Concerning the genre of the sacred choral concerto in Russia in the epoch of classicism, there is no discrepancy in the manuscript sources where such works are designated as “concertos.” At the same time, in several choral concertos’ manuscript sources of German composers working in Russia at the end of the 18th—beginning of the 19th centuries the use of the “motet” as a genre definition was revealed. This could be explained by the likeness of the Russian concerto and the German motet of the 18th century, defined in German treatises of the time. Having analysed how Jacob von Stäehlin uses the definitions of “motet,” and “concerto” in his “Nachrichten von der Musik in Russ­land,” we conclude that in most cases by the “motet” Stäehlin means partesny concerto, and by the “concerto” he refers to the new sacred choral concerto genre. Russian musicologists’ ideas on the use of the terms “motet” and “concerto” for the choral concerto as well as a statement of this genre’s provenance from the Italian motet are critically considered in our paper in the view of 18th-cen­tury German theorists.