ON THE ISSUE OF LAYMEN’S ATTITUDE TO THE MONKHOOD IN EARLY RUS (THE XI-XIII CENTURIES)
It is commonly adopted that the social status of the early Rus clergy and monkhood in the Eastern Slavonic society was high enough. Yet the knowledge of sources allows concluding that the situation was more complicated. Often the monks appeared to be quite unprotected before the cruelty of the crowd. We should not ignore the fact that the defeat of the social status of a human being when making his monastic vows contributed to such a scenario. Within the framework of the paper the author provides an analysis of the relations between the monks and the lower strata of the Old Russian population.