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The article deals with the problem of genesis and evolution of such a factor of Russian domestic policy as care for the poor. By the particular historical examples it is shown how, under the struggle for power between secular and religious authorities, in the period of completion of the unification of the Russian lands and the establishment of autocracy, the idea of care for the poor promoted by the church developed into ideology. As a church thesis on the necessity to take care of each other and give alms, it provided an opportunity to use the ideology and traditions of charity established in Old Russian society not only for harmonizing and stabilizing social relations and mitigating socio-economic contradictions but also for strengthening the position of the state in struggle for property and power against the Russian Orthodox Church. The continued aspiration of the church to defend its privileges through the ideology of care for the poor as a major means of struggle alongside the manipulation of the idea of care for the poor on the part of the state led to strengthening the patriarchal thesis of poverty blessed by the God in Russian public consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]