“Zenkovsky Sergey Alexandrovich Russian Old Believers S.A. Zenkovsky. Russian Old Believers. Spiritual movements of the seventeenth century Cited according to the publication: Zenkovsky S. Russian ... "
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Zenkovsky Sergey Alexandrovich
Russian Old Believers
S.A. Zenkovsky. Russian Old Believers. Spiritual movements of the seventeenth century
Cited according to the publication: Zenkovsky S. Russian Old Believers: Spiritual Movements
XVII century. Münch., 1970. (Forum Slav.; T. 21); 1995
division of the one Church into Nikonians and Old Believers, as well as the consequences of this division
for Russian Orthodox Church and Russia.
This book includes the full text of the famous work of the famous historian and philologist, Vanderbilt University professor Sergei Alexandrovich Zenkovsky. The Russian reader is only familiar with the first volume of this study, published during the author's lifetime. The second volume - XVII-XIX centuries - remained unfinished and was prepared for publication after the death of Sergei Alexandrovich.
Foreword
I. Crisis of the Third Rome 1. Russian messianism 2. Troubles and its overcoming 3. Trials of the Orthodox East
II. The beginning of a new sermon 4. Dionysius and the tradition of St. John Chrysostom 5. Patriarch Filaret and the defense of Orthodoxy 6. Nero goes into the world 7. Archpriests come out 8. Printing
III. God-lovers at the helm of the Church 9. The new tsar and his entourage 10. Unanimity 11 Council of 1649 and clash with the episcopate 12. Reasons for the revolt of the archpriests against the episcopate 13. Successes and difficulties in 1645-1652 14. Kapiton 15. The question of cultural orientation 16. The Russian rite and Greeks 17. Apotheosis of Orthodoxy
IV. Nikon 18. New Patriarch 19. Dreams of an Orthodox Empire 20. Defeat of the Bogolyuts 21. Editing books 22. Russian theocracy 23. Neronov vs. Nikon 24. The rupture between Nikon and the Tsar 25. Beginning of secularization
V. Schism.
26. Church Troubles of 1658-1666 27. Russian Council of 1666 28. Council of Patriarchs of 1666-1667 29. After the Council: Years of Last Hopes: 1667-1670 30. Executions and Prisons: 1670-1676 31. Teachings of the Pustozersky Fathers: Deacon Theodore 32. Teaching of the Pustozersky Fathers: Archpriest Avvakum
VI. Growth of the Old Believers and division into sects 33. Expansion of the Old Believer “mutiny” in 1671-1682 34. Growth of resistance in the North: 1671-1682 35. Strengthening of the “old faith” in Siberia and the South: 1671-1682 36. Church and Moscow in years of interregnum 37. Cossacks in the struggle for the old faith 38. Delimitation within the Old Believers: priesthood 39. Separation of priestlessness: Fedoseevs 40. Pomeranian priestlessness and Denisovs 41. Schisms within priestlessness. Netovshchina 42. Western influences: Christism
Conclusion
List of abbreviations
Bibliographers Foreword Last year, in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the February and October revolutions, another, but also a very significant anniversary in Russian history passed quite unnoticed - the tercentenary of the schism in the Russian church. Few people remembered that three centuries ago, on May 13, 1667, the Council of Russian and Eastern Bishops took oaths on those Orthodox Russian people who continued and wanted to continue to use the Old Russian, Donikon, liturgical books, be baptized with the Old Byzantine and Old Russian two-finger sign of the cross and remain faithful to the old Russian church tradition.
At the council itself in 1667, only four people, including the "archpriest hero" - Avvakum, resolutely refused to accept the decisions of this host of hierarchs.
However, following them very soon more and more more Russian people began to speak out against the decisions of these zealous and careless in their decisions Russian and Middle Eastern, mainly Greek, rulers, to show their loyalty to the ancient Russian church tradition and refuse to submit to the mother church, which until recently was common to all Russia. Thus, within a few decades, a powerful movement of the Old Believers developed, the most significant religious movement in the history of the Russian people, which, not submitting to the will of the episcopate and the state standing behind these hierarchs, broke away for centuries from the church, which was then the patriarch, and formed its own special, separate, independent communities. The Russian Old Believers went through many phases of significant development and a noticeable decline in movement, split into many interpretations, nevertheless united by love for the past Russian church and the Russian ancient rite, and, despite persecution, played a big role in the spiritual and social development Russian people.
It seemed that the three hundred years that had elapsed since the church turmoil that developed under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich were a sufficient period for studying and clarifying the causes of the tragic schism in Russian Orthodoxy, which had a heavy impact on the fate of Russia and helped a lot to create the conditions that led half a century ago to tsarist Russia to ruin. But, unfortunately, the roots of the Old Believers and the causes of the Russian church schism of the seventeenth century are still not fully revealed in historical literature and remain far from clear. Despite the fact that over the past hundred years many documents and studies have been published that have provided a significant amount of information about the events that led to the exit of the Old Believers from the bosom of the Russian Patriarchal, and later the Synodal, Church, relatively little has been done to clarify the roots of this split in history. the Russian church itself, its ideological content and its role in the development of the Russian people over the past three centuries. Until now, the essence of the influence of the Old Believer thought on the ideology of Russian thinkers, Slavophiles and populists, the "soil" of the middle of the last century and the Duma "progressives" of the beginning of this, the significance of the Old Believers in the development of the Russian economy and the connection of the Old Believer writings with Russian literature of the early twentieth century.
Almost completely forgotten is the fact that it was the Old Believers who preserved and developed the doctrine of the special historical path of the Russian people, "Holy Russia", the Orthodox "Third Rome" and that, to a large extent, thanks to them, these ideas again interested Russian minds in the past and this century. .
Russian historians and theologians came to a serious study of the Russian Old Believers only when the anniversary of the bicentenary of the Russian church schism approached. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, works on the Old Believers, written by representatives of the Russian church and Russian historical science, had only accusatory and missionary purposes. True, even then there were numerous Old Believer writings that depicted a completely different side of this tragic conflict in the souls of the Russian people. But these writings remained almost unknown to the broad circles of the Russian "Europeanized" society and, of course, could not be published due to the strict rules of censorship, which did not allow representatives of the many millions of Russian Old Believers to speak. By the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, the situation had changed somewhat. The growth of the Old Believer communities, the success of the Old Believer priests in recreating their hierarchy, the appearance of Old Believer publications abroad, and, finally, the very “discovery” by the Russian society of the Old Believers as a powerful movement, numbering from a quarter to a third of all Great Russians in its ranks, led at the end of 1850 –s and in the 1860s to the appearance of an extensive literature on the split and these peculiar Russian “dissidents”.
By the time of Nikon and until the second half of the nineteenth century, a very unfounded opinion dominated in historical literature that, while copying liturgical books, ancient Russian scribes made many mistakes and distortions of the text, which over time became an integral part of the Russian liturgical rite. In addition, the historians of the schism completely erroneously believed that not only the ancient scribes of the early Russian Middle Ages, but also those first opponents of Patriarch Nikon, who in the late 1640s and early 1650s were close to the leadership of the church and book printing, were to blame for the distortion of church books. and therefore, as if they were able to introduce into the printed statutes of that time the errors made in previous centuries. Among these persons, who were considered responsible for introducing errors already into the Russian printed editions of the seventeenth century, were named the leaders of the early resistance to Nikon, the archpriests Ivan Neronov and Avvakum. According to these researchers from among the hierarchy and missionary circles, such errors became possible due to the lack of sufficient education in medieval Russia, the poverty of Russian scientific and church thought of that time, and, finally, the special warehouse of Russian ancient Orthodoxy, which, in their opinion, attached an exaggerated importance to external piety. and rites. Even such a well-known and learned historian of the Russian church as Metropolitan Macarius Bulgakov (1816-1882) adhered to this opinion in his major work published in 1854 on the History of the Russian Schism of the Old Believers.
The same position in explaining the religious reasons for the split was first taken by the young Kazan historian Af. Prok. Shchapov (1831-1876), who in his master's thesis "The Russian Schism of the Old Believers", defended by him in 1858, called the movement of supporters of the old faith "a petrified fragment ancient Russia". Nevertheless, despite his early traditionally negative view of the Old Believers, Shchapov has already introduced something new in this work, trying to uncover the social causes that pushed the broad masses of the Russian people into split. Four years later, using the transported during Crimean War in Kazan with the richest materials on the schism in the library of the Solovetsky Monastery, Shchapov revised his views. In his new work Zemstvo and Raskol, published in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1862, he already wrote that the Old Believers had a “peculiar mental and moral life” and that the split grew on the basis of “zemstvo strife”, as a result of “sorrow and hardship from taxes of the sovereign treasury, from the abuse of sovereign officials, scribes and watchers, from the violence of the boyars. In his eyes, the Old Believers were first of all: “a powerful, terrible communal opposition of the tax-paying Zemstvo, the masses of the people against everything political system- ecclesiastical and civil. The new thesis of A.P. Shchapov, that the Old Believers were primarily a creative and freedom-loving opposition movement against the dominance of the state and church authorities, was enthusiastically taken up by Russian populists, who, seeing in these defenders of ancient Orthodoxy, first of all, possible allies in their revolutionary struggle against Russian monarchy, began, in turn, to investigate the Old Believers and seek rapprochement with him.
A. Shchapov's sensational "discovery" that the movement of fighters for the old faith was basically a struggle against the abuses of the government and the hierarchy quickly found a response abroad as well. There, Russian emigrants in London, led by the patriarch of Russian socialism A. Herzen, N. Ogarev, and their rather random friend, a new emigrant, Vas, became interested in the Old Believers. Kelsiev. It was decided to involve these old-fashioned but seemingly promising Russian "dissidents" in the political struggle against the autocracy. Herzen gave money, Ogarev - his editorial experience, Kelsiev - his enthusiasm. As a result, already in the same 1862, a special magazine for Old Believers readers began to appear in London, meaningfully titled by this emigrant bunch - "The Common Cause". In order to more firmly involve the Old Believers in his revolutionary work, A. Herzen even intended to create a special Old Believer church center in London, to build an Old Believer cathedral there, of which he himself was not averse to becoming a headman. True, nothing came of these London church projects, but on the other hand, the Herzenov circle entered into relations with the Old Believer Cossacks in Turkey, the so-called Nekrasovites, whom the London group tried to use for contacts with the revolutionary movement and the Old Believers of Russia. It should be noted that in this respect the London emigrants were not the inventors of new ways, and that already during the Crimean War, the agents of the leader of the Polish emigration, Prince. Adam Czartoryski was recruited by the Old Believer Cossacks living in Turkey into special military detachments and sabotage groups, with the help of which they were going to raise an uprising in the Don, the Urals, the Kuban and among the Cossack units that fought in the Caucasus.
Despite the failure of the London venture of Herzen, Kelsiev and Ogarev, the populists continued to be interested in the Old Believers and did a lot to popularize the study of this movement, which was still very little known to Russian scientists and readers.
Following Shchapov and Kelsiev, the Old Believers were engaged in such representatives of populism as N. A. Aristov, Ya. V. Abramov, F. Farmakovsky, V. V. Andreev, A. S.
Prugavin, I. Kablitz (pseudonym Yuzov) and many others. The well-known historian N. M. Kostomarov, who, like A.
Shchapov, belonged to the zemstvo regional direction of Russian historiography and sought to study not only the history of the state, but also the history of the people themselves.
Having familiarized himself with the works of the Old Believers themselves, N. M. Kostomarov wrote in a detailed essay “The History of the Schism Among the Schismatics” that the “schismatics” were very different in their spiritual and mental makeup from the representatives of Russian medieval culture and the church: “in old Russia absence of thought and imperturbable obedience to the authority of those in power prevailed ... the schism loved to think and argue.
Despite the fact that the venerable historian was completely unfair in his condemnation of Ancient Russia - after all, it is not without reason that the modern researcher of ancient Russian literature D. I. Chizhevsky considers the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries to be centuries of disputes and disagreements - nevertheless, Kostomarov was right when he spoke of the Old Believers as about the "major phenomenon of mental progress", which for centuries has been distinguished by its love of debate and the search for an answer to its spiritual needs.
Although historians of the liberal, predominantly populist, trend have done a lot to reveal the ideology and social life of the "schism", nevertheless, oddly enough, the main role in clarifying the essence of the early Old Believers and the causes of the crisis in the Russian church of the seventeenth century was played by a very reactionary opponent, or rather even the sworn enemy of the "schismatics", Nikolai Ivanovich Subbotin, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, who in 1875 began publishing Materials for the History of the Schism during the First Time of Its Existence, now completely indispensable for the history of the Old Believers. In nine volumes of his "Materials", and then in his periodical "Brotherly Word", in countless editions of Old Believer sources and in his monographs, N. I. Subbotin collected an infinite number of documents, letters, biographies and "lives", polemical treatises and historical works written by the "schismatics" themselves. In the very first volume of his "Materials" he published "The Life of Archpriest Ivan Neronov", one of Nikon's most prominent opponents, and a "Note" about his life. From these works, written back in the 1650s and 60s, it was clear how thoughtless and careless the actions of the patriarch were; in addition, they clearly loomed the face of Neronov himself, who, long before the patriarchate of Nikon, together with other priests, began to fight against the lethargy and inertia of the majority of the episcopate. Disclosure of the role of this circle of clergy, the so-called. lovers of God, who were trying to breathe the spirit of a new, truly religious life into the Russian Church, was a turning point in the study of the history of the schism of Russian Orthodoxy.
Nikolai Fedorovich Kapterev (1847–1917), another professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, in his great work on the struggle of supporters of the old rite with Nikon, used for the first time the materials published by Subbotin, added to them new data discovered by him and drew the appropriate conclusions. Despite his outwardly negative attitude towards the opponents of Nikon's tricks, N.F. Kapterev not only noted the role of the "God-loving" archpriests, who, led by Iv. Neronov, long before Nikon, began a movement of internal church revival, but also showed the terrible consequences of Nikon's rash actions. In addition, he was the first historian who questioned the theory of the “corruption” or incorrectness of the Old Russian rite and pointed out that the Russian rite was not at all corrupted, but rather retained a number of features of the early ancient Byzantine rites, including the two-fingered, which later, in XII-XIII centuries, were changed by the Greeks themselves, which caused a discrepancy between the old Russian and modern Greek church rites. The effect produced by the book of N. F. Kapterev was so significant that N. I. Subbotin, indignant at it, was able, through K. P. Pobedonostsev, to suspend his academic career and further research work this scientist.
But it was no longer possible to stop further serious study of the Russian schism. In 1898, the young historian of literature A. K. Borozdin, in his book "Protopop Avvakum"
developed the conclusions of N. F. Kapterev, and in 1905 the authoritative historian of the Russian church E. E. Golubinsky once again confirmed that Nikon, and after him the Eastern patriarchs and the council of 1667, simply did not figure out that the discrepancies between the Russian and New Greek charters mid-seventeenth centuries occurred not because of the mistakes of the Russians, but due to changes in the typikon by the Greeks themselves, which, after the Council of Florence, due to the gap between the Russian and Constantinople churches, were not fully carried into the Russian typikon.
Thus, it turned out that not the Russians, but the Greeks, had departed from the initial canons of the charter, and that all the previous explanation and justification of the so-called. Patriarch Nikon's reforms were completely unfounded. These remarkable works of Kapterev, Golubinsky and Borozdin, which made a complete revolution in the study of the Old Believers, were also possible thanks to the appearance of more special and less noticeable, but important works by S. A. Belokurov, P. F. Nikolsky, K. P. Kharlampovich, E. V. Barsov, N. Gibbenet and a number of other outstanding and conscientious workers of Russian historical science of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is also necessary to note the accurate and prolific specialist in the schism, P. S. Smirnov, and the careful publishers of materials on the early Old Believers, Ya. L. Barskov and S. T. Veselovsky. In his work devoted to the ideological and dogmatic development of the Old Believers in the second half of the seventeenth century, P. S. Smirnov drew attention to the mysterious figure of the elder Kapiton, who, back in the 1620s and 30s, was the initiator of the fanatical ascetic and pessimistic eschatological movement, from which he later preachers of self-burning and priestlessness came out. Although P. S. Smirnov touched on the activities of Kapiton in passing and in relatively short notes, nevertheless, it is he who has the honor of introducing this gloomy and sinister figure into the historiographic circulation.
