Patriarch Nikon's Church reform of 1653-1656: historical and legal aspects

Relevance . The article considers the main stages of the reform carried out in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1653-1656 by Patriarch Nikon, the reasons and stages of its implementation, as well as its compliance with the Orthodox canonical church law. The relevance of this issue lies in the fact that Orthodoxy, both in the 17th century and today, is the foundation of the Russian state, "part of the soul" of the Russian people. In this situation, the study of the sources of church law comes to the fore. The purpose ‒ to establish the reasons and determine the main stages of the Church reform by Patriarch Nikon in the middle of the 17th century, to analyze them and formulate the main reasons for the church schism, to correlate these reforms with the sources of Orthodox church law. Objectives : study the chronology of the Church reform from February 11, 1653 to June 2, 1656; establish the legal basis for the Church reform by Patriarch Nikon; study of the process of editing liturgical books; 4) study of the procedure for replacing the two-fingered sign of the cross with the three-fingered one and other transformations in the Russian Church. Methodology . During the study, such scientific methods as comparative, historical-legal, formal-logical analysis, and synthesis were used. Results . The reform of the Russian Orthodox Church was carried out by Patriarch Nikon in the course of implementing the concept of "Moscow is the Third Rome, there will be no fourth", according to which Russia, as the successor to the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, was to become the protector of all Orthodox peoples and the center of the Orthodox world. Conclusions . The church reform of 1653-1656 completely brought the Russian faith into full conformity with the Greek faith. In the Russian Church, the three-fingered sign of the cross, bows from the waist instead of prostrate ones were introduced, the sacraments and church books were corrected according to Greek models. At the same time, in our opinion, it was not worthwhile to carry out reforms so abruptly, with coercion, but gradually, parish by parish, to replace the old sacraments with new ones.