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THEOLOGY IN KIEV AN RUS 277sacrifices to idols. 30 The anonymous author repeatedly juxtaposes thedetailed depiction of these abuses to passages from the epistles of Paul tothe Romans and to the Corinthians.In a series of other slova on the same theme, 31 the role of Byzantinesources, for instance, is not explained clearly. A firm rejection of the Latinfaith—firmer than in the canonical questions and answers—is contained inan epistle of the igumen Feodosii Grek (d. 1156) 32 to Prince Iziaslav (Mstislavich);there the term dvoeverie is still qualified by the designations krivovernye,chuzhdaia vera, bliz eresi, etc. But in spite of the urgent admonitionto avoid contact, charitableness toward those of a different faith wasnot only permitted, but encouraged. 33 On the other hand, Bishop Serapionof Vladimir (d. 1275) reported that innocent people had been burned at thestake, the judges of whom had fallen victim to belief in sorcery (or superstition).34 Apart from Metropolitan Ioann, Serapion is probably the hierarchwho, in his cursory consideration of the history of man (slovo 4 and 5),relied most fervently on the sober judgment and engaged humanity of hislisteners. Given this fundamental attitude, he could point out to his owngeneration the contrast between the diabolical perversions found amongChristians (e.g., the practice of "trial by water") and the high moral levelof the pagans; his superior intellectual and spiritual caliber is also evident inhis sovereign familiarity with Holy Scripture and in the excellent rhetoricalstructure of his sermons. 35To summarize, official church representatives combatted dvoeverie (ofany stripe) both with discipline, through admonitions to contain it andthrough relatively mild punishments, and with doctrine, almost exclusively30Edition: A. I. Ponomarev, Pamiatniki drevne-russkoi tserkovno-uchitel'noi literatury, 2nded., vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 224-31; see also ibid., pp. 237-40.31Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 253-56.32The reasons for my attribution of this and other polemical works to Feodosii Grek (insteadof the traditional attribution to Feodosii Pecherskii), proposed in Christentum, pp. 179-84,following K. Viskovatyi, have to date been neither accepted nor refuted. Furthermore, concerningquestions of the authorship of polemical works in general, we have to consider the factthat this literary genre is clearly, and not accidentally, linked to the native Greek clergy in Rus';see G. Podskalsky, "Der Beitrag der griechischstammigen Metropoliten (Kiev), Bischofe undMonche zur altrussischen Originalliteratur (Theologie), 988-1281," Cahiers du monde russeetsovietique 24 (1983): 498-515.33Edition: I. P. Ere'min, "Literaturnoe nasledie Feodosiia Pecherskogo," TODRL 5(1947): 170-73, especially 171f.34His last two slova (nos. 4 and 5), in particular, deal with pagan survivals; Edition: E. V.1888), supple-Petuchov, Serapion Vladimirskii, russkii propovednik XII veka (St. Petersburg,ment, pp. 11-15.35Compare the formal analysis (slovo 4) in: R. Bogart, "On the Rhetorical Style of SerapionVladimirskij," in Medieval Russian Culture, H. Birnbaum and M. S. Flier, eds. (Berkeley,1984), pp. 280-310, especially pp. 308-310.