After the weakening of the censorship regime in 1905, Old Believer writers and scholars of the schism finally began to publish. Among them, a certain I. A. Kirillov and a specialist in Old Believer thought V. G. Senatov especially stood out for their books on the social and economic life of the schism. In addition, in the years 1905-1917 many interesting reports about the Old Believers could be collected in the very rapidly developing periodical press of priestly and non-priest communities and organizations.
After the revolution of 1917, almost no books about the Old Believers were published in Russia. And this is understandable, since questions of the church and spiritual life are not at all included in the program of scientific work and publishing houses. Soviet Union. Nevertheless, a well-known specialist in ancient Russian literature, V. I. Malyshev, published a number of works by Avvakum discovered by him and several of his most valuable works on the role of the Old Believers in the culture of the Russian north. More recently, in the new "History of the USSR" published by the Academy of Sciences, I. I. Pavlenko gave a short but interesting and very informative essay on the beginning of the Russian church schism, noting that at first it was a purely religious phenomenon. Very little was done abroad for the further study of the Old Believers: the Russian emigration was so shocked by the catastrophe of tsarist Russia that it was not at all up to the church tragedies of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, in 1930, in France, the former prominent industrialist and public figure, the Old Believer V.P. Ryabushinsky, published a very curious book “Old Believers and Russian Religious Feeling”, in which he rightly noted that the split did not occur due to a dispute about the rite, but because of disagreements about the spirit of faith. For his part, A. V. Kartashov, in a short but talented article, gave several important indications about the intense religious life of the Old Believers. Later, in his Essays, although he recognized all the nonsense of the innovations of Patriarch Nikon, he nevertheless severely condemned his opponents for their steadfastness in matters of faith.
Foreign historians also contributed to the study of the Russian schism of the seventeenth century. Of these foreign works, first of all, the excellent book by the French scholar Pierre Pascal on Archpriest Avvakum stands out, in which he widely used printed and archival sources and which has already become a reference book on early history Old Believers. Of the German literature on this issue, the most interesting is the book by Fr. John Chrysostomos about "Pomor Answers" by Andrei Denisov, an outstanding Old Believer writer and thinker of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Here, of course, only the most important works on the history of the schism and the Old Believers are indicated, since only a listing of all even only significant works on this issue would require a separate volume: already before the 1917 revolution, the number of books and articles on the Old Believers exceeded tens of thousands.
Nevertheless, many aspects of this sad gap in Russian Orthodoxy, as noted above, are still not entirely clear, and historians will have to work hard to clarify them. In this book, the author pursued relatively limited goals: to determine in as much detail as possible the roots of the church conflict of the seventeenth century, to trace the growing tension between the nourishment of church and state and the supporters of the Old Rite, and, finally, to clarify the connection between the pre-Nikon movements in Russian Orthodoxy and the later division of the Old Believers into priesthood. and restlessness. As far as possible, the author has tried to avoid using the word schism in this book. In ordinary Russian terminology, this word has become odious and unfair in relation to the Old Believers. The schism was not a split from the church of a significant part of its clergy and laity, but a genuine internal rupture in the church itself, which significantly impoverished Russian Orthodoxy, in which not one, but both sides were to blame: both the stubborn and refusing to see the consequences of their perseverance, the planters of the new ritual, and too zealous and, unfortunately, often also very stubborn and one-sided defenders of the old.
The work on this study was greatly facilitated by the support of two organizations: Harvard University, in particular its center for the study of Russia, and the Guggenheim Foundation in New York. The researcher expresses his deep gratitude to the leaders of both organizations. In addition, he expresses his gratitude to all persons and libraries that have facilitated his work; Professor Dm. helped him especially a lot. Iv. Chizhevsky, with whom the author discussed many problems raised by this book. Dr. V. I. Malyshev informed the author of a number of handwritten materials from the repository of the Pushkin House (A. N. Institute of Russian Literature), and A. Filipenko worked hard on the correspondence of the not always legible manuscript, for which the author expresses his gratitude to them. He dedicates this book with gratitude and love to his wife, who for many years helped him in his work on The Russian Old Believers.
University. Vanderbilt, April 1969.
Notes These oaths were taken from the Old Believers only on April 23/10, 1929 by the decision of the Provisional Patriarchal Holy Synod of the Russian Church. see Church Bulletin of the Western European Diocese, No. 6, June 1929.
Cit. according to A.P. Shchapov: Works, St. Petersburg, 1906–1908, volume II, pp. 451–461.
In addition, these London emigrants reprinted, under the editorship of V. Kelsiev, two secret editions of the Ministry of the Interior on the situation of the Old Believers and their persecution by the Russian government. These were: "Collection of government information about the schismatics", vols. 1 and 2, London, 1861-1862, and "Collection of resolutions regarding the split", also in two volumes, London, 1863.
Herald of Europe, 1870.
N. F. Kapterev: Patriarch Nikon and his opponents in the matter of correcting church rites, Moscow, 1887.
E. Golubinsky: On our controversy with the Old Believers, Choidr, 1905, volume III.
Cathedral of 1649, CHOIDR, 1894; Arseny Sukhanov. CHOIDR, 1891, 1894, etc.
Moscow printing house, Chr. Thu. 1890–1891, etc.
LZAK, XXIV and XXVI.
Internal issues of the split of the seventeenth century, St. Petersburg, 1898.
I. A. Kirillov: Moscow The Third Rome, Moscow, 1913 and The Truth about the Old Faith, Moscow, 1916; V. G. Senatov: Philosophy of the history of the Old Believers, vol. 1 and 2, Moscow, 1912.
A. V. Kartashov: “The Meaning of the Old Believers” in the Collection of Articles on P. B. Struve, Prague, 1925 and Essays on the History of the Russian Church, Paris, 1959, vol. II.
Pierre Pascal: Avvakum et les dbuts du Rascol: la Crise religieuse russe au XVII siecle, Paris, 1938.
Johannes Crysostomos: Die Pomorskie Otvety als Denkmal der Anschaung der russischen Altglubigen der 1. Viertel des XVIII Jahrhundert, Roma, 1959, Orientalia Christiana Nr. 148.
I. Crisis of the Third Rome
1. Russian messianism The rise of Muscovite Russia happened too swiftly and unexpectedly for the Russian people themselves, so as not to be reflected in somewhat proud and arrogant formulations of national thought and not to turn the heads of the intellectual elite of the late Russian Middle Ages. In fact, in the second half of the fifteenth century, events began to develop in Eastern Europe so hastily and violently that within only a few decades the entire political map of this endless plain was completely redrawn. Even at the very beginning of this century, the Moscow principality was just one of the small, albeit dynamic state formations, lost in the forests and swamps of the upper Volga and the middle Oka. On the maps depicting Russia of that time, the possessions of the Moscow prince seem completely invisible next to such territorial giants as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Golden Horde or the Novgorod Republic.
Vasily II, the ruler of Moscow at the beginning of the fifteenth century, although he stubbornly held on to the title of Grand Duke, but repeatedly visited the roles of a prisoner and in the hands of the Tatars, still powerful and dangerous, and in the prisons of his relatives. No wonder he got the nickname of the Dark One, after he was blinded by his own cousin, the violent and treacherous Prince Dmitry Shemyaka.
True, Moscow has long sought leadership over the entire northeastern Russia. But in those days it seemed to everyone much more likely that not she, but her rival Lithuania would unite under the scepter of the Gediminids all the lands inhabited by Russian tribes.
Western Russia had already completely entered the state of the Lithuanian rulers, and in the fifteenth century even Ryazan and Novgorod repeatedly entered into allied or even vassal relations with this hybrid Russian-Lithuanian public education. In the European West, the very word Rus was almost completely forgotten, and it is unlikely that even the most knowledgeable diplomats of Western Europe knew anything about Moscow and its princes.
But less than half a century after the capture of Vasily the Dark by his relatives and Tatars, his son became one of the most powerful rulers of Eastern Europe, head of the united Russian state. He already called himself, albeit semi-officially, Tsar-Caesar - that is, emperor, and became the husband of Sophia Palaiologos, heir to the Byzantine Empire. His embassies now visited the most important capitals of Europe, and the head of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation sought his help and alliance. But the most surprising thing was that all the successes of Ivan the Third, whom his contemporaries called the Great and Terrible, were achieved without great losses and expenses, without significant campaigns and bloody battles. Even Veliky Novgorod, whose lands were many times larger than the territories of the Principality of Moscow, almost without resistance finally submitted to Moscow. In some fifteen or twenty years, this first Ivan the Terrible became the autocrat of all Russia, which had grown into a decisive force in the East of Europe. The lands of his state stretched from the Black Sea steppes to the Northern Ocean and from the Dnieper to Western Siberia. Now Russia, and not Lithuania and the Tatars, has become the main state of the European East and its geopolitical position on the borders of Europe and Asia has changed radically.
Changes in the geopolitical position of Moscow were not limited to the lightning-fast expansion of the territory and the strengthening of the power of the monarch. In 1480, almost simultaneously with the subjugation of the rich Novgorod Republic, the Moscow sovereign Ivan III managed to achieve complete independence from the Golden Horde. A few years later, this state of the Mongols and Tatars completely collapsed. The sudden disappearance of the formidable Tatar empire struck the Russian people, who were accustomed to look with fear at this terrible threat from the East. But they were even more impressed by the strange coincidence that Russia grew into a powerful country and free from Asian conquests just at the same time when Byzantium, which for centuries was the main source of culture, faith and state norms for Russians, fell under blows. more southern Turks who created the Ottoman Empire. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 involuntarily led to the fact that the idea arose in the minds of the Russian people that now the Lord himself intended young Russia to become the successor of the Byzantine emperors in the defense of Orthodoxy, the preservation of the purest testaments of Christ. Mixed with this sense of pride in political successes was a national satisfaction in steadfastness in matters of faith. After all, just a decade and a half before the fall of the second Rome, the Byzantine patriarch and tsar recognized the supreme authority of the always unloved lord of the first Rome and changed, in the eyes of the Orthodox, their right faith and dogma. In contrast to Constantinople, Moscow rejected the union with Rome and remained faithful to Orthodoxy. Now it seemed to the Russians that, having punished the "traitors" - the Greeks for their retreat, the Lord rewarded "bright" Russia for her standing for Orthodoxy and handed her the protection of the fate of Christianity.
The theory of a special election by God of a nation or state to defend the faith or even to spread religious teaching, of course, was not the creation of Moscow scribes.
The theocratic idea of the national chosenness of the people by God was known even in the pre-Christian world and was clearly and precisely formulated by the prophet Daniel: the God of heaven will raise up a kingdom that will not be destroyed forever and ever, it will crush and destroy all kingdoms, and will itself stand forever (Dan. 11, 44). The words of the prophet Daniel formed the basis of the national ideology of the Jewish people in the biblical period, and from them they passed into Christianity. The Roman emperors, having adopted Christianity, believed that Rome, the world state of Christian culture, was precisely this kingdom promised by God. The medieval ideology of the Latin West and the Greek Byzantine East also adhered to the theory, or rather, the prediction of the Old Testament prophet. First Rome, and then Constantinople, considered themselves the religious center of this universal empire, the only possible empire of Christendom. Soon, Constantinople appropriated the very name of the "second Rome". As early as 381, the second ecumenical council decreed that "the bishop of Constantinople, as the bishop of the new Rome, stands behind the bishop of Rome in position." Later, when the Roman Church "fell away from Orthodoxy", the Byzantines began to consider themselves not only the second Rome, but also the full heirs of the old Rome. They called their capital the center of the only Christian empire. For their part, the Pope and Western Christianity believed that only the Catholic West was the only truly Christian world headed by a Roman high priest.
In Russia, in ancient Russia, the idea special position of the Russian people in the world, as a people honored with the Orthodox faith, develops already in the very first century after the adoption of Christianity. Then there was an opinion that, having granted Orthodoxy to the Russian land, the Lord would demand more from the Russian people than from others, and would punish them more severely for sins. In his “Sermon on Law and Grace”, compiled around 1037, Metropolitan Hilarion, the first Russian to become the head of the young Russian Orthodox Church, asserts the equality of Russia with Byzantium, which claimed world domination and world leadership. He says: “The spoken tongue will come true about us: the Lord will open his holy muscle before all tongues and all the ends of the earth will see salvation, hedgehog from our God.”
The chronicler, who in the same century compiled the first history of the Russian people, developed the same idea about the election of Russia by God for a special Christian mission in the world. In his prologue to Russian history, he describes the visit of the Apostle Andrew to Russia and writes that, having stopped on the mountains on the banks of the Dnieper, the apostle predicted a great future for Christianity in Russia: - “On these mountains the grace of God will shine, to have a great city and many churches God will raise up to have” . A little further, under the year 1093, talking about the invasion of the Asian nomadic Polovtsy on Russian land, the chronicler explains all the misfortunes of the Russian land precisely by the fact that the Russians, being chosen by God to accept Orthodoxy and being especially loved by him, nevertheless often sin, and therefore The Lord punishes them especially severely. - “Whom does God love so much, as if he loved us to eat? Whom did he consider to be, how did he glorify us and exalt us? No one: they raised their fury on us more than all, as if they were honored more than all, more bitter than all the deeds of sins.
The idea that Russia was placed by God above other states, and that therefore the Lord requires more from the Russian people than from other peoples, is clearly visible in all intellectual history, both of the Kievan and Muscovite eras. This thought constantly led to the growth of religious tension in Russia, which is discharged only in the seventeenth century as a result of the tragic religious crisis of the schism. It is likely that these early dreams, characteristic of many medieval states of Europe, about the special selection of their people, would not have taken such a definite and sharp form if the strengthening of Moscow had not coincided with the fall of Byzantium and the Golden Horde and Russia had not been surrounded by countries of a different faith. and other cultural backgrounds.
But the historical situation of the fifteenth century, in any case, contributed to the strengthening of these proud theories in the minds of the Russian people. The teaching that the Lord strengthened Russia just after the fall of Byzantium and made it the only and last defender of Orthodoxy, contributed to the growth of the prestige of the Moscow sovereign, flattered the vanity of Russian educated contemporaries of Ivan III.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, this Russian ecclesiastical patriotism gradually developed into the doctrine of a special messianic path for the Russian people. Around 1461, during the appointment of Metropolitan Theodosius, the “Sermon on the Eighth Council” was created, in which the Moscow led. book. Vasily II is portrayed as “a wise seeker of holy rules, a divinely flowering source and a follower of truth ... the Lord God has revealed to him to understand smartly, and to be wise, and to do the will of God, and keep all His commandments,” and it is said about Russia that “in the eastern land the essence of greater Orthodoxy and higher Christianity is White Russia ... ".
Describing the death of Constantinople, the author of the story about its fall proudly declares: "... and our Russian land, by the grace of God and the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God and all miracle workers, grows and rises." Shortly thereafter, in 1492, Metropolitan Zosima even more boldly declares in his message on a new paschal that Ivan III became the heir to the universal religious mission of the Byzantine emperors and calls him "the new Tsar Constantine of the new city of Constantinople - Moscow and all Russia." This new Russian formula of national messianism clearly reflects the paraphrasing of historical formulas both by the Byzantine historian Manasseh, who calls Constantinople the successor of Rome, and by his Bulgarian followers, who considered Bulgaria the heir of Rome and Byzantium.
