Romanova O. The Confession in the life of the orthodox laity of the Left-bank Ukraine (the 30-70th XVIII c.).

Using different sources this work analyzes the role of the confession in the life of orthodox laity of the Kyiv Metropolitanate in the 30th-70th of XVIIIth century. It studies the church and secular law, which ordered the importance of the confession in the life of the person. It is proved, that the Russian Orthodox Church tried to control the conscience of the inhabitants of the Russian empire to prevent the spreading of the Old believers. In the Ukrainian lands the problem of the Old believers was not so prevalent as in Russian lands. In 1737 year, Synod ordered the priests to compose the confession lists of the all parishes and to send them to the Kyiv Spiritual Consistory every year. The persons who missed annual confession had to pay a fine. Afterwards, the demand of regular confession just in the parish was applied to the territory of the Kyiv Metropolitanate. Neither the Church nor the laymen of Kyiv Metropolitanate understood the importance of the control of the regular confession. Nor did theHetmanate secular administration try to help the clergymen with that control. Kazaks administrations regarded the control of the regular confession as a limitation of their old rights and privileges. However, secular administrations slowly extended their power into the ecclesiastical field, such as decision about degree of the penance.