Old Believers in Belarus. The old faith is against new reforms

The Old Believers have long been in opposition to the official Orthodox Church. "Schismatics", as they were called, were persecuted and persecuted. Perhaps that is why many Old Believers still live far away from Moscow, and one of the important church processions - the Velikoretsky Cross Procession - takes place in the Kirov region, where Onliner.by correspondents reached during a big trip to Russia. During the procession, a number of colorful images appeared before us: men in characteristic shirts and with thick beards, girls, of course, without makeup, children with icons in their hands. The more we talked with the Old Believers, the more we were surprised at the perseverance in preserving traditions, perseverance and mercy.

Someone is whispering a prayer right on the go, sorting through the rosary. In the hands of many participants in the course are tourist rugs, backpacks behind their backs. The heads of women, girls, even little girls are covered with headscarves.

Now the processions of the Old Believers are accompanied by the rescue service, traffic police officers and doctors. And after the memorable Nikon reform (in the middle of the 17th century), when a church schism occurred, for the sign of the cross with two fingers, bows to the ground and prayers according to old books, which was interpreted as schismatics, one could fall on the block. Persecution continued for a century and a half, and only by the beginning of the 20th century did the position of the authorities and the Moscow Patriarchate soften.

The priests carry hand-written icons - the Old Believers believe that the true image must be cast or written, since it is a hand-made work, and not the product of a copy machine. Otherwise, this is the image of the icon, and not the icon itself.

They say that in order to participate in the procession, Old Believers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, as well as Italy, the USA, and even Australia came to Kirov.

In my area, 200 believers were burned, priests were killed

We speak with Vladimir from the town of Vyazniki (Vladimir region). The man, who worked all his life on the railway, admits that he never particularly emphasized his belonging to the Old Believers. Although both his parents and children consider themselves to this faith:

“As a child, I was baptized in the church. And then ... I somehow did not stick out the question of faith. You know, in Soviet times everything was done somehow on the sly, because it was fraught.

Vyazniki has always been an Old Believer region. In the 1670s, 200 believers were burned there, and our clergymen were killed. From persecution, many fled to Siberia, to Altai. Entered the Komsomol, then the army. There were warehouses in churches, clubs, organized production ...

Closer to old age, I thought about faith, who I am and what I am. Since 2010, I have been participating in the procession regularly. It even pulls somehow ... If you didn’t go, you won’t be yourself. So far it all resonates. We are still not given land for the construction of the temple. There is a community, but there is no church.”

“There was a galvanizing shop in the church we were restoring”

Dmitry from Kazan, having heard our conversation, joins the conversation and tells about the history of his family:

“I myself am a native of the village of Krasnovidovo, Kazan province, which was formed in the 1760s-1780s. And we got there from another Krasnovidovo, which was located in the Moscow region. In general, in Tatarstan there were many Cossack settlements that guarded the Orenburg tract. There are also many Cossacks in my family who came from the White Sea.

The family was old believers. Not that the ancestors were hiding from persecution, they were simply allocated free lands. We are industrious. The Old Believers have always been famous for their ability to maintain orchards - apple trees, cherries, plums. Our clan specialized in making pottery and catching fish.

They kept aloof from the Soviet authorities. Grandmother and great-grandmother did not join the collective farm for religious reasons. My great-grandmother was generally a healer, people from all over the area turned to her for help ... I was baptized on the eighth day. There were no churches in Kazan then, but there was a prayer house. Now it is Cloth Sloboda. Crosses were not forced to be worn, and I did not advertise.

He was an October member, then a Komsomol member, he did not observe rituals. But there were icons in the house, they always celebrated Christmas and Easter. When someone died, a funeral service was held according to the canons. And then the great-grandmother, who was the spiritual core of the family, left, and faith died out ...

In 1989, the church was returned to us. The building was in a deplorable state, before that there was a galvanizing shop. The community began to actively restore the temple, and I also decided to participate. After all, this is my church, my roots... So I returned to the faith.”

"You can't buy faith, you have to suffer for it"

A nimble old woman joins the procession, who immediately begins to chatter: "And I caught up with you a little". It turns out that Marya (this is how she asks to be called: “We are all Marys, because Mary was called the mother of God”) came from Moscow:

“All the villages near Moscow were behind us, Old Believers. I'm from Kolomenskoye, where the metro is now. Ancestors were stumps, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers have always been our trade ...

Persecution? There were, of course, but we kept everything. I myself graduated from 10 classes, then I was on a collective farm, I worked at a construction site. We didn't have migrant workers then. At one point, she began to bargain with God. I really wanted to go to college. I decided, once I get there - there is a God, but not ... I didn’t enter ... I considered myself an unbeliever.

I returned to faith by my own will. Once I decided to go to the wife of Porfiry Ivanov(the creator of the spiritual and health system, he wore shorts all year round, was barefoot, did without food. - Approx. Onliner.by) . She ordered to remove all the metal from the body, and I had only a ring. Well, I obeyed. Then she got married to her husband. And how I got rid of the ring - heaviness arose. A voice then told me: go to God as you go to a friend... And you know, only after three years did the inner heaviness go away. You can't buy faith, you have to suffer it. That's what I know now."