Zosima's idea that Russia became the successor to the universal role of Byzantium was neither accidental nor unique for his time. Opponents of Metropolitan Zosima, the famous abbot Joseph Volotsky and Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod, in turn, both developed a theory of the exceptional importance of Russia in the fate of the entire Christian world.
In his introduction to The Illuminator, Joseph Volotsky reminds readers of the prediction of the Apostle Andrew, told by the first Russian chronicler, and adds on his own behalf that "... as the ancient wickedness surpassed the Russian land [in times of paganism], so now with piety all overcome."
In his opinion, Russian piety was especially manifested in the holiness of numerous Russian saints, who, by their righteous example, raised the consciousness of the people and illuminated the entire Russian land with the light of Christian truth. His ally and friend, who together with him fought against the heresy of the Judaizers, Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod, was also carried away by the majestic idea of the special historical role of Russia in the protection of Christianity. In the charming legend - "The Tale of the White Hood", apparently compiled by Gennady himself and his literary assistant, the interpreter Gerasimov, in 1480-1490, this idea already takes on a mystical character. The "White Hood" - a symbol of the purity of Orthodoxy and the "bright three-day Resurrection of Christ" - was, according to legend, given by Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester. From Rome, the White Klobuk later came to Constantinople, the second Rome, which for many centuries was the center of Orthodoxy. From there, Klobuk was “sent [again, according to the legend] to Novgorod,” to Russia, since “there is truly the glorious faith of Christ.” The presence of the White Klobuk in Russia is very significant, according to the legend, since it indicates not only that “now the Orthodox faith is revered and glorified there more than anywhere else on earth”, but also promises the spiritual glory of Russia. According to the authors of the legend, "... in the third Rome, the hedgehog is on Russian soil - the grace of the Holy Spirit rises."
The doctrine of the “third kingdom”, as the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, which will still come to earth after the kingdom of God the Father, the kingdom of the Old Testament and the law - and the kingdom of the Son, the kingdom of the New Testament and the time of salvation, originated in the teachings of the Chiliasts back in the first centuries of Christianity . It was common in the early Middle Ages and in Byzantium. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that the closer, immediate, sources of this doctrine developed in the White Klobuk were Western rather than directly Byzantine in origin. True, the Irish theologian and idealist philosopher Erigena developed his theory of the third kingdom on the basis of the teachings of the early Eastern Fathers. Nevertheless, the popularity of this doctrine in the later centuries of the Middle Ages is not so much due to Erigene himself, but to the preaching of his spiritual followers: Joachim de Fiore and the Franciscan spiritualists. In the XII-XIII century they predicted the near end of the world and the advent of the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, which they called the age of freedom. This doctrine of the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, which heralded the end of our sinful era and the advent of a new spiritual and holy age, undoubtedly penetrated from the West and revived in connection with the expected end of the historical world in 1492. She could get to the former republic of Veliky Novgorod either through Catholic monks who appeared there at the end of the 15th century and took part in compiling the full text of the Bible and clerical literature, which proved the independence of the church from secular power, or through the envoys of Archbishop Gennady to Rome. Gennady, striving to defend the independence of the ownership of the Novgorod episcopal see and struggling with the teachings of the Judaizers, to whom Ivan III provided very direct support, tried to raise the authority of the Russian church.
Therefore, the creation of the legend of the White Klobuk did not aim to glorify the Russian state, but to praise the Orthodox Church in Russia and the Orthodox Russian land itself. Trying to collect materials for the assertion of the doctrine of the independence of church authority from state authority, Gennady, apparently for this purpose, sent his interpreter to Rome. There the envoy of Gennady, judging by the instructions of the legend of the White Cowl, found the materials he needed. There he could easily get acquainted with the then popular theory about the approaching end of our world and about the future kingdom of the Holy Spirit. In any case, it was Gennady and the circle of church scholars and fighters for the independence of the church from the state that formed around him in Novgorod used Catholic theories about the relationship between church and secular power. For example, comparisons of church power with the sun and state power with the moon, written by Pope Innocent III, were also popularized there.
Whatever the true sources of the story about the White Klobuk, there is no doubt that the theory of the Chiliasts about the coming of the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, having got to Russia, merged with the legend cited by the first chronicler about the predictions of the Apostle Andrew about the religious future of the Russian land. This new doctrine, “that the grace of the Holy Spirit has risen on Russian soil,” had a purely religious, and not political, significance, since it was created by church people precisely to defend the church from subordinating it to the state. True, in the surviving and, apparently, later versions of the story, it is said that “all kingdoms will converge in Russia”; but this expression can be understood either as an indication of the unification of all Orthodox Russian lands into one nation, or as a hope that all Christian peoples together with Russia will form one single kingdom after it turns into a single kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Holy Spirit. For the time being, Russia should only preserve pure Orthodoxy. Its historical tasks and duties in relation to Orthodoxy and all of Christianity, in any case, were defined as protective and conservative, and not missionary and expansionary. Moreover, the new doctrine imposed on Russia not new rights, but new responsibilities. These duties were clearly defined: - the preservation of the true Orthodox faith by the Russian people until the coming end of the world and the preservation of the Russian people themselves in the purity and holiness of Orthodox teaching.
At the very beginning of the 16th century, a certain Elder Filofey, a monk of the Eleazarov Monastery in the city of Pskov, gave a particularly clear, although somewhat modified, formula for the religious and protective task of Russia. In contrast to Joseph Volotsky and the authors of the story of the White Klobuk, he transfers all responsibility for the protection of Orthodoxy from the entire Russian people, from the “Russian land”, to the new capital city of Moscow and to the Moscow sovereign, as the supreme bearer of power in Orthodox Russia. He further develops the formula of Metropolitan Zosima, who said that the ruler of Moscow became the successor of the emperor of Byzantium, Constantine, the first defender of Christianity.
Addressing the Grand Duke of Moscow, Filofey proclaims:
“Old ubo Rome of the church, falling with unbelief, Apolinarian heresies; of the second Rome, the city of Constantine, the church, the Hagarites, the grandsons, cut open the doors with axes and cords. This is now the third new Rome of your sovereign kingdom, the holy catholic apostolic church, even at the ends of the universe in the Orthodox Christian faith in the whole under heaven more than the sun shines ... two Romes fall, and the third stands, and the fourth will not be: already your Christian kingdom will not remain frost. .
In view of the fact that the original first edition of The Tale of the White Hood has not yet been found, and the time of writing Philotheus' letters could not be precisely established - it is only known that they were written around 1510-1540 - it is difficult to find out whether this story influenced writings of Philotheus, or, conversely, part of the Philotheus formula was later included in the story. What is certain is that they are closely connected ideologically and that both had the character of religious-philosophical or historiosophical reflections, and not of a specific political program.
The historiosophical conception of Elder Philotheus especially clearly emphasized the decisive role of God's providence in the development of the destinies of the world. For Elder Philotheus, the pulse of world history beats only in the relationship between God and his chosen people. To explain the meaning of the historical process, Philotheus uses the previously mentioned text from the book of the prophet Daniel: the God of heaven will raise up a kingdom that will not be destroyed forever and ever. But the Pskov monk significantly softened the second part of this biblical verse. The prediction of the Old Testament prophet that this eternal kingdom will conquer and destroy all other kingdoms, he, like the Tale of the White Hood, replaces with a simple indication that all other countries before the end of the world, apparently mystically, will merge with this one and truly Christian Orthodox kingdom. . - “All Christian kingdoms descended, having come to the end and descended into the single kingdom of our sovereign, according to the prophetic books, that is, the Russian kingdom. Two Romes have fallen, and the third is standing, and the fourth will not be, ”he says in his message.
Complete providentialism and eschatologism characterize Philotheus' theory. Everything in history will be as it pleases the Lord and as already in the days of the Old Testament the prophets pointed out.
The historical existence of the world is limited in time, the Russian kingdom will be the last kingdom in history, and with the end of Russia, the end of the whole world will come. This eschatological interpretation was quite in the spirit of the aspirations and expectations of that time both in Russia and in the West. Already before 1492, i.e., apparently, in the years of Philotheus's childhood and youth, in Russia very many expected the end of the world, believing that 1492 was, according to the biblical chronology, the 7000th year from the beginning of the world. The onset of the Last Judgment was expected in the year 7000, since in the Middle Ages 7 and 7000 were considered special, mystical numbers that would again bring God and man closer together. Many scribes and theologians of East and West defined the whole life of the earth as 7000 years. But, although the end of the world, predicted for 1492, i.e., 7000, did not come, nevertheless, rumors and reasoning about the historical, at the same time relatively short, limited life of the world and mankind did not stop. Having survived the year 7000, some philosophers-theologians of that time began to indicate that the end of the world would come in the year 8000, i.e., 2492, while others assured that the world would end its development and existence in 1666, since the number 666 was interpreted by many , as the number of Antichrist. This expectation of the end of the world was characteristic of all early and medieval Christianity and undoubtedly played a significant role in the development of the Reformation. For example, Luther also believed that the end of the world was very close, and his calls for religious purification were to some extent calls for repentance before the near-coming end in order to adequately meet the Last Judgment. The expectation of the end of the world in Russia, in the sixteenth century, did not have a significant role, but before the onset of 1666, in the second quarter of the XVII century, these expectations intensified again and played a significant role in the development of the Russian religious movement of that time.
Philotheus built his theory on monarchical principles - the kingdom and the king. The central elements of his teaching and his messages, in the majority, are addressed to the Grand Duke of Moscow, "whose heart is in the hands of God"; and one of the epistles is called “To the reigning city”, i.e., to Moscow, by which he emphasizes the central, imperial position of this city in the truly Christian world, as the successor of Byzantium.
The development of the historical and philosophical concept regarding the special mission of Russia in the matter of strengthening Orthodoxy was temporarily suspended after Philotheus. His messages, as mentioned above, had only a religious and, in part, internal political significance, since they called for the unification of Russia around Moscow. But these proud claims to the hereditary role of the Russian tsars as successors to the rulers of Byzantium were never used to justify diplomatic pretensions or even the prestige of the Muscovite sovereign. Even in the title of the Russian tsar and in the official state ideology of the Russian monarchy, the doctrine of the third Rome was never mentioned. Therefore, the teachings of Philotheus were considered only as a religious-philosophical theory that played a role in the glorification of the Russian Church and Russian Orthodoxy. Gradually, in the eyes of the Russian people, their country became holy Russia, the chosen people, the new Israel.
The feeling of national religious pride, the confidence that Russian Orthodoxy is the purest and most holy, manifested itself with particular force during the so-called Stoglavy Council of 1551. The national features and merits of the Russian Church are constantly emphasized both in the speeches of Ivan IV, who opened the cathedral, and in the decisions of the cathedral. Decisions related to canon law are based more on the charters of the Moscow metropolitans and on the charter of Joseph Volotsky than on their Greek primary sources.
Greek saints are hardly mentioned in the king's speech. But the role of the great saints of the Russian land is persistently emphasized: Boris and Gleb, Anthony and Theodosius, Bishop Leonty and the metropolitans: Peter, Alexei and Jonah. When the council had to choose between the modern Greek and Russian rites, and Russian reflected the earlier, ancient Byzantine features introduced in Russia as early as the tenth century, the preference, without hesitation, turned out to be Russian, consecrated by centuries of its use in Russia. For example, the council resolutely insisted that the Russian church use the ancient two-fingered sign and forbade the use of the “new” three-fingered sign, introduced in the Greek church only in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, which began to spread in Russia at that time. Also, the singing of “Alleluia” is streamlined in the Russian way. The council decides that it is necessary to sing "Alleluia" only twice, as was done before in the Russian church, and not three times, as the Greeks sang at that time. But, strange as it may seem, despite Russian religious chauvinism, which developed especially sharply after the Stoglavy Council, the theory of the monk Philotheus and the story of the "White Klobuk" apparently had very little circulation among Russian scribes and statesmen the second half of the sixteenth century, did not occur at all in state acts, and were only rarely mentioned in literature. Only at the very end of the sixteenth century, when, on the initiative of Boris Godunov, the Russian government decided to give the head of the Russian church the title of patriarch, Moscow ideologists remembered the “Third Rome” and took advantage of the writings of the Novgorod and Pskov creators of the theory of Russian messianism. Their teaching is included in the charters associated with the creation of the Moscow Patriarchate.
During the celebrations of the appointment of the first Russian Patriarch Job, in 1589, Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople, apparently following the text of the special Russian rite created for this event, confirms:
- "... in the whole sunflower there is one pious king, and henceforth, whatever God wills." With these words, he seemed to indicate that in the whole universe there was only one truly Christian tsar, the tsar of Russia - Fedor Ioannovich. In the letter of the same Patriarch Jeremiah, again addressed to Tsar Fedor on the occasion of the very institution of the Russian Patriarchate, the words of the story about the “White Klobuk” and the messages of the Pskov monk Philotheus take on a particularly magnificent form:
- “In you, pious king, the Holy Spirit abides ... ancient Rome fell to the apolinarian heresy, and the second Rome - Constantinople is in the possession of the grandchildren of the Hagar, godless Turks. Your great Russian kingdom, the Third Rome, has surpassed all in piety, and all the pious kingdoms have gathered into your one, and you alone under heaven are called the Christian Tsar in the whole universe.
The surviving memories of the participants in the creation of the Moscow Patriarchate and the documents of that time do not allow us to doubt that these phrases were included in the letter of the Patriarch of Constantinople by the Moscow editors of this document themselves.
True, no one forced the patriarch to speak out that the third Rome is the last Rome ... But the very mention that Russia surpassed all countries in its piety was undoubtedly very unflattering for the patriarch himself of the once proud Byzantium. Only the extreme need for money and the hope, by the way, not justified at all - that Jeremiah himself would become the patriarch of the third Rome - allowed the Moscow diplomats to convince him to sign the letter, so unpleasant both for his personal pride and for all Greeks.
In this matter, important for maintaining the prestige of the Muscovite kingdom and the Russian Church, the Russians turned out to be more dexterous diplomats than the Greeks themselves. But be that as it may, no matter what personal and financial considerations forced Patriarch Jeremiah to recognize the superiority of Russian piety, he recognized it in an official and historically important document. By this, he enabled Moscow clergymen and publicists to assert that the theory of the superiority of the Russian Church over others was not only the fruit of Russian proud national thought, but also a fact recognized by the head of the entire Orthodox Greek East. Indeed, the establishment of the Russian Patriarchy and the praise of the Russian Church by the Greek Patriarch made a deep impression on the contemporary Russian society and to a large extent contributed to the growth of faith in the exceptional historical and ecclesiastical role of the Russian people. Apparently, the widespread doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome belongs to the same period. As mentioned above, before the creation of the Russian Patriarchate, both the theories of the authors of the White Klobuk and the epistle of the monk Philotheus were disseminated only in a very narrow circle of the highest church hierarchy and writers. Now they are being made available to broad circles of Russian educated society, and especially to the clergy. To date, more than thirty copies of The Tale of the White Hood, made at the very end of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, have survived, which indicates the very wide popularity of this historiosophical legend.
The number of lists of the earlier period is absolutely negligible. Later, The Tale of the White Hood became even more popular among the Russian people. From the second half of XVII century, more than a hundred lists of this wonderful Novgorod legend have been preserved. In addition to the lists of The Tale of the White Klobuk, many other manuscripts and books went through the hands of the Russian people of the late 16th and 17th centuries, affirming the special piety and special historical mission of the Russian Orthodox people. Such, for example, was "Stoglav"
(decisions of the Russian church council of 1551, at which it was decided that Russian church rites are more correct than all others), Iosif Volotsky's "Illuminator", lists of letters on the establishment of the patriarchate, collections of Russian literature and knowledge, known under the name "Chetiy Miney" and many other works of Moscow literature. The majestic teaching of Russian messianism began to penetrate the consciousness of broad circles of the Russian people.
