‘A Collection of Monuments on the History of Ecclesiastic Canons, mainly of Russian Church before the Epoch of Peter the Great’ (Petrograd, 1915, iss. 1—2), published by the famous historian of the Orthodox Church, Professor V. N. Beneshevich, was the first scholarly publication of canonic documents which made a great influence at the system of the canonic law in Russia, as well as at the relations between the State and the Church. All documents are published in the language of originals (Greek, Latin, Old Slavic, Old Russian), without translation into Russian; each document is commented with a short history of its studying and historical translations, all Early Christian texts are given in Greek and Latin. The first text in the collection is ‘The Doctrine of 12 apostles’ (in Greek and Latin), which had a great influence at the evolution of the system of canonic law (on the base of the Didache the seventh book of the “Apostles’ decrees’ were compiled in the fourth century), as well as on the Christian dogmas and liturgics. Then, there are Patristic texts by St Clement of Rome, Irenaeus of Lyon, et al. The Early Christian texts are closed with the Milano Edict. The following documents are connected with the history of Russian Church and the relations between the State and the Church. The first of them is the ‘Rule of Great Prince Vladimir’ in the short and the long versions, published on the base of several copies, ‘the Rule of Yaroslav’, ‘Charters of Vsevolod’, and documents of other princes. The first part of the book is closed with the “Answers of Metropolitan John’ (11th century) – an important source for the family law. Thus, in the first issue of the book there is a complete picture of religious life of Old Rus’ of the first centuries after the Christening. The second issue is opened with the documents of the Vladimir Council of 1274, where – for the first time in Rus’ – an attempt was made to systematize the canonic law; they used for the fundament the so called ‘Kormchaya’ of St Saba of Serbia. In the same issue, B. published decrees (Yarlyk) from Tartar khans, which were given to metropolitans, as well as rites of election bishops and archbishops, documents of ecclesiastic councils, acts of the 100-chapter Council – the first step of codification of Russian religious reforms inspired by the laic authorities and which led up to the ‘Spiritual Reglament 1721’ of the eighteenth century, closing the book.