"What about fashion, okay?"

Khristina from Yekaterinburg knows about the harassment of the Old Believers mainly from stories in Sunday school. The girl does not use makeup, she walks only in skirts and dresses, while she does not feel like a black sheep among her peers:

“Baptized on the eighth day, as expected. Friends invited me to take part in the procession, since then I have been going for the fifth time. In moral terms, we somehow have more understanding than other peers. I observe a pious appearance, I do not swear, I read prayers. What about fashion? A person is individual, why repeat after others? I don’t dream of a career, I want a family, children.”

"It is wrong to trade in God's gift"

Our next interlocutor is a special person. Philip from Syktyvkar used to be, as he himself says, in the dominant church. He was an employee of the church administrative apparatus - he headed one of the diocesan departments, combined his position with editing a newspaper, website, worked with secular media:

“I moved not because it’s bad there, but because it’s good here. At a certain time, he became deeply interested in history. I believe that in the presence of faith, knowledge of history and a living conscience, a person should understand that there is no other Orthodoxy, except for the one professed by adherents of the old faith. There is a phrase in the Gospel: "by their fruits you will know them." So it is by people that one can judge faith in general. Any true Christian desires to save a soul and lives for that purpose alone. The split in the 17th century occurred due to changes, the unification of the liturgical rite with the Greek Church. All this was done for political reasons. As a result, the edits led to nonsense in the liturgical texts.

Russia was baptized under Prince Vladimir, and since then nothing has changed in the prayers that we pray, unlike the reformers.

The point is not at all in those disagreements that lie on the surface - in two or three fingers or how many letters are in the name of the Lord. To describe the depth of the contradiction in a couple of words will not work. In short: when bishops walked rather than drove Mercedes under guard, then the church was the people, and the people were the church.

The official church is part of the apparatus of power.

There are plenty of places in Gomel and the region associated with the life of the Old Believers (Old Believers).

Essence of the question

What was this phenomenon?

Summarizing what was written in various sources, we can say that the Old Believers (Old Orthodoxy) is a set of religious movements and organizations in line with the Russian Orthodox Church, rejecting the church reform undertaken in the 50-60s of the 17th century by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the purpose of which was proclaimed the unification of the liturgical rite The Russian Church with the Greek Church and, above all, with the Church of Constantinople, but in fact created the conditions for secularization (withdrawal of something from church, spiritual knowledge and transfer to secular, civil knowledge).

The liturgical reform caused a split in the Russian Church. Until April 17, 1905, adherents of the Old Believers were officially called "schismatics" in the Russian Empire. In the 20th century, the position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Old Believer issue softened significantly, which led to the determination of the Local Council of 1971, which decided, in particular, “to approve the decision of the Patriarchal Holy Synod of April 23 (10), 1929 on the abolition of the oaths of the Moscow Cathedral of 1656 and the Great Moscow Sobor of 1667”, imposed by them on the old Russian rites and on the Orthodox Christians adhering to them, and to consider these oaths “as if they had not been”.

Spasova Sloboda

The Old Believers also lived in our city, and, as in other places, very compactly.

Spasova Sloboda as a settlement or settlement was formed, then on the outskirts of Gomel, already by the beginning of the 18th century, and occupied the space now limited by Komissarov streets (formerly Beregovaya, then Prince Paskevich, Plekhanov (formerly Spasskaya) and Frunze (formerly Svechnaya ) At the beginning of the 19th century, Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev named Field Marshalskaya in honor of his father, the main street of Spasovaya Sloboda, which ran in the middle of the village, now it is Proletarskaya Street.

At one time, this area was a typical Russian settlement with colorful wooden houses immersed in greenery. Everywhere cleanliness and order, flowers in the yards, front gardens and windows, benches with armrests and awnings over the gates. And certainly an eight-pointed cross or icon above each gate. The inhabitants of Spasovaya Sloboda were considered in the city to be wealthy and quite influential people.

The first houses of the Old Believers appeared here back in the 17th century, when a mass migration of Old Believers began across the border separating the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which then included Gomel) and the Russian state, looking for opportunities to freely conduct their services. Part of the name "Spasova" came from the fact that some Old Believers (Chernetsy) in the center of the village lived in a skete called Spasov, because of the Old Believer Church erected here in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Most of the schismatics lived outside the walls of the skete in a village or settlement. The word "sloboda" originally meant a suburban settlement, whose inhabitants enjoyed freedom - they were not personally dependent on anyone.

