Authors

Discussion

Penitentials in early Rus’ occupied an inherently ambiguous position. On the one hand, most of these texts were translated and transmitted from Byzantium and Bulgaria; on the other, they gained popularity in Rus’, circulated widely, and were copied into canonical collections, where they underwent substantial editorial intervention. Owing to this dual nature, it remains unclear to what extent penitentials reflected the lived realities of the period in which they circulated, and to what extent they merely reproduced a fixed tradition shaped by Byzantine or South Slavic contexts. Most likely, they combined the elements of both. This paper presents penitentials as texts situated on the border between living practice and fixed tradition, and examines how editorial strategies illuminate their liminal status, revealing how Rus’ scribes and compilers negotiated the tension between practical guidance and normative authority.