By this time, in all likelihood, the first mention of the sacred Russian kingdom in folk songs, reflecting the growth of self-awareness of the common people, can also be attributed.
For example, in one of the most ancient poetic folk art, the so-called "Poem about the Pigeon Book", - there are indications of the universal role of the Russian monarch.
The verse itself was formed, according to most researchers, back in the era Kievan Rus, but the remarks about the king were most likely introduced into it in the sixteenth century.
The verse says:
Our tsar is the tsar over the tsars, Light Russia is the land - the mother of all lands.
Very similar to these lines are the definitions of another version of the Pigeon Book:
Why is the White king king over kings?
He accepted the tsar faith baptized, baptized Orthodox, He believes in one Trinity.
Notes Russian responses to the Florentine Union were recently analyzed in the articles by M.
Cherniavsky: The Reception of the Council of Florence in Moscow and I. Shevchenko: Ideological Repercussions of the Council of Florence Church History XXIV (1955), 147–157 and 291–323, see
also T. Gill: The Council of Florence, Cambridge, 1959.
T. Barsukov: Patriarch of Constantinople and his power over the Russian Church, Moscow, 1878, 183.
Schaeder, 13ff.
Tale of Bygone Years, Moscow-Leningrad, 1950, I, 12.
Ibid, 147.
Dyakonov, 61.
RIB, VI, 798–799.
Joseph Volotsky: Enlightener, Kazan, 1896, 30.
PSRL, I, 294–298.
S. Zenkovsky: Rev. Iosif Volotsky and the Josephites, Vestnik RSHD, 1956, XL, 27–28; P.
Fournier: Etudes sur Joachin de Fiore et ses doctrines, Paris, 1909, 17 and P. Rene de Nantes: Histoire des Spirituels, Paris, 1909.
H. H. Rozov: The Tale of the Novgorod White Klobuk, TODRL IX, 181.
Orthodox Interlocutor, 1863, 73.
V. V. Zenkovsky: History of Russian Philosophy, Paris, 1950, I, 48 Malinin, 383 and appendices, 45.
Ibid., 428–443.
Ibid, 442.
Ibid., pp. 56–57 appendices, texts by Philotheus.
I. S. Chaev: Moscow is the Third Rome in the Political Practice of the Moscow Government, Ist. Zap., XVII, 17–22.
Stoglav, Kazan, 1862, 19–20.
Same place, 24.
Ibid, 134.
Ibid., 202–203, Rights. Interview 1872, 731–734 and 1866, II, 148–165, PDPI, CLXXXIII, 28–29, Chr. Thu., 1857, I, 721–722 Macarius, IRC, VI, 40; SGHD, V, 192; DAI, II, 192.
Rozov, uk. op. 209–218.
G. A. Lyatsky, Spiritual poems, St. Petersburg, 1912, 188 and G. P. Fedotov, Spiritual poems, Paris, 1935, 143, 18–19, 106–107.
2. The Time of Troubles and Its Overcoming The creation of the Russian Patriarchate, which raised the authority of the Russian Church and seemed to confirm the doctrine of the special election of Russia to preserve Orthodoxy, preceded the tragic events of the Time of Troubles by only a few years. This severe crisis of the Russian state began immediately after the death of Tsar Theodore, whom the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah called in his letter "the only Christian king in the entire universe." With the death of Tsar Fedor, the Rurik dynasty was interrupted, which for more than seven centuries headed Russian state. The time has come for semi-legitimate and completely illegal tsars and foreign intervention. For several years, not only did the legitimate head of the Russian state cease, but the capital of Russia itself, along with numerous other cities, fell into the hands of foreign invaders. The Polish garrison occupied Moscow, the Swedes - Novgorod, other cities were either in the hands of foreigners or in the hands of Russian traitors and adventurers. After the days of the greatest glorification of Russia came the days of the greatest humiliation and bitter insults to national dignity and the Orthodox faith. Gangs of foreign and Russian robbers burned cities, robbed the population, destroyed churches, tortured and sometimes burned dozens of Russian priests and monks. The methods of Western religious struggle were transferred by Polish and Lithuanian Calvinists, Catholics and Uniates to Russian soil. The Catholics, moreover, applied in Russia the methods of struggle against Orthodoxy that had long been tested in the Commonwealth. Patriarch Hermogenes died of starvation in Moscow, in a Polish prison, and the greatest Russian shrine, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, was besieged by Lithuanian-Polish bands, in which Catholics and Protestants united both in their hatred of Orthodoxy and greed for church riches. It seemed that Russia, only recently proclaimed the most pious land in the world, would follow the example of the first and second Rome and perish, leaving the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox Church without any human protection.
Nine years of the political and ideological tragedy of Russia, which began in 1604, after the entry of the false Dmitry into Russia, and ended in 1613 with the election of Mikhail, could not help but introduce the most severe bewilderment and doubts into the minds and souls of Russian people. What happened to Russia? What causes brought this "most pious kingdom" to the brink of destruction and threatened its continued existence? In the mind of a true and consistent Orthodox person, internal conflict between his faith in the election of Russia for the greatest service to Orthodoxy and doubts about the future of his country, between the theories created by the ideologists of Muscovite Russia and the realities of Russian life, which the Troubles broke out so cruelly and exposed. If only foreigners were responsible for the turmoil, then the internal conflict in the souls of the Russian people would be less acute. But they clearly saw that the turmoil had developed because of the dynastic feuds of the strongest and most noble Russian families, that the most prominent representatives of the Russian aristocracy, only recently, with Patriarch Jeremiah, proclaiming that the Russian people were chosen by God, were now going to the service of the Poles, Swedes, or obscure rogues like the second false - Dmitry, the new husband of the Pole Tsaritsa Marina Mniszek, colloquially referred to by many as the Tushinsky thief. Before their eyes, the princes and boyars betrayed and sold their homeland to foreign pretenders primordially hostile to Russia - the princes of Sweden and Poland, trying to use the misfortunes and hunger of the people for their own benefit.
The most pious Muscovite people, the custodian of Orthodoxy, seemed unable to endure the trials of the dynastic crisis - the first difficult exam of history - sent to them by God.
Those of the Russian people who thought about the fate of their homeland often explained the trials of turmoil as God's punishment for the sins of the country and its rulers. In the works of that time, we constantly come across indications that the Lord punished Orthodox Russia for not observing His commandments, for an insufficiently Christian attitude towards their own Orthodox brothers, for their unwillingness to recognize responsibility for the fate of the country and the church.
One literary monument, by the time of its creation referring to the most difficult years of the Time of Troubles, usually called "History in memory of the existing previous generation," especially clearly depicts these moods of contemporaries of Russian tragedy at the beginning of the 17th century. The “History”, usually attributed to the Kelar of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Avraamy Palitsin, was, in all likelihood, written by another monk of the monastery, most likely by its abbot himself, Archimandrite Dionysius. The author gives a truly Christian analysis of the events of the time and the behavior of Russian society. He frankly declares that Russian people, especially the highest circles of Muscovite Russia, did not behave as Christians should and therefore were punished by the Lord God. Social relations, selfishness, inconsistency of social and class relations with Christian norms, oblivion of duty by boyars and rich people, careless and superficial attitude towards the church are the main themes of the author. He is not interested in the sins and mistakes of individual people, but in the sins of all Russia, the behavior of the whole society, the misdeeds of the entire “Third Rome”, the neglect of the precepts of Christ.
The very election of Boris Godunov to the kingdom in 1598, whom many considered the murderer of Tsarevich Dmitry, the legitimate heir to the throne, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, is considered by the author to be the greatest sin of the boyars and the entire upper ruling stratum of Russia. - “Ole, ole great misfortune,” he says and points out that the election of Godunov as king was a great sin. At the same time, he declares that no one wants to bear responsibility for this terrible election from his point of view. Everyone hides behind the name and will of God, - he says, and adds that those who have chosen "... verbally insanely: God likes it that way, but what is it to us?" For this, the Lord punished Russia, for the "... insane silence" of the entire Russian world, for indifference to the fate of their Orthodox state. Natural disasters began - terrible rains began, all crops died, famine began. But many rich people used this hunger for the purpose of personal enrichment. Many speculated on bread and other edible supplies, and "the profit was taken in tenfold and vases." Others tried to buy the starving into bondage and "many people serve themselves in captivity."
The immoral rich used hunger to force young girls and women into the path of debauchery. The stingy drove old servants out of the house so as not to share supplies with them, and these servants and peasants, who “because they all work in the summer, but in the winter they don’t even have a head to bend over.”
The author sternly analyzes the policies of Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov and points out that although Boris tried to atone for his sins and help the population, these efforts did not earn him God's forgiveness. Ivan the Terrible also had many sins. The author of "History" considers the defeat of Novgorod to be his main sin.
One of the main sins of the entire population of Russia, the author, which apparently is, as indicated above, Archimandrite Dionysius, considers drunkenness. He sharply opposes taverns and their keepers, since, in his opinion, “the taverns are more, drunkenness and murder and fornication are wishers.” Returning to the same topic, he recalls that after the murder of the defrocked - the first impostor - the people of Moscow from the joy of "giving in to drunkenness", instead of serving prayers of gratitude for the liberation from the Poles and their protege. Therefore, "truly, then all of Russia would anger the Lord God Almighty." He treats people who have forgotten their duty to the church and those rich people who spend money on luxury and debauchery, feast with harlots, using "gold and silver ladles", while they give the church "aspen and birch bark vessels" even more strictly.
But the author is especially persistent about the social sins of rich people who oppressed the lower strata of the population and senselessly saved up money, instead of giving the opportunity to use their wealth to "poor people ...". “In all cities throughout Russia, there is a great triumph of money-loving demons,” he mourns, describing the behavior of the boyars and the rich in the reign of Tsar Boris. He calls those who have to help those who have nothing or only very little. Nevertheless, the author of the "History" does not call for a change in the political and social system, but only for its improvement in the spirit of Christ's preaching. Each person has his duty, he writes, his place in society. The master has the right to command the servants, but is obliged to take care of them; the rich man is responsible for all his subordinates - serfs and peasants. But servants and peasants, in turn, are obliged to know their place and their duty and to fulfill it conscientiously. The most important thing for a person is to live according to the laws of the church, correctly using his abilities and his talents. Those who have and are strong for the misuse of power and wealth will be punished by the Lord. - “Oh, insatiable estate,” he finishes his work menacingly, “learn to do good. Do you see the common mortal death? Drive them away, and even you, the most majestic ones, will not suffer a fierce death.”
In these denunciations it is easy to find traditional social topics ancient Russian preachers, church leaders, saints and publicists. Already in the very first translations from Greek, in the ancient Kievan era, Russian church scholars were interested in social problems, and the founder of the social Christian school of St. John Chrysostom. In the so-called "Izbornik of 1073" you can find a lot of discussion on this topic, which is becoming an integral part of Russian Orthodoxy.
Compassion for the poor, condemnation of the strong, who wrongly and un-Christianly uses his wealth, can also be found in St. Kirill Belozersky, and Joseph Volotsky and many other Russian saints. Rev. Joseph Volotsky especially often calls on those in power and wealth to help the unfortunate and, demanding the help of the church from them, does everything that is possible for the poor. No wonder he calls church property the property of the poor, and during the years of famine he sold all the valuables of his monastery to help the starving. He himself not only arranged hospitals, homes for the elderly, schools, but also demanded that the princes do the same. During the years of famine, he insisted on the introduction of firm low prices for bread and other foodstuffs.
The social problem became an even more pressing topic in Russia in the sixteenth century during the reign of Basil III and in the era of changes in the social system under Ivan the Terrible.
The authors of the most diverse trends, such as, for example, Maxim Grek, Vassian Kosoy, the boyar Fyodor Karpov, the priest Sylvester, Yermolai Erasmus and many others spoke more and more stubbornly in the middle of this century about the plight of the Russian peasantry, which at that time amounted to at least 90 -95% of the country's population.
During the years of the Time of Troubles and the national catastrophe, the problem of helping the poor became especially acute, and therefore Dionysius, whom we consider the author of the mentioned accusatory work, tirelessly called on everyone to help his unfortunate brothers in Christ. He not only called, but also personally helped, organizing assistance to the population that lived in the areas of his monastery. Help for the sick and hungry was widely developed in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Dionysius was not alone in this work. Many other monasteries and individuals have done their duty towards their poor and needy brethren. Especially famous is the Christian social work Juliana Osorgina, described in her life. During the years of famine, under Tsar Boris, this noble landowner devoted all her means to the cause of helping the poor and personally cared for the sick, poor and infirm. She worked so hard for her servants and peasants that in the end she strained her strength and died in the year of the beginning of the unrest. Unfortunately, it is not known whether this landowner was familiar with or connected with Archimandrite Dionysius, but both in her work and in the assessment of Russian society by the archimandrite himself, clearly expressed sentiments of social Christianity are reflected.
In the decisive years of the Troubles, when Moscow had already been captured by the Poles, Archimandrite Dionysius did not confine himself to criticizing society and helping those in need. The Trinity-Sergius Lavra, which repelled a long and well-organized attack and siege by the Polish-Lithuanian troops, became a uniting center of Russian national revival and resistance from 1611-1612. Dionysius and his assistants - Avraamiy Palitsin, Ivan Nasedka and others - wrote letters calling on the Russian population to stand up for their faith and fatherland. The West of Russia at that time was captured by the Poles and Swedes; in the south, the forces of anarchy acted in social decay, united around the second impostor, and after his death - around the Cossack leaders - Zarutsky and Trubetskoy. But the north and northeast remained free, and here, on the upper Volga, in the Trans-Volga region and in Pomorie, the calls of the archimandrite go.
In the letters of Dionysius, the same themes are heard that have already been encountered in the above-disassembled, apparently written by him "History" of the Russian national catastrophe. - “God's righteous judgment, for the multiplication of the sins of all Orthodox Christianity,” he writes in his appeals, in past years committed in the Muscovite state, not only between the common Christian people [civil strife], but also suppressed the most akin nature. Father against son, and brother against brother, only-begotten blood was shed in internecine strife. The archimandrite further wrote that heretics and Poles took advantage of the Russian turmoil and, with the help of Russian traitors, captured Moscow, deposed and imprisoned the patriarch, and shed "countless Christian blood." Dionysius called on all Russian people to save Orthodoxy and Russia from the "eternal enslavement of the Latin."
The calls of Dionysius did not go unanswered among the Russian people. Following the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Nizhny Novgorod is the richest city Eastern Russia of that time - he began to call the Russian people to unite in order to organize a rebuff to external and internal Yerags. At the head of the provisional government that was created in Nizhny Novgorod was a representative of the local merchants, "the elected man of the whole earth", butcher Kozma Minin. In turn, his letters demanded from the Russian people “a feat for nothing else, but for the sake of the Christian deliverance, in order to firstly help the Muscovite state against the Polish and Lithuanian people. To inflict together - Lithuania did not take possession of the evidence of the Moscow state and the surrounding cities and did not destroy the peasant faith. Minin's letters expressed a firm conviction that "Moscow will soon be cleansed of Lithuania and many Orthodox peasants from the Latin and Luthor pernicious faiths ... God will deliver."
