. Its use as a formation text at the Kievan court is attested by its careful preservation and repeated copying.
Why it still matters
The sermon's extended meditation on grace over law — that baptism admits humanity into freedom from mere legal observance — remains profound devotional reading, particularly for those navigating legalistic tendencies in Christian life.
Kept alongside
Izbornik of Sviatoslav (1073)
Изборник Святослава 1073 года
This lavishly illustrated Slavonic florilegium was commissioned directly by — and bears a dedicatory portrait miniature of — Grand Prince Sviatoslav II Yaroslavych of Kiev and his family. Compiled from Church Slavonic translations of Greek patristic texts (homilies of John Chrysostom, the Questions and Answers of Anastasios of Sinai, church-council summaries, and further patristic writings), it was designed as an encyclopedic introduction to Christian doctrine for a ruler consolidating Orthodox literacy in Kievan Rus. Discovered in 1807 at the Resurrection Monastery near Moscow, it is now preserved at the State Historical Museum in Moscow and represents the most direct evidence of a Rurikid prince personally commissioning a patristic devotional compendium.
Izbornik of Sviatoslav (1076)
Изборник 1076 года
The companion volume to the 1073 Izbornik, this smaller anthology was prepared for Prince Sviatoslav II and is more directly practical in its spiritual orientation. It integrates moral aphorisms, apophthegmata from the Desert Fathers (derived from the Bulgarian 'Kniazheskii Izbornik'), homilies of John Chrysostom, scriptural commentary, and wise sayings arranged for daily devotional reading. It is one of the earliest witnesses to the paraenetic tradition in Slavia Orthodoxa and demonstrates how the Rurikid court sought short, meditative texts for formation rather than long theological treatises. Both Izborniki survive and are studied as foundational texts of early East Slavic Christian culture.
Instruction to My Children (Pouchenie)
Поучение Владимира Мономаха
Vladimir II Monomakh, Grand Prince of Kiev (r. 1113-1125), composed this autobiographical testament-instruction addressed directly to his sons and any prince who might read it, preserved uniquely in the Laurentian Codex (1377) now held at the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. It combines practical moral counsel with explicit Orthodox devotional instruction: Monomakh commands his heirs to say the Jesus Prayer (Kyrie eleison) whenever riding without company, to perform nightly prostrations, and to model constant humility before God. Drawing on John Chrysostom's penitential theology and Basil the Great's asceticism-in-the-world, it is one of the earliest vernacular mirrors-for-princes in Slavic literature. It directly tutored the Rurikid line in the integration of princely duty with Orthodox spiritual practice.