Sermon on Law and Grace

The Sermon on Law and Grace (Church Slavonic: Слово о законѣ и благодѣти, romanized: Slovo o zakoně i blagoděti) is a sermon written by Hilarion, the metropolitan of Kiev.[1] It is one of the earliest Slavonic texts available, having been written several decades before the Primary Chronicle.[2] Since Hilarion was considered to be a writer worthy of imitation, this sermon was very influential in the further development of both the style and content of literature in Kievan Rus'.[3]

The Sermon was an important event to be mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, and by matching against other events from the Chronicle it was concluded that the Sermon was written somewhere between 1037 and 1050.[4]

  1. ^ Franklin, S.: Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991) p.xxi.
  2. ^ Zenkovsky, S.A.: Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, Trans. S.A. Zenkovsky, 2 ed., (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974) p.85.
  3. ^ Birnbaum, H.: Aspects of the Slavic Middle Ages and Slavic Renaissance Culture (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1991) p.150.
  4. ^ "Introduction to the full text in original, and in modern Russian translation". Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) (in Russian). Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2023.