Kozma Minin turned out to be a brilliant organizer. He managed to unite in one powerful national movement the free peasants of the north, the merchants and bourgeoisie of the Volga and Trans-Volga regions, the nobility of the old center and the new black earth lands of Zaochi. The townspeople and the landowner, in a concerted effort, repelled the external enemy and suppressed the internal turmoil. The armies of Catholic Poland, inspired by the conquest of Russia both by the papacy and by the successes of the counter-reformation in Poland and in the West, were repulsed. The plans of King Sigismund and the Pope to turn Russia into a new province of the Commonwealth and Latin Europe finally failed. In 1612, the people's militia, formed by stubborn Nizhny Novgorod citizens and inspired by the appeals of Dionysius and Avraamy Palitsin, took, under the command of Prince Pozharsky, the capital city of Moscow. The following year, the election of Mikhail Romanov to the throne ended the dynastic turmoil. The struggle with Poland lasted another five years, but in 1618 the Deulino truce led to the refusal of the Catholic Poles from all claims to the subordination of Russia to the Roman throne and the Polish gentry. The Thirty Years' War, which began in the following 1619, finally diverted the attention of the Catholic Counter-Reformation from distant Muscovy. Russia was able to take a break from the terrible years of kingdomlessness, intervention and social anarchy and heal its wounds.
But the Time of Troubles, which almost led to a complete catastrophe of the Russian national existence and the Russian church, could not be forgotten for a long time both by the generation that survived these terrible years, and by their children and grandchildren. The words of Archimandrite Dionisy that the turmoil was caused by "God's righteous judgment for the multiplication of the sins of the entire Orthodox peasantry" sank deep into the soul of the Russian people. All contemporaries of the Time of Troubles, who wrote about the events of this era, repeat these words of Dionysius in their chronicles and memoirs. They can be found in the writings of the clerk Timofeev, Avraamy Palitsin, in the stories of princes Khvorostinin, Shakhovsky, Katyrev-Rostovsky, in the lives of Tulupov and in countless anonymous works by other writers of that time. Many Russian people began to think about how the “only and last Orthodox kingdom” could have come to such a disaster, and what should have been done so that such a catastrophe would not happen again ...
Notes
"History in brief in memory of the previous generation" is usually found in the text of the Tale of Avraamy Palitsyn, although the authorship of Palitsyn in this particular part of the Tale has been repeatedly questioned. O. Druzhinina, who recently republished the Legend, in the opinion of the author of these lines, rightly suggested that "History in memory ...", apparently, belongs to the pen of Dionysius. It can be added to the arguments of O. Druzhinina that the whole theme of social Christianity, which is colored by "History in memory ...", does not at all fit the further ideology of Palitsyn's Tale. Constant references to John Chrysostom, the favorite author of Dionysius, may indicate that this part of the Tale was written by Dionysius.
The Philippics of "History in Memory of ..." against the rich and powerful are very close in style to the writings of Maximus the Greek, whom Archimandrite Dionysius greatly revered and whose books he introduced into the Lavra as materials for monastic reading during meals. Many common themes can be found in "History in memory ...", and in the later sermon of Ivan Neronov, who was a long-time student of Dionysius. Finally, it should be noted that while in the subsequent chapters of the Tale the author, i.e. Palitsyn, all the time mentions himself and "I" is found in the Tale very often in this first chapter of the Tale, in "History in memory ..." " I ”is not found anywhere and it is all written as a treatise, and not a personal memoir. See the Legend of Avraamy Palitsyn, ed. O. Druzhinina, Moscow–Leningrad, 1955 and articles by D. Golokhvastov in Moskvityanin. 1842, IV/VII, 126; A. Gorsky ibid., VI/XII, 421–422, S. I. Kedrov in the Russian Archives, 1886, VIII, 445–455 and S. F. Platonov’s doubts: Old Russian legends and stories about the Time of Troubles of the 17th century as a historical source , St. Petersburg, 1913, 223–228;
also the Canon of Rev. about. n. Dionysius, p. 10 ff.
Legend, 252.
Ibid, 254.
Ibid, 256.
Ibid., 258, 264, 278.
Ibid, 259.
Ibid, 279.
Malinin. Applications 144 and S. Zenkovsky: Rev. Joseph, uk. cit., 28.
Life of Yuliania Lazarevskaya in N. Gudziy: Reader of Ancient Russian Literature, Moscow, 1962, 345–351 and in TODRL, VI.
See the classic work by S. F. Platonov on the Russian turmoil: Essays on the history of turmoil in the Muscovite state of the XVI-XVII centuries Moscow, 1937.
On the influence of arch. Dionysius on the development of national resistance, see Hellenic Chronicler: Otechestvennye Zapiski, 1844, 32.
Messages from arch. Dionysius to Kazanians and other cities, AAE, II, 238–230 and SGGD, II, 577–579; Canon Rev. about. to our Dionysius, 98-100.
Actions Kom., II, 167.
There. Unsubscribe from Nizhny Novgorod to Vologda, 126–127.
The role of the papal throne in Russia is analyzed in detail by P. Pierling, S. J.: Rome et Demetrius, Paris, 1878, 149-150, 195-196 and La Russie et la Saint Siege, Paris, 1901, III, 41, 79, 86, 361, 383.
RIB, XIII, 32, 216, 223–224, 532–533, 581, 860, etc., I. Timofeev: Vremennik, Moscow, 1951, 91. Piskarevsky Chronicler: Materials on the History of the USSR, Moscow, 1955, II , 105.
3. Trials of the Orthodox East
Overcoming the turmoil and the Polish-Catholic intervention in Russia was the only joyful event in the life of the Orthodox East at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The struggle between Rome and Protestantism was not limited at this time to the sphere of the traditional Latin-Catholic world of the Middle Ages. Both Catholics and Protestants involved in their internal strife significant groups of both the Orthodox population of the Polish-Lithuanian state, and the Orthodox of the former Byzantine Empire, who fell under the rule of the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. Moreover, the Polish-Catholic intervention in Orthodox Moscow Russia was not an accidental phenomenon, not an isolated fact in the history of militant and resurgent Catholicism.
The waves of the reformation and then the counter-reformation movement seemed to finally break the line of demarcation between Eastern and Western Christianity and made the Orthodox world part of the arena of their fratricidal struggle. The situation was especially difficult and complicated in Poland, where the Orthodox Church found itself in a very difficult situation. plight already in the second half of the sixteenth century, when a stubborn struggle broke out there between Protestants and Catholics.
Calvinism was the first major Protestant trend that captured large groups of the population in the Polish-Lithuanian state, especially the aristocracy and nobility. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the Calvinists were energetically assisted by the largest Lithuanian magnate, Prince Nikolai Radziwill, Calvinism, within just a few years, became the main religion of the entire northwestern part of the Grand Duchy, where the population still preserved the Lithuanian language. But other central, eastern and southern provinces of Lithuania, completely populated by the Russian Orthodox population, were also strongly influenced by Calvinist preachers. True, the common people, peasants and townspeople almost everywhere remained faithful to Orthodoxy, but the aristocracy and "pans" - large, although often untitled rich nobles - in a number of voivodeships almost completely converted to the faith of the Genevan theocrat. Local Poles, Catholics, led by the Bishop of Kyiv, Nikolai Pats, also followed the example of the Russian and Lithuanian nobility and converted to Protestantism in masses. Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and even English Calvinist preachers flooded the whole country, opened schools, published religious pamphlets and books, persuaded the nobility who converted to Calvinism or still hesitant to close Orthodox and, it is true, rare in Lithuania, Catholic churches or turn them into Calvinistic churches. prayer houses. In 1562, the first Russian edition of Calvin's catechism was published. How decisive was the success of Calvinism in the Polish-Lithuanian state, can be seen from the religious statistics of Novogrudok Voivodeship and Central Belarus. Six hundred and fifty Orthodox churches were closed or converted to Calvinist churches there. In the same voivodeship, of the 600 richest Russian noble families, only sixteen remained faithful to the faith of their ancestors. Such major noble families, such as: Vishnevetsky, Sapieha, Oginsky, Khodkevich, Puzin, Slutsky, Zawishy - joined the Calvinists.
Following the Calvinists, the most radical representatives of Protestantism - anti-Trinitarians, or as they were called there - Unitarians, Arians or Socinians, penetrate into the Polish-Lithuanian state. The last name - Socinians - comes from the surnames of Lellius and Faust Socins - Italian followers of Servetus, and in Poland it has become a particularly common name for anti-trinitarians. The Socinians, who at first divided into numerous sects, under the influence of the persistent efforts of Faust Socinus at the councils of 1584 and 1588. united into one powerful church. At the end of the 16th century, they were already successfully competing not only with Catholics and Orthodox, but also with Calvinists, who were somewhat weakened after the death of Nikolai Radziwill, which followed in 1581.
The government of King Sigismund Augustus (1548-1572) not only did not fight the spread of Protestantism, but, on the contrary, encouraged it, and the king himself even called on the Sejm and the Pope to reform the church. His successors, Henry of France and Stefan Batory, are no more active in the religious struggle than Sigismund August, and only when the Swedish prince Sigismund Vasa (1586–1632), well known under the name of Sigismund III, came to the Polish throne, as the organizer of the Catholic Polish intervention in Russia during the Time of Troubles, the Polish-Lithuanian government begins to support the counter-reformation.
The successes of the Catholic reaction were no less rapid and spectacular than the recent actions of the Protestants. In the person of the brilliant preacher and organizer Piotr Skarga, the Catholicism of Poland and Lithuania found an intelligent and stubborn leader. At the same time, the Jesuits, who appeared in Lithuania in 1569, gave cadres of fighters against Protestants and Orthodox ... Jesuit schools and academies, public debates and religious celebrations very quickly not only returned the nobility and aristocracy to the bosom of the Roman Church, but also significantly strengthened its authority in the people. Where preaching and persuasion did not work, pressure and violence were used. The result, in any case, seemed to justify the means, and by the end of the 17th century. Protestantism was almost crushed, and Orthodoxy was greatly weakened.
If in 1570, in the so-called Lesser Poland, in its southern regions, from Krakow to Kyiv, the Protestants had two thousand churches, then by the beginning of the 18th century there were only eight of them. The nobility and aristocracy were especially quick to succumb to the influence of the Jesuit schools. We can say that at the end of the XVI and early XVII century, they were as quickly succumbed to the influence of Catholic preachers and well-organized Jesuit schools, as only 50 years ago they were carried away by Calvinism, and then Arianism. Polish, Russian and Lithuanian nobles and aristocrats were equally affected by this new religious and intellectual influence, but for the Russian "lords"
and nobles, this consistent Protestantization, and then Romanization, led to a separation from Orthodoxy and its spiritual tradition, which was tantamount to the loss of a national face and separation from the Orthodox masses. The new schools educated young people not only in the spirit of devotion to the Latin Church, but also in the spirit of Polish culture and the Polish noble tradition.
The position of the nobility in Poland has always been more privileged than in Western Russia. When Poland and Lithuania became one state in 1569, the Russian and Lithuanian nobles did everything possible to introduce Polish relations between landlords and serfs in the Russian-Lithuanian lands and achieve the introduction of Polish noble rights. The social and religious Polonization of the Russian nobility led to the fact that the Russian population of the Western Territory was left without a national leadership. And soon the example of the nobles was followed by the bishops of the Orthodox Church, who envied the privileged position of the Catholic bishops. Seduced and put under pressure by the Polish state apparatus, the Russian bishops at the Brest Cathedral in 1596 decided to recognize the primacy of the pope and conclude a union with Rome. As in the time of the noble fashion for Protestantism, so now the simple Western Russian people - townspeople and peasants - have remained faithful to Orthodoxy. They organized fraternities and gave money for schools and printing houses. These brotherhoods existed among the population of Western Russia since the 15th century, but only at the end of the 16th century did they become a real and influential force. They sometimes included entire parishes, and in 1620 hetman Sahaidachny joined the Lviv brotherhood with the entire Little Russian Cossack army.
The Orthodox hierarchy was restored in Western Russia already in 1620, but persecution and persecution did not stop. The Catholic Polish authorities closed churches, forbade the clergy to serve in them, and did not recognize the legal existence of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania and Poland. In their eyes, only the Uniate Church had the right to represent the Orthodox population, or, as they called it, the "former" Orthodox population of Western Russia.
The Western Russian church intelligentsia, which did not compromise with its conscience, stubbornly fought against the union, and its representatives did not hesitate to accuse their former Orthodox, but now Uniate, episcopate of betraying Orthodoxy.
Ivan Vyshensky, one of the brightest writers of Little Russia, recalled the words of the Apostle Paul: “... ferocious wolves will enter your midst, not sparing the herd” and added, addressing the bishops: “didn’t you get into the herd, weren’t you those ferocious wolves ?... don't you feel sorry for the flock? Describing the life and psychology of the changed bishops, he noted:
... “The Bishop of Kholm, when he lived in Lutsk, fed his heart with Saxon and Magdeburg law, and now, if he became a bishop and got servants for himself”, “also Grigorko, if he was a nobleman Rogozin and did not have a boy, and now if he is now He became a biskup, wide in the womb, voluptuous in the throat, the highest in thought, the richest in prosperity, and the most contented in servants.
For his part, another writer of Western Russia equated the departure of the episcopate from Orthodoxy with the triumph of Antichrist over Christianity. Developing the theme, so popular in the Protestant West, of the betrayal of Rome to Christianity and the triumph of the Antichrist on the papal throne, and interpreting the predictions of the Orthodox Church Father, Cyril of Jerusalem, about the end of the world, Stefan Zizanius wrote that the Antichrist would come from the West, that the Pope of Rome was the personification of the forces Antichrist and even indicates that the final victory of the forces of evil and the complete victory of the Antichrist will occur in the eighth millennium, i.e., in 1492-2492. The third prominent writer of Western Russia, Zakhary Kopystyansky, in his book "Palladies", written in 1620, predicts that the coming of the Antichrist will occur exactly in 1666, since 666 was considered by many interpreters of the Bible as the number of the beast - Antichrist.
Information about the tragic situation of the Russian Church in the Polish-Lithuanian state easily penetrated into Russia, especially after the Deulino truce (in 1618), when many Russian prisoners, including the father of the tsar, the metropolitan, and later the patriarch, Filaret returned to Moscow. Filaret believed that pure Orthodoxy had completely dried up in Western Russia along with the hierarchy. At the church council of 1620, he insisted on the re-baptism of immigrants from Western Russia. He substantiated his opinion by the fact that there, in the same family, very often "one is a Christian, another is a Latin, the third is a Lutheran or Calvinists, Anabaptists and Arians ...". Russian people in Moscow and other cities of the Russian state read the books of Zizaniy, Kopystyansky and Vyshensky; individual excerpts from the works of these first authors were so successful in Russia that they were even partially reprinted in 1644, in the so-called "Cyril Book".
No more joyful news came to Russia about the situation of the once powerful and proud, but now destitute and deprived of the strength of the spirit of the Greek Church.
After the Muslims conquered the former lands of the Byzantine Empire and the Slavic states in the Balkans, almost the entire population of Syria and Asia Minor and significant groups of the Orthodox population in Macedonia, Greece, Bosnia and Bulgaria converted to Islam. Catholic and Protestant propaganda, for their part, from the middle of the sixteenth century tried to win over the souls of the Orthodox, who were under the Muslim yoke.
