The article investigates the phenomenon of private religious initiative in the Latin West during the Late Antiquity. It is evident that traditional perceptions of the Christianization of the Roman and post-Roman world in the 4th—6th centuries as a process led by church hierarchs require revision. This revision has been made possible by archaeological excavations, which have provided a new perspective on the world of the late antique villa, including its religious life. However, the collected archaeological material proves difficult to interpret and does not reveal the socio-legal aspects of the construction of churches, oratories, and monasteries by laypersons. The article proposes a path for further resolution of this problem through an analysis of the corpus of letters of Pope Gregory I. This allows for the reconstruction not only of the founders' motives and the legal aspects of implementing the initiative but also reveals the conflict of interests between bishops and the local aristocracy in matters of religious construction and the ways these conflicts were resolved.
For citation: Shemarina A.S., Tyulenev V.M., Private religious initiative in the late antique Latin West (statement of the problem), Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2026, iss. 2, pp. 96—104.