Yarsolav Zatyliuk (Sustaining Ukrainian Scholarship Fellowship, March – July 26′) will present his research on:

The Church Statute by the Prince Volodymyr and the Historical Imaginations about Res Gestae of the Baptizer of Rus’ during the 14th – 17th Centuries

2 July 2026 (Thursday), 16:30

Moderated by: Bohdan Tsymbal

Abstract: The text of the Church Statute is known to scholars in the form of various copies and editions. It is traditionally regarded as a mix of authentic decrees issued by the baptizer of Rus’, whose originals have not been preserved. Accordingly, scholars focused on reconstructing the original text from which its various versions later emerged. However, my present project proposes a different set of research questions and approaches. First and foremost, I suggest examining the Church Statute as a text that has no direct connection to the actual history of Prince Volodymyr. Instead, I suggest considering this text within the framework of the history of ideas and Prince Volodymyr’s representations that circulated during the first centuries after the dissolution of princely Rus’ in the mid-13th century. At the same time, the text reflects intellectual engagement with Byzantine canonical law collections (Nomocanon), an authoritative edition, which arrived in Rus’ from Bulgaria in 1262. These issues are best explored by studying the oldest manuscripts containing the Church Statute and employing the methods of critical textual analysis.Another aspect of the research concerns cultural transfer and the peculiarities of historical writing throughout the post-Mongol Rus’ territories. Investigating the origins and history of Volodymyr’s Ustav is crucial for understanding the development of church structures following the collapse of Rus’ in the second half of the 13th century, as well as the formation of new confessional, political, and cultural identities in early modern Ukraine and Muscovy.