Since the beginning of the Reformation, several Protestant leaders, including Melanchthon, James Andrea and Martin Crusius, have tried to unite with the Orthodox Church. A letter from Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople dated June 6, 1581, sent to the theologians of the University of Tübingen, greatly undermined these hopes, since the patriarch declared that, given the existing disagreements, the union of Protestants and the Eastern Church was impossible. Nevertheless, meetings of Protestants and Orthodox continued in the Polish-Lithuanian state and in the Middle East and even in Russia, where the preacher Rokita came to propagate his ideas as early as 1570. In Lithuania, Orthodox-Protestant councils took place in Torun and Vilna, in 1595 and 1599. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century, both Protestants and Catholics made several persistent attempts to convert the Patriarch of Constantinople to their faith, which was partially crowned with success. For his part, Patriarch Kirill Loukaris spoke sincerely in favor of an agreement with the Protestants. Even before his consecration to the patriarchs, he was the rector Orthodox school in Vilna, he was in Lithuania one of the main supporters of the struggle against the Catholics and the alliance with the Protestants at the councils of 1595-1599. Having become patriarch in 1612, he became close to the Calvinists of Constantinople from the Dutch legation. In the capital of Turkey, two violent parties were formed, subsidized by foreign embassies. The Habsburg ambassador R. Schmidt, who was at the head of the Catholic forces, and the Dutch consul Cornelius Haga, who led the Calvinists, spared no expense to bribe the Turks and with their help put the candidate they wanted on the throne of the patriarch. A stubborn and cruel struggle flared up, costing the lives of at least two patriarchs. Cyril Loukaris over the years - from 1612-1638 - was deposed seven times and replaced by other patriarchs. His main opponent, the pro-Catholic Patriarch Cyril Kontaris of Berea, was overthrown three times over the years - 1633–1639. In total, over the years - 1595-1657 - in Constantinople there were more than forty changes on the patriarchal throne, caused exclusively by religious struggle and personal intrigues. But the main scandal flared up when, in 1628, the catechism of Lucaris came out, in which he expounded his views on faith in a strict Calvinist spirit. The Catechism of Lucaris made the impression of a bomb in the West and became a "best seller" for several years, withstanding many Latin, Dutch, French and English editions. Bishop Morton of Durham even appealed to the Lutherans, advising them, “following the example of the Orthodox patriarch,” to join Calvinism. Lucaris himself indirectly denied his authorship in this catechism and wrote in 1635 in Vilna: "Know that we faithfully adhere to the dogma of the Eastern Orthodox Church, our mother."
Nevertheless, it is still difficult to understand how he himself understood the Orthodox teaching. His autograph of the catechism and personal letters testify that he adhered to Calvinist rather than Orthodox views.
In the end, under the influence of Catholics and Orthodox dissatisfied with him, the Turks exiled and later strangled Lukaris. Cyril Kontaris from Berea ascended the throne, shortly before that he had promised the Caesar's ambassador to convert to Catholicism. Indeed, on December 15, 1638, he secretly converted to the Roman faith, but this secret was soon revealed and the demonstrations of the Greeks forced him to leave power in 1639. On the way to Rome, he stopped in Tunis, where he died, refusing to accept the bey's offer to convert to Islam.
Cyril Kontaris of Berea was not the first Patriarch of Constantinople who, after the Union of Florence, tried to bring the Eastern Church closer to the Roman Church. Already in 1612, Patriarch Neophytos was inclined towards a union with Rome and invited Fr.
Kandillaka, - the head of the Jesuits of Turkey. And in 1634, Patriarch Pantellaris even went on a visit to the pope, although the latter never received him, not knowing what ceremonies should be started to receive the head of the Eastern Church.
II. Beginning of a new sermon
4. Dionysius and the tradition of St. John Chrysostom Although Muscovite Russia emerged from the participation in the religious strife of Catholic-Protestant Europe imposed on it more safely than the Orthodox East and the Russian population of the Polish-Lithuanian state, nevertheless, this victory over foreigners and the Time of Troubles did not lead to the spiritual healing of the people and the Russian Church. The enthusiasm and pathos of 1611-1613 did not pass on to the government that came to power after the election of the tsar and took the reins of government from the hands of the leaders of the national resistance. This was not surprising, since most of the leaders and ideologists militia, who took Moscow and prepared the election of a new tsar, very soon remained completely out of work. The leaders of the militia and their spiritual inspirers, such as Kozma Minin, Prince Pozharsky and Archimandrite Dionysius, were new and inexperienced people in politics, little skilled in administration and intrigues, and therefore not even a few years had passed, as they were not only completely removed from power, but also almost forgotten by their little grateful contemporaries. Instead, the throne was surrounded by professional politicians and intriguers, courtiers, boyars, clerks of Moscow orders, representatives of the highest Moscow nobility, clever church hierarchs and, of course, close relatives of the young Tsar Mikhail Romanov. They again took over the highest command posts in the Muscovite state, exhausted by the Time of Troubles, and, as before, they thought mainly about their own selfish interests.
Calls not to forget about the Christian duty and the precepts of the church, to fear the wrath of God and to fulfill the duties of the Orthodox were preserved only in chronicles and documents, and in the hearts of Russian people, mainly from among those who stood very far from power.
Archimandrite Dionysius, who apparently had a good understanding of human psychology, no longer called the country to either sacrifice or Christian repentance. Relegated and withdrawn from participation in public affairs, he now focused on the management of the Lavra and book work. He read a lot and especially carefully studied his favorite writers - St. John Chrysostom and Maximus the Greek. Already in the years of the Troubles, the calls and deeds of Dionysius, undoubtedly, were influenced by the inspired works of the largest of the Byzantine preachers - St. John, who denounced immorality and money-grubbing. John Chrysostom has always been the most popular writer in Ancient Russia, and his writings have been constantly translated into Russian since the introduction of Christianity.
Hundreds of translations of his sermons and his other writings have survived to this day in countless ancient Russian manuscripts, and there was not a single thinker or writer in pre-Petrine Russia who was not familiar with or did not fall under the influence of the great Antiochene. He was especially close to Dionysius, since the Trinity-Sergius Archimandrite, just like Chrysostom himself, first of all dreamed of creating a truly Christian society, fought for the high morality of the laity and the clergy, and highly valued those feelings of Christian compassion and solidarity that could now be would be called Christian sociality. The Years of Troubles further increased Dionysius's interest in the works of Chrysostom, and in his monastery he introduced regular reading of his writings during prayer meetings and meals of the brethren. Interest in the great Antiochian and his spiritual and social teaching, apparently, aroused the interest of Dionysius in the works of Maximus the Greek, who spent his last years in the Lavra, where he died.
A Greek by birth, who came to Russia almost a hundred years before the Time of Troubles, Maxim in his youth witnessed the Renaissance and the beginning of the pre-reformation events in Italy. In Russia, where he died in the middle of the 16th century, he became famous as the greatest theologian and thinker of his new homeland.
The common love for John Chrysostom, many of whose works were translated into Russian by Maxim, undoubtedly brought Dionysius closer to this outstanding Greek-Russian scientist and writer. Also close should have been Dionysius and the bold voice of Maxim's denunciations, his tireless defense of the poor and unfortunate, his condemnation of the love of money and greed, his calls for the defense of Orthodoxy. In many speeches of Dionysius, in his uncompromising approach to the issue of morality, Christian responsibility and the defense of the church, both the voice of Maximus the Greek himself and his famous spiritual teacher, the Florentine accuser Savonarola, are heard. Maximus began his spiritual career in the same monastery where Jerome Savonarola lived and preached - just a few years after the latter's death - and throughout his life he was devoted to the memory of the fiery Florentine. In the “Terrible History” written by him already in Russia, Maxim describes in vivid and sympathetic words the life, preaching and death of this preacher of Christian asceticism, a sharp opponent of atheism and secularization of the pagan Renaissance, a tireless exposer of the moral decay of the church hierarchy. The death of Savonarola at the stake as a result of his denunciation of the abuses of the Roman church hierarchy of that time could only arouse the sympathy for him of Dionysius and those Russians who themselves suffered from Catholic intervention and papal aspirations to impose the Latin faith on Russia in the most difficult years Troubles. The fearlessness in the struggle for the faith and the martyrdom of the Florentine monk, his desire to raise the discipline of the clergy, his desire to morally cleanse his flock and the entire church from temptation should have seemed to both Dionysius and other readers of the Terrible History a worthy example in their own efforts for the spiritual. the revival of the people. Indeed, in his moods, Savonarola was much closer to Maximus the Greek and Dionysius than to the Catholic thought of the beginning of the 16th century, infected with the spirit of the secularizing Renaissance. But, despite his sincere enthusiasm for John Chrysostom and Maximus the Greek, Dionysius could no longer find either the strength or suitable circumstances to resume his preaching of the Christian revival of the country, as John Chrysostom and Savonarola did. Of course, this was hindered most of all by the arrest and imprisonment of the most elderly archimandrite in 1618-1619, when he was accused of maliciously distorting liturgical books, the verification of which was entrusted to him by the tsar and church authorities. Companions of Dionysius in the church hierarchy and representatives of the episcopate, who forgot the merits of the archimandrite during the Time of Troubles, and, probably, irritated by his gentleness with people, his spiritual beauty and steadfastness in matters of faith, accused him of heretical treatment of liturgical prayer texts.
Dionysius was brought before the ecclesiastical court and sentenced to imprisonment, in which he was in exceptionally difficult conditions. He was released only in 1619, when the father of Tsar Michael, Metropolitan Filaret, who returned from Polish captivity, interceded for him, who soon became patriarch. But if Dionysius was not destined to become a reformer of the Russian church and start preaching a church revival, then she gave him a worthy disciple who found enough strength and courage in himself to take on this difficult task. This disciple, to whom Dionysius showed the path outlined earlier by John Chrysostom, turned out to be a young native of Vologda, who, having fled from his own enemies and pursuers, found shelter in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Ivan Neronov, as this young Vologda man was called, soon launched the largest religious movement in Russian history.
The results of this movement, built on the teachings of John Chrysostom and Maximus the Greek, as well as on the example of Dionysius himself and, perhaps, Jerome Savonarola, affected everything further development Russian history.
The monks of the famous Trinity-Sergius Lavra saw many zealous pilgrims in their lifetime, but, apparently, the prayer of a young wanderer-psalmist who came here in the early 1620s was especially fervent, which attracted their special attention. One of the monks was especially struck by the sincerity and tension of this deep prayer, accompanied by tears, took pity on the young psalmist, asked about his sorrows and the reason for his tears, and allowed him to spend the night in the monastery. The next day he took him to the abbot himself, Archimandrite Dionysius. Young Ivan Neronov, that was the name of this psalmist, apparently made a very good impression on the archimandrite too. Dionysius took him under his protection, “commanded him to stay in his cell” and made him his servant. According to his life, Neronov was born around 1590 in a small monastery of St. Savior “on Loma”, in “sixty fields” from the northern Russian city of Vologda. In those days, this part of Russia was called the Trans-Volga region and from the end of the 14th century it was known for its monasteries and sketes, founded by people from the monastery of the Holy Trinity, the current Trinity-Sergius Lavra, founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, the monks of these Trans-Volga monasteries and sketes, usually known as the Trans-Volga Elders, were known not only for their contemplative life and mystical tradition, but also for their pioneering work in the settlement and development of the Russian North.
Among such stubborn monks in work and prayer and strict in their personal lives, apparently, belonged the elder Ignatius, who founded the Skete of the Holy Savior. His skete gradually grew into a small settlement, to which Ivan Neronov's parents also came. Since Elder Ignatius allowed new settlers to settle near his skete and did not leave them, it can be assumed that, while founding his skete, although he sought peace from worldly storms, he still continued to love people and was glad to help them with his experience and spiritual word. .
While living in his native skete and in all likelihood under the influence of the example of Fr.
Ignatius, his relatives and neighbors, Neronov developed two important character traits:
moral and ascetic firmness and a sense of inextricable connection with people and the world. During the Troubles or immediately after the Troubles, his relatives died in the skete, and Ivan, soon leaving the skete, went to Vologda. His family most likely died after an attack by one of the then frequent wandering bands of Poles, Lithuanians or Cossacks, who during and after the Time of Troubles robbed and killed the population in almost all regions of Russia. So, for example, in 1612 a gang of Cossacks and Poles attacked Vologda, killing 37 priests, 6 deacons and 6 monks here. The arrival of Neronov in Vologda was unsuccessful.
On the street he met a group of disguised mummers, who, according to the old, more pagan than Christian custom, had a merry Christmas day. Brought up in strict respect for the holidays, “the lad John was kindled in spirit and began to rebuke with boldness” the mummers, among whom, by the way, were the episcopal servants.
The bishop’s servants, dissatisfied with the remarks and reproaches of the young man, beat him up… It is difficult to say whether Neronov’s moralistic career as a preacher really began with a collision with episcopal servants who had little respect for church holidays, or whether his biographer deliberately introduced this characteristic detail with an anti-hierarchical flavor into his life… In any case, this clash was quite in the style of Neronov's later life and symbolically illuminates his future activities. Unfortunately, information about the early years of Neronov's life cannot be verified, since the only material characterizing the life of this time is his life.
Only around midnight Ivan came to his senses after the beating and then went to Ustyug, where he learned to read and write, but he did not stay there for a long time and went further, to the Volga, where he temporarily settled in the village of Nikolsky-Sobolev. Here he married Evdokia, daughter of the local priest Ivan, and then soon became a clerk in one of the local churches.
For a simple and little learned Vologda citizen, this was already a successful start to his career, but he was not interested in worldly success and money. He felt obligated to serve the cause of the church.
He could not bear the discrepancy between the word of Christ and the way of life of those who called themselves His followers and ministers. The depraved life and especially the drunkenness of the local population and the clergy deeply resented him, and therefore this young clerk, who was at the lowest level of the church hierarchy, began to denounce the laity and the priesthood, their “drunkenness for the sake of and much outrage.” Quite naturally, neither the priests, nor the clergy, nor the parishioners of the churches of Nikolsky-Sobolev wanted to endure these denunciations and, in turn, opposed him. As a result of sharp clashes, the young moralist had to leave or even run away from the village. The constant connection of Nikolsky with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra suggested to Neronov where he could turn for help and advice, and, of course, he was not mistaken in going to the monastery of Archimandrite Dionysius.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra was not only the most significant religious center in Russia, but also one of the most important places for the development of Russian culture and literature. Some literary historians even talk about the poetic school of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in the 20s of that century. Abraham Palitsyn, who was an employee of the archimandrite during the Time of Troubles and a talented author of the already mentioned “Tale”, was just writing this work in the Lavra in the 1920s. Prince Ivan Khvorostinin, the creator of the first significant Russian poetic work - a theological poem with more than three thousand rhymed lines - lived out his life there and, apparently, wrote a number of his other works there. Among other writers of the Lavra literary school of those years, Ivan Nasedka, a friend of Dionysius, an apologist for Orthodoxy and a capable poet, and Simon Azaryin, who wrote the life of Archimandrite Dionysius and several other prose and poetic works, should be noted. All of them were the initiators of Russian poetry and representatives of the intellectual elite of Muscovite Russia of that time.
Probably, Neronov often met with many of them, but he spent especially much time with his beloved abbot of the monastery. “John lives in a cell for a long time with the venerable archimandrite,” says the compiler of his life, “constantly reading the books of divine Scripture.” One can easily imagine that the works of John Chrysostom and the theological works of Maximus the Greek, favorite writers of Dionysius, occupied an honorable place in the list of books read by him and were read with special reverence and attention. The sermon of John Chrysostom, which severely attacked the vices of any society, was undoubtedly close and understandable to Ivan, who had already tried his talents and abilities.
In Maxim, he found, as it were, a program for his possible pastoral and preaching activities, since all the topical issues of Russian life were dealt with in his works. A firm emphasis on faith, the denial of all doubts about the truth of church teaching and all philosophical speculation were the main theses of the teachings of Maximus, who personally became acquainted in Italy with the corrupting influence of Renaissance thinking directed against faith.
As if following the words of Savonarola, who said:
“Some people have been so influenced by the Greek and Roman classics that they don’t want to see anything, that they don’t agree with them [i.e., the classics],” Maxim the Greek, in turn, wrote: “Go mentally into Italian schools and you will see powerful streams of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle there. You will see that no dogmas are taken into account there, unless these dogmas are proved by syllogisms. Elsewhere, Maximus the Greek, who feared not only a secularized philosophy that fell under the influence of pre-Christian thinkers, but also a science liberated from Christian attitudes, wrote:
“Some of the secular sciences are good and necessary for human existence, but most of them are harmful and hide destruction in themselves.” Speaking about the reasoning of philosophers, Maxim noted that “they are mistaken, because they are engaged not in internal, religious, God-given philosophy, but mainly in formal dialectical methods.” No less sharply, Maxim the Greek attacked representatives of other religious movements. Jews, Armenians, Protestants and Muslims are subjected to rather harsh, but logically quite well-founded criticism of their religious beliefs. He was much softer towards Catholics, apparently recalling with gratitude the time he spent in the Dominican monastery, from which, as already indicated, Savonarola himself came out. His sharp attitude towards other faiths and towards non-religious philosophy also reflects to a large extent the fanaticism and devotion characteristic of the Dominicans to the cause of protecting the faith.
