Sorok


Sorok was a historical subdivision of Moscow in terms of parishes, used during 17-19th centuries. In the Russian language the word may beconfused with "cóрок", which means "forty".
By a decision of the Stoglavy Sobor of 1551, Moscow was subdivided into 6 soroks:
On average, at these times each sorok encompassed 45 parochial churches.
The term gave rise to a Russian saying "There are sorok sorokov of churches in Moscow". It is sometimes mistakenly interpreted as 40 times 40, i.e., 1600 churches in Moscow, which is an exaggeration: in 1917 there were "only" 441 parochial churches and slightly over 200 home churches in Moscow.
At present, the Russian Orthodox realm is subdivided into eparchies, further subdivided into blagochiniyes.