On the Reception of Byzantine Law in the Muscovite Kingdom of the Second Half of the 17th Century (as Exemplified in a Court Case of the Ambassadorial Office)

Studying the reception of Byzantine law in the Russian state, researchers mainly consider the completeness of the perception of its individual parts, identify lists of legal texts, analyze their terminology, etc. As for judicial practice, very little is known about the application of Byzantine legal norms, including the daily life of the Muscovite Kingdom. The main problem is the lack of a sufficient source base that could provide representative material for the study. This paper examines the case of 1660 on the theft and subsequent sale of church icons and shows that in its penal sections the secular legislation of Russia differed from the ecclesiastical one not only before the publication of the Printed Kormchaia of 1653, but also later. In this case, in accordance with the Code of 1649, the death sentence was pronounced, but it was immediately commuted with the punishment provided for by the Slavonic revision of the Eclogue and the Procheiron included in the Printed Kormchaia.