But even with regard to the Catholics, with whom he apparently broke in Italy, he finds a few harsh words: deserve excommunication and damnation." In the works of Maxim the Greek, Neronov could find answers to other topics and problems that worried him. Strict condemnation of pagan survivals, buffoons, astrology, all these manifestations of a non-Christian and dangerous culture for the faith of an inexperienced Christian, were analyzed and strictly condemned by Maxim. The end of the world, the problem of the Antichrist, the correlation of the Orthodox world with the non-Orthodox and the non-Orthodox, the essence of faith - Maxim gave a clear and logically justified answer to all these questions. Sometimes his words touched on small but topical issues, such as beards; sometimes he dealt with complex social issues, such as the protection of the poor, the limitation of wealth, the abuses of the Orthodox episcopate, and his unchristian preoccupation with wealth. Nero was able to find on the pages of the writings of Maxim and the favorite hero of this theologian.
The life and work of this fearless Florentine, a preacher of the word of God, he described as follows:
“...He began to teach the word of God in the church,” Maxim wrote about Jerome Savonarola, “with all sorts of wise reasoning and explanations of the books of God ... soon all the people fell in love with him and begged him to go to the cathedral and begin to teach the people the word of God ... and most of people fell in love with his firm and saving teaching. The great ascetic, richly endowed with love for God, began to struggle with immorality, covetousness and oblivion of God…” The following words of Maxim could especially touch Neronov’s religious soul: “I think even then he decided, if necessary, to die for the piety and glory of God. … for if the fire of devotion to God ignites in someone, then he is ready not only to renounce all property, but also to sacrifice himself.”
Publishing house of the Belarusian Zkzarhat
October 13 within the framework of the Orthodox fair "Pokrovsky kirmash" in Minsk, a presentation of a new edition " Publishers of the Belarusian Exarchate».
The first volume of the famous work of the famous historian and philologist, professor at Vanderbilt University Sergei Alexandrovich Zenkovsky(1907-1990)" Russian Old Believers» presented by the editor of the publishing house, Bachelor of Theology Viktor Popov.
The work of S.A. Zenkovsky is important for us primarily because it contributes to a more thoughtful understanding those reasons that generated the tragedy of the split and opportunities for dialogue.
What is the real reason for the split?
Are only old Russian scribes really to blame?
Was the split really breakaway from the church, or an internal break in the church itself?
S. A. Zenkovsky managed to publish during his lifetime only the first volume of his unique research. It was published in Munich in 1790, in Moscow in 1991 its reprint reproduction appeared. The author did not have time to complete the second part of the study (XVII-XIX centuries), but on the whole it was completely thought out by him.
Much has been written about the Russian Old Believers. But the work of S.A. Zenkovsky is unique in depth of research and objectivity of conclusions.
S.A. Zenkovsky convincingly refuted“a very unfounded opinion” that “when copying liturgical books, ancient Russian scribes made many mistakes and distortions of the text, which over time became an integral part of the Russian liturgical rite.” And indeed, it was necessary to have absolutely no idea about the reverent attitude towards the liturgical texts of the scribes of the pre-Nikon time in order to assert such a thing.
A detailed study of the works of researchers of the Old Believers in the second half of the 19th century. (A.P. Shchapova, N.M. Kostomarova, N.I. Subbotina, N.F. Kaptereva, A.K. Borozdin, E.E. Golubinsky, etc.) led the author to the idea that the statement of a prominent industrialist and old believer V.P. Ryabushinsky, expressed by him in the work "Old Believers and Russian Religious Feeling" about "that the split was not due to a dispute about the rite, but because of disagreements about the spirit of faith».
But the spirit of faith had nothing to do with "... the communal opposition of the tax-paying Zemstvo, the masses of the people against the entire state system - church and civil" (A.P. Shchapov "Zemstvo and Schism"). Exactly as opposition, allies in their revolutionary struggle A. Herzen and N. Ogaryov tried to use the Old Believers with the Russian monarchy. This should not be forgotten even today, when opponents of the Russian Orthodox Church are trying to use the modern Old Believers as "alternative Orthodoxy."
S.A. Zenkovsky reminds the reader that “the fact that it was the Old Believers who preserved and developed the doctrine of the special historical path of the Russian people, "Holy Russia", the Orthodox "Third Rome" and that, to a large extent, thanks to them, these ideas again already in the 19th century. interested and still excite Russian minds.
The "Russian Old Believers" for the first time shows the connection between the pre-Nikon movements in Russian Orthodoxy and the later division of the Old Believers into priesthood and non-priesthood.
The connection between the conservative "truly Old Believer" movement, "the first leaders of which were the old God-lovers, who remained faithful to the main canons of Orthodoxy even after the split in the church" and modern "priests" on the one hand, and the movement of "forest elders", which also began in 1630- th years, but very different from traditional Orthodoxy in its eschatology, and modern "priestless" - on the other.Understanding reasons and prerequisites for separation in the Old Believers themselves in the past is very important for finding and determining ways to unite it today, split, although not into four as before, but still, into two main currents.
And finally, it is very important to conclude that “… The split was not breakaway from the church a significant part of its clergy and laity, but a genuine internal rupture in the church itself...».
The work of S.A. Zenkovsky is important for us because it contributes to a more thoughtful understanding those reasons that generated the tragedy of the split and the development of dialogue.
S.A. Zenkovsky completed work on the “Russian Old Believers” in 1969, that is, two years before the decisions of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1971. completely changed the attitude of Russian Orthodoxy to the Orthodox Old Believers.
The most enlightened hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Those who took possible actions to eliminate obstacles to the healing of the schism understood that the mediastinum that arose in connection with the oath determinations of the Councils of 1656 and 1667 must be eliminated. On this basis, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917-18. outlined a number of important steps towards the gradual healing of the wound of the schism, but the era of atheistic suppression that followed made it difficult to carry out the work begun.And still,
Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1971:
- confirmed orthodoxy of liturgical books that were in use before Nikon;
- testified the saving power of old Russian rites;
- rejected reprehensible expressions about the old rites and abolished the oath prohibitions of 1656 and 1667. on the old rites and on the Orthodox Old Believers who adhere to them “as if they had not been”.
Once again, let us read the inspired words of the Local Council of 1971, given in the "Deed on the abolition of oaths on the old rites and on those who adhere to them":
“The Consecrated Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church embraces with love all those who sacredly preserve the ancient Russian rites, both members of our Holy Church and those who call themselves Old Believers, but who piously profess the saving Orthodox faith…”.
The hearts of many with gratitude to God accepted this good news.
Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church 1988 of the year
reaffirmed this deed and in an appeal “to all Orthodox Christians who adhere to the old rites and who do not have prayerful communion with the Moscow Patriarchate,” he called them “brethren and brothers and sisters of the same faith.”
BUT in October 2000 ROCOR Bishops' Council
addressed the Old Believers with a message expressing deep regret “about the cruelties that were inflicted on adherents of the old rite, about those persecutions by the civil authorities, which were inspired by some of our predecessors in the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROCOR bishops proclaimed their deep desire to heal the wound inflicted on the Church and restore full communion with those who seek to preserve the old rite in the bosom of the Russian Church.
On the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2004 the attention of the conciliar mind of the Church was again drawn to the most difficult and centuries-old general church task - healing the consequences of the Russian church schism! 7th century.
As you can see, the ROC MP strives to honestly and consistently walk its part of the path to the God-given world.
Today in the Russian Orthodox Church there is an obvious “intrachurch demand for antiquity”, which is manifested in a craving for the traditional way of life, znamenny singing, ancient forms of wooden architecture, the use of ancient episcopal vestments in worship, etc. This leads to an increase in the number of Old Believer parishes in the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially in large cities, where members of some church communities themselves show an inclination to use elements of traditional, "pre-Convention" church culture. The number of Old Believer parishes in the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church is also increasing at the expense of Old Believer communities (more often non-priestly consents), which pass into the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church, but want to preserve the old features of worship and old books.
As for relations of the Russian Orthodox Church with the main Old Believer agreements (the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, the Russian Old Orthodox Church, associations of communities of Pomeranian bespriests), then here on the part of the Old Believers there are completely polar opinions. From completely loyal to complete denial of the possibility of any dialogue and rapprochement, not to mention unity.
I think that based on opposing opinions on the issue of dialogue and unification of the Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church lie two completely various points vision from which the Russian Orthodox Church is considered.
For someone Russian Orthodox Church
- this is still the same Church of 1666, persecuting everyone who did not accept "Nikon's novelties"; The church that blessed Empress Sophia for the publication in 1685 of a decree commanding the Old Believers, after three interrogations, to burn in a log house and flutter the ashes.
For supporters of dialogue and subsequent merger
- this is the Church, with which we, according to Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, have one faith, one system of values and one equally beloved Fatherland; A church that calls us brothers, natural co-workers and closest allies.
The path of dialogue, rapprochement and subsequent unity very difficult. And he will not be cloudless. For there are enough opponents to follow it both on one side and on the other.
Movement along this path has already begun. It was initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church. And if on the part of the Old Believers this movement was initially carried out mainly at the level of individual representatives of the central bodies and communities, today, after repeated meetings of the Primates of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church with the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, we can talk about a mutual movement towards the Churches.
Confidence that the beginning dialogue between the two Churches will be successful is given by the last practical steps and statements of the hierarchs of the Moscow Old Believer Metropolis and, above all, the readiness of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to make "all differences and disagreements ... the subject of serious theological study in the relevant church commissions." This would make it possible to dispel some of the misconceptions of a dogmatic and canonical nature, to which the opponents of unity refer.
According to Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia Cornelius, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Old Believers are finding more and more points of contact and cooperation.
Now both sides understand that some quick results and results from this process of understanding what happened cannot be expected, however, the dialogue that has begun “prompts towards this”.
Undoubtedly, sincere repentance Russian Orthodox Church would have spilled oil on the wound of schism and would have accelerated the processes of dialogue, rapprochement and unity, but " Let us not only say to God: “Remember not our sins,” but let each one say to himself: “Let us not remember the sins of our brethren against us.”"(St. John Chrysostom).
We do know that " nothing is so contrary to God as divisions in the Church. Even if we have done a thousand good deeds, we are guilty, like those who tormented the Body of our Lord, if we tear apart the body of the Church" (St. John Chrysostom).
The time has come for us, Orthodox Old Believers, to fulfill the commandment of Christ: " By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
"(John 13, 35).
Vyacheslav Klementiev
October 15, 2007
Minsk
Thank you for downloading the book for free. electronic library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading! Russian Old Believers. Spiritual movements of the seventeenth century. Sergei Alexandrovich Zenkovsky. Preface. Last year, in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the February and October revolutions, another, but also a very significant anniversary in Russian history passed quite unnoticed - the tercentenary of the schism in the Russian church. Few people remembered that three centuries ago, on May 13, 1667, the Council of Russian and Eastern Bishops took oaths on those Orthodox Russian people who continued and wanted to continue to use the Old Russian, Donikon, liturgical books, be baptized with the Old Byzantine and Old Russian two-finger sign of the cross and remain faithful to the old Russian church tradition. At the council itself in 1667, only four people, including the "archpriest hero" - Avvakum, resolutely refused to accept the decisions of this host of hierarchs. Nevertheless, following them, very soon an increasing number of Russian people began to speak out against the decisions of these zealous and careless in their decisions Russian and Middle Eastern, mostly Greek, rulers, to show their loyalty to the ancient Russian church tradition and refuse to obey, quite still recently common to all of Russia, the mother of the church. Thus, within a few decades, a powerful movement of the Old Believers developed, the most significant religious movement in the history of the Russian people, which, not submitting to the will of the episcopate and the state standing behind these hierarchs, broke away for centuries from the church, which was then the patriarch, and formed its own special, separate, independent communities. The Russian Old Believers went through many phases of significant development and a noticeable decline in the movement, split into many interpretations, nevertheless united by love for the past of the Russian church and the Russian ancient rite, and, despite the persecution, played a big role in the spiritual and social development of the Russian people. It seemed that the three hundred years that had elapsed since the church turmoil that developed under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich were a sufficient period for studying and clarifying the causes of the tragic schism in Russian Orthodoxy, which had a heavy impact on the fate of Russia and helped a lot to create the conditions that led half a century ago to tsarist Russia to ruin. But, unfortunately, until now the roots of the Old Believers and the causes of the Russian church schism of the seventeenth century are still not fully revealed in the historical literature and remain far from clear. Despite the fact that over the past hundred years many documents and studies have been published that have provided a significant amount of information about the events that led to the exit of the Old Believers from the bosom of the Russian Patriarchal, and later the Synodal, Church, relatively little has been done to clarify the roots of this split in history. the Russian church itself, its ideological content and its role in the development of the Russian people over the past three centuries. Until now, the essence of the influence of the Old Believer thought on the ideology of Russian thinkers, Slavophiles and populists, the "soil" of the middle of the last century and the Duma "progressives" of the beginning of this, the significance of the Old Believers in the development of the Russian economy and the connection of the Old Believer writings with Russian literature of the early twentieth century. Almost completely forgotten is the fact that it was the Old Believers who preserved and developed the doctrine of the special historical path of the Russian people, "Holy Russia", the Orthodox "Third Rome" and that, to a large extent, thanks to them, these ideas again interested Russian minds in the past and this century. . Russian historians and theologians came to a serious study of the Russian Old Believers only when the anniversary of the bicentenary of the Russian church schism approached. