Stoglav Synod

The Stoglav Synod (Russian: Стоглавый Собор), also translated as the Hundred Chapter Synod or Council of a Hundred Chapters, was a church council (sobor) held in Moscow in 1551, with the participation of Tsar Ivan IV, Metropolitan Macarius (presiding), other higher clergymen, and possibly representatives of the Boyar Duma.

In 1542, Macarius was elected Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia, and he later supported Ivan IV's coronation and marriage to Anastasia Romanovna.

In exchange, members of the Stoglav Synod made concessions to the government in a number of other areas, such as a prohibition for monasteries to found new large villages in cities.

By decisions of the Stoglav Synod, church ceremonies and duties in the whole territory of Russia were unified, and norms of church life were regulated with the purpose of increasing the educational and moral level of the clergy to ensure they would correctly fulfill their duties, such as creation of schools for preparation of priests.

[8] The decrees issued by the Synod, the Stoglav, ruled that all traditional Russian rituals were correct, compared to the alternative Greek rites.

By the end of the 16th century the text of the Code was divided into one hundred chapters (or "sto glav" in Russian), and had become commonly referred to as the Stoglav.

A portrait of Ivan IV , who requested the synod, in the Tsarsky titulyarnik
Services during the council were held in the Dormition Cathedral on the right, while working sessions were held in the Palace of Facets on the left. [ 1 ]
The title page of the Stoglav code developed at the synod