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, works on the Old Believers, written by representatives of the Russian church and Russian historical science, had only accusatory and missionary purposes. True, even then there were numerous Old Believer writings that depicted a completely different side of this tragic conflict in the souls of the Russian people. But these writings remained almost unknown to the broad circles of the Russian "Europeanized" society and, of course, could not be published due to the strict rules of censorship, which did not allow representatives of the many millions of Russian Old Believers to speak. By the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, the situation had changed somewhat. The growth of the Old Believer communities, the success of the Old Believer priests in recreating their hierarchy, the appearance of Old Believer publications abroad, and, finally, the very “discovery” by the Russian society of the Old Believers as a powerful movement, numbering from a quarter to a third of all Great Russians in its ranks, led at the end of 1850 –s and in the 1860s to the appearance of an extensive literature on the split and these peculiar Russian “dissidents”. By the time of Nikon and until the second half of the nineteenth century, a very unfounded opinion dominated in historical literature that, while copying liturgical books, ancient Russian scribes made many mistakes and distortions of the text, which over time became an integral part of the Russian liturgical rite. In addition, the historians of the schism completely erroneously believed that not only the ancient scribes of the early Russian Middle Ages, but also those first opponents of Patriarch Nikon, who in the late 1640s and early 1650s were close to the leadership of the church and book printing, were to blame for the distortion of church books. and therefore, as if they were able to introduce into the printed statutes of that time the errors made in previous centuries. Among these persons, who were considered responsible for introducing errors already into the Russian printed editions of the seventeenth century, were named the leaders of the early resistance to Nikon, the archpriests Ivan Neronov and Avvakum. According to these researchers from among the hierarchy and missionary circles, such errors became possible due to the lack of sufficient education in medieval Russia, the poverty of Russian scientific and church thought of that time, and, finally, the special warehouse of Russian ancient Orthodoxy, which, in their opinion, attached an exaggerated importance to external piety. and rites. Even such a well-known and learned historian of the Russian church as Metropolitan Macarius Bulgakov (1816-1882) adhered to this opinion in his major work published in 1854 on the History of the Russian Schism of the Old Believers. The same position in explaining the religious reasons for the split was first taken by the young Kazan historian Af. Prok. Shchapov (1831–1876), who, in his master's thesis "The Russian Schism of the Old Believers", defended by him in 1858, called the movement of supporters of the old faith "a petrified fragment of ancient Russia". Nevertheless, despite his early traditionally negative view of the Old Believers, Shchapov has already introduced something new in this work, trying to uncover the social causes that pushed the broad masses of the Russian people into split. Four years later, using the richest materials on the schism in the library of the Solovetsky Monastery, transported to Kazan during the Crimean War, Shchapov revised his views. In his new work Zemstvo and Raskol, published in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1862, he already wrote that the Old Believers had a “peculiar mental and moral life” and that the split grew on the basis of “zemstvo strife”, as a result of “sorrow and hardship from taxes of the sovereign treasury, from the abuse of sovereign officials, scribes and watchers, from the violence of the boyars. In his eyes, the Old Believers were first of all: "a powerful, terrible communal opposition of the tax-paying zemstvo, the masses of the people against the entire state system - church and civil." The new thesis of A.P. Shchapov, that the Old Believers were primarily a creative and freedom-loving opposition movement against the dominance of the state and church authorities, was enthusiastically taken up by Russian populists, who, seeing in these defenders of ancient Orthodoxy, first of all, possible allies in their revolutionary struggle against Russian monarchy, began, in turn, to investigate the Old Believers and seek rapprochement with him. A. Shchapov's sensational "discovery" that the movement of fighters for the old faith was basically a struggle against the abuses of the government and the hierarchy quickly found a response abroad as well. There, Russian emigrants in London, led by the patriarch of Russian socialism A. Herzen, N. Ogarev, and their rather random friend, a new emigrant, Vas, became interested in the Old Believers. Kelsiev. It was decided to involve these old-fashioned but seemingly promising Russian "dissidents" in the political struggle against the autocracy. Herzen gave money, Ogarev - his editorial experience, Kelsiev - his enthusiasm. As a result, already in the same 1862, a special magazine for Old Believers readers began to appear in London, meaningfully titled by this emigrant bunch - "The Common Cause". In order to more firmly involve the Old Believers in his revolutionary work, A. Herzen even intended to create a special Old Believer church center in London, to build an Old Believer cathedral there, of which he himself was not averse to becoming a headman. True, nothing came of these London church projects, but on the other hand, the Herzenov circle entered into relations with the Old Believer Cossacks in Turkey, the so-called Nekrasovites, whom the London group tried to use for contacts with the revolutionary movement and the Old Believers of Russia. It should be noted that in this respect the London emigrants were not the inventors of new ways, and that already during the Crimean War, the agents of the leader of the Polish emigration, Prince. Adam Czartoryski was recruited by the Old Believer Cossacks living in Turkey into special military detachments and sabotage groups, with the help of which they were going to raise an uprising in the Don, the Urals, the Kuban and among the Cossack units that fought in the Caucasus. Despite the failure of the London venture of Herzen, Kelsiev and Ogarev, the populists continued to be interested in the Old Believers and did a lot to popularize the study of this movement, which was still very little known to Russian scientists and readers. Following Shchapov and Kelsiev, the Old Believers were engaged in such representatives of populism as N. A. Aristov, Ya. V. Abramov, F. Farmakovsky, V. V. Andreev, A. S. Prugavin, I. Kablitz (pseudonym Yuzov) and many others . The well-known historian N. M. Kostomarov, who, like A. Shchapov, belonged to the zemstvo regional direction of Russian historiography and strove to study not only the history of the state, but also the history of the people themselves, can also be included among them to some extent. Having become acquainted with the works of the Old Believers themselves, N. M. Kostomarov, in a detailed essay “The History of the Schism among the Schismatics,” wrote that the “schismatics” were very different in their spiritual and mental make-up from the representatives of Russian medieval culture and the church: argue". Despite the fact that the venerable historian was completely unfair in his condemnation of Ancient Russia - after all, it is not without reason that the modern researcher of ancient Russian literature D. I. Chizhevsky considers the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries to be centuries of disputes and disagreements - nevertheless, Kostomarov was right when he spoke of the Old Believers as about the "major phenomenon of mental progress", which for centuries has been distinguished by its love of debate and the search for an answer to its spiritual needs. Although historians of the liberal, predominantly populist, trend have done a lot to reveal the ideology and social life of the "schism", nevertheless, oddly enough, the main role in clarifying the essence of the early Old Believers and the causes of the crisis in the Russian church of the seventeenth century was played by a very reactionary opponent, or rather even the sworn enemy of the "schismatics", Nikolai Ivanovich Subbotin, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, who in 1875 began publishing Materials for the History of the Schism during the First Time of Its Existence, now completely indispensable for the history of the Old Believers. In nine volumes of his “Materials”, and then in his periodical “Brotherly Word”, in countless editions of Old Believer sources and in his monographs, N. I. Subbotin collected an endless
18. New Patriarch 19. Dreams of an Orthodox Empire 20. The defeat of the Bogolyuts Notes 21. Editing books 22. Russian theocracy 23. Neronov vs. Nikon 24. The gap between Nikon and the king 25. Beginning of secularization V. Schism. 26. Church turmoil of 1658-1666 27. Russian Cathedral of 1666 28. Cathedral of the Patriarchs 1666-1667 29. After the council: the years of last hopes: 1667–1670 30. Executions and prisons: 1670–1676 31. Teaching of the Pustozersky Fathers: Deacon Theodore 32. Teaching of the Pustozersky Fathers: Archpriest Avvakum VI. The growth of the Old Believers and the division into rumors 33. Expansion of the Old Believer "mutiny" in 1671-1682 34. Rise of resistance in the North: 1671–1682 35. Strengthening the "tare faith" in Siberia and the South: 1671–1682 36. The Church and Moscow during the interregnum 37. Cossacks in the struggle for the old faith 38. Delimitation within the Old Believers: Priesthood 39. Identification of bespopovshchina: Fedoseyevites 40. Pomeranian priestlessness and Denisovs 41. Schisms within the priestlessness. Netovshchina 42. Western influences: Christianity Conclusion List of abbreviations BibliographyForeign historians also contributed to the study of the Russian schism of the seventeenth century. Of these foreign works, first of all, the excellent book by the French scholar Pierre Pascal on Archpriest Avvakum stands out, in which he widely used printed and archival sources and which has already become a reference book on the early history of the Old Believers. Of the German literature on this issue, the most interesting is the book by Fr. John Chrysostom on "Pomor Answers" by Andrey Denisov, an outstanding Old Believer writer and thinker of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Here, of course, only the most important works on the history of the schism and the Old Believers are indicated, since only a listing of all even only significant works on this issue would require a separate volume: already before the 1917 revolution, the number of books and articles on the Old Believers exceeded tens of thousands.
Nevertheless, many aspects of this sad gap in Russian Orthodoxy, as noted above, are still not entirely clear, and historians will have to work hard to clarify them. In this book, the author pursued relatively limited goals: to determine in as much detail as possible the roots of the church conflict of the seventeenth century, to trace the growing tension between the nourishment of church and state and the supporters of the Old Rite, and, finally, to clarify the connection between the pre-Nikon movements in Russian Orthodoxy and the later division of the Old Believers into priesthood. and restlessness. As far as possible, the author has tried to avoid using the word schism in this book. In ordinary Russian terminology, this word has become odious and unfair in relation to the Old Believers. The schism was not a split from the church of a significant part of its clergy and laity, but a genuine internal rupture in the church itself, which significantly impoverished Russian Orthodoxy, in which not one, but both sides were to blame: both the stubborn and refusing to see the consequences of their perseverance, the planters of the new ritual, and too zealous and, unfortunately, often also very stubborn and one-sided defenders of the old.
The work on this study was greatly facilitated by the support of two organizations: Harvard University, in particular its center for the study of Russia, and the Guggenheim Foundation in New York. The researcher expresses his deep gratitude to the leaders of both organizations. In addition, he expresses his gratitude to all persons and libraries that have facilitated his work; Professor Dm. helped him especially a lot. Iv. Chizhevsky, with whom the author discussed many problems raised by this book. Dr. V. I. Malyshev informed the author of a number of handwritten materials from the repository of the Pushkin House (A. N. Institute of Russian Literature), and A. Filipenko worked hard on the correspondence of the not always legible manuscript, for which the author expresses his gratitude to them. He dedicates this book with gratitude and love to his wife, who for many years helped him in his work on The Russian Old Believers.
I. A. Kirillov: Moscow The Third Rome, Moscow, 1913 and The Truth about the Old Faith, Moscow, 1916; V. G. Senatov: Philosophy of the history of the Old Believers, vol. 1 and 2, Moscow, 1912.
A. V. Kartashov: “The Meaning of the Old Believers” in the Collection of Articles on P. B. Struve, Prague, 1925 and Essays on the History of the Russian Church, Paris, 1959, vol. II.
Pierre Pascal: Avvakum et les debuts du Rascol: la Crise religieuse russe au XVII siecle, Paris, 1938.
Johannes Crysostomos: Die Pomorskie Otvety als Denkmal der Anschaung der russischen Altgläubigen der 1. Viertel des XVIII Jahrhundert, Roma, 1959, Orientalia Christiana Nr. 148.
Foreword
Last year, in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the February and October revolutions, another, but also a very significant anniversary in Russian history passed quite unnoticed - the tercentenary of the schism in the Russian church. Few people remembered that three centuries ago, on May 13, 1667, the Council of Russian and Eastern Bishops took oaths on those Orthodox Russian people who continued and wanted to continue to use the Old Russian, Donikon, liturgical books, be baptized with the Old Byzantine and Old Russian two-finger sign of the cross and remain faithful to the old Russian church tradition.
At the council itself in 1667, only four people, including the "archpriest hero" - Avvakum, resolutely refused to accept the decisions of this host of hierarchs. Nevertheless, following them, very soon an increasing number of Russian people began to speak out against the decisions of these zealous and careless in their decisions Russian and Middle Eastern, mostly Greek, rulers, to show their loyalty to the ancient Russian church tradition and refuse to obey, quite still recently common to all of Russia, the mother of the church. Thus, within a few decades, a powerful movement of the Old Believers developed, the most significant religious movement in the history of the Russian people, which, not submitting to the will of the episcopate and the state standing behind these hierarchs, broke away for centuries from the church, which was then the patriarch, and formed its own special, separate, independent communities. The Russian Old Believers went through many phases of significant development and a noticeable decline in the movement, split into many interpretations, nevertheless united by love for the past of the Russian church and the Russian ancient rite, and, despite the persecution, played a big role in the spiritual and social development of the Russian people.
It seemed that the three hundred years that had elapsed since the church turmoil that developed under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich were a sufficient period for studying and clarifying the causes of the tragic schism in Russian Orthodoxy, which had a heavy impact on the fate of Russia and helped a lot to create the conditions that led half a century ago to tsarist Russia to ruin. But, unfortunately, until now the roots of the Old Believers and the causes of the Russian church schism of the seventeenth century are still not fully revealed in the historical literature and remain far from clear. Despite the fact that over the past hundred years many documents and studies have been published that have provided a significant amount of information about the events that led to the exit of the Old Believers from the bosom of the Russian Patriarchal, and later the Synodal, Church, relatively little has been done to clarify the roots of this split in history. the Russian church itself, its ideological content and its role in the development of the Russian people over the past three centuries. Until now, the essence of the influence of the Old Believer thought on the ideology of Russian thinkers, Slavophiles and populists, the "soil" of the middle of the last century and the Duma "progressives" of the beginning of this, the significance of the Old Believers in the development of the Russian economy and the connection of the Old Believer writings with Russian literature of the early twentieth century. Almost completely forgotten is the fact that it was the Old Believers who preserved and developed the doctrine of the special historical path of the Russian people, "Holy Russia", the Orthodox "Third Rome" and that, to a large extent, thanks to them, these ideas again interested Russian minds in the past and this century. .
Russian historians and theologians came to a serious study of the Russian Old Believers only when the anniversary of the bicentenary of the Russian church schism approached. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, works on the Old Believers, written by representatives of the Russian church and Russian historical science, had only accusatory and missionary purposes. True, even then there were numerous Old Believer writings that depicted a completely different side of this tragic conflict in the souls of the Russian people. But these writings remained almost unknown to the broad circles of the Russian "Europeanized" society and, of course, could not be published due to the strict rules of censorship, which did not allow representatives of the many millions of Russian Old Believers to speak. By the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, the situation had changed somewhat. The growth of the Old Believer communities, the success of the Old Believer priests in recreating their hierarchy, the appearance of Old Believer publications abroad, and, finally, the very “discovery” by the Russian society of the Old Believers as a powerful movement, numbering from a quarter to a third of all Great Russians in its ranks, led at the end of 1850 –s and in the 1860s to the appearance of an extensive literature on the split and these peculiar Russian “dissidents”.
By the time of Nikon and until the second half of the nineteenth century, a very unfounded opinion dominated in historical literature that, while copying liturgical books, ancient Russian scribes made many mistakes and distortions of the text, which over time became an integral part of the Russian liturgical rite. In addition, the historians of the schism completely erroneously believed that not only the ancient scribes of the early Russian Middle Ages, but also those first opponents of Patriarch Nikon, who in the late 1640s and early 1650s were close to the leadership of the church and book printing, were to blame for the distortion of church books. and therefore, as if they were able to introduce into the printed statutes of that time the errors made in previous centuries. Among these persons, who were considered responsible for introducing errors already into the Russian printed editions of the seventeenth century, were named the leaders of the early resistance to Nikon, the archpriests Ivan Neronov and Avvakum. According to these researchers from among the hierarchy and missionary circles, such errors became possible due to the lack of sufficient education in medieval Russia, the poverty of Russian scientific and church thought of that time, and, finally, the special warehouse of Russian ancient Orthodoxy, which, in their opinion, attached an exaggerated importance to external piety. and rites. Even such a well-known and learned historian of the Russian church as Metropolitan Macarius Bulgakov (1816-1882) adhered to this opinion in his major work published in 1854 on the History of the Russian Schism of the Old Believers.
The same position in explaining the religious reasons for the split was first taken by the young Kazan historian Af. Prok. Shchapov (1831–1876), who, in his master's thesis "The Russian Schism of the Old Believers", defended by him in 1858, called the movement of supporters of the old faith "a petrified fragment of ancient Russia". Nevertheless, despite his early traditionally negative view of the Old Believers, Shchapov has already introduced something new in this work, trying to uncover the social causes that pushed the broad masses of the Russian people into split. Four years later, using the richest materials on the schism in the library of the Solovetsky Monastery, transported to Kazan during the Crimean War, Shchapov revised his views. In his new work Zemstvo and Raskol, published in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1862, he already wrote that the Old Believers had a “peculiar mental and moral life” and that the split grew on the basis of “zemstvo strife”, as a result of “sorrow and hardship from taxes of the sovereign treasury, from the abuse of sovereign officials, scribes and watchers, from the violence of the boyars. In his eyes, the Old Believers were first of all: "a powerful, terrible communal opposition of the tax-paying zemstvo, the masses of the people against the entire state system - church and civil." The new thesis of A.P. Shchapov, that the Old Believers were primarily a creative and freedom-loving opposition movement against the dominance of the state and church authorities, was enthusiastically taken up by Russian populists, who, seeing in these defenders of ancient Orthodoxy, first of all, possible allies in their revolutionary struggle against Russian monarchy, began, in turn, to investigate the Old Believers and seek rapprochement with him.