In 1794, on the site of the previously dismantled Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Old Believers built and illuminated the Ilyinsky Church, which is still operating today and is the oldest surviving Old Believer church in Belarus. It is distinguished by an unusual shape - it consists of three log cabins, placed one after the other along the same axis: a narthex, a middle log cabin and a five-sided altar apse. The middle log house, the largest, is square in cross-section, turns into an octagon at the top, which adds volume. In the main part of the church, a bell tower is installed above the entrance. Its upper part under a low dome rests on eight pillars. The volumes are covered with curved roofs and faceted domes, over the altar there is a multi-pitched roof. The interior decoration and filling of the temple are unpretentious and not rich. The main entrance is through a glazed veranda (previously it was open). According to some reports, the well-known Emelyan Pugachev twice visited and prayed in this church.

And Feldmarshalskaya Street, until the revolutionary events of the early 20th century, was considered one of the central streets in the city. In Soviet times, it (already as Proletarskaya) lost its significance, and the area itself was known for an emergency hospital, a music pedagogical school and the Forest Institute.

In our time, the color of the Old Believer settlement is almost invisible. But it is there, you just need to take a closer look at the individual houses still preserved from those times, located in the private sector, as well as some larger buildings. The second temple of the Old Believers - the Transfiguration Church (Gomel Old Orthodox parish of the Transfiguration Church), rebuilt at one time as an economic and administrative building, is now reconstructed and is located on Proletarskaya Street, behind the regional employment center, in the courtyard.

In recent years, the area of ​​the private sector in the city center is becoming smaller. Within the territory of the former Spasovaya Sloboda, in connection with the reconstruction of the automobile bridge across the Sozh and the expansion of Frunze Street, a significant "pruning" of the area took place, almost to the very Ilinskaya Church, which so far rises, as it were, in the center of a kind of oasis of private houses. Almost like in the old days.

Branch

The Old Believers also settled in other places where persecution could not get them, including in the vicinity of Gomel.

In 1682, after the unsuccessful performance of the archers in Moscow, the government of Princess Sophia issued a decree on the search and expulsion of fugitive people (Old Believers) living in the Starodub settlements. The leaders of the Starodub Old Believers, Kozma Moskovsky and Stefan Belevsky, with their like-minded people, decide to leave for the Commonwealth, where on the island of Vetka, at the confluence of the river of the same name with the Sozh, an Old Believer settlement is founded on the lands of Pan Khaletsky, in which a chapel was built, and later a monastery.

As for the name “Vetka”, there is an ancient legend associated with the appearance of Old Believers in these places: “Refugees were swimming along a large river, not knowing where to swim ashore, and then the elders suggested throwing a twig into the water. Where it hits, there the boat will stop. A twig nailed to the left bank, the people went out onto land, and around the swamp. But the Old Believers did not lose heart, they put an icon on a tree and began to build their settlements. This is how the city of Vetka arose.

Over time, Vetkovskaya Sloboda became a major spiritual center of the Old Believers, whose influence throughout the 18th century spread throughout Russia and Eastern Poland.

Nowadays, Vetka is a district center in the Gomel region, known throughout the country for its museum of the Old Believers and Belarusian traditions named after F. G. Shklyarov (until December 2012 - the Vetka State Museum of Folk Art).

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1 Educational Institution “Brest State University named after A.S. Pushkin" A.A. Gorbatsky OLD RELIEVE ON THE BELARUSIAN LANDS Monograph Brest 2004

2 2 UDC 283/289(476)(091) LBC (4Bei) G20 Scientific editor Doctor of historical sciences, academician M.P. Kostyuk Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V.I. Novitsky Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor B.M. Lepeshko A.S. Pushkin" Gorbatsky A.A. G20 Old Believers in the Belarusian lands: Monograph / A.A. Gorbatsky. Brest: Publishing house of the EE “BrSU im. A.S. Pushkin", p. ISBN The monograph is devoted to the history of the Old Believers. The author expresses his views on the problem of the split of the Russian Orthodox Church in the middle of the 17th century. Using archival material, he analyzes the reasons for the resettlement of the Old Believers in Belarus, shows the peculiarities of the residence of the defenders of the Old Rite in the Belarusian lands. For researchers, teachers, teachers, graduate students, students, all those who are interested in the history of the Old Believers. UDC283/289(476)(091) LBC (4Bei) ISBN A.A. Gorbatsky Publishing house of the EE "BrSU A.S. Pushkin, 2004

3 3 INTRODUCTION The split of the Russian Orthodox Church, which took place in the second half of the 17th century. as a result of socio-economic transformations and the church reform of Patriarch Nikon, was a serious problem in the history of not only the Russian state, but also neighboring countries. In Belarus, more precisely in the Belarusian lands (which were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), the newcomers Old Believers created a kind of history of the Old Believer movement and a distinctive culture of life, rituals and customs. For the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church (hereinafter referred to as the ROC), the existence of a tarot-believing movement was a serious internal and external problem. The tsar and the authorities understood that such a movement at any moment could develop into an armed struggle, an example of which was the uprising of the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery (gg.). The researcher of the “split” V. Kelsiev, comparing the movement of the Cossacks with the Old Believer movement, wrote: “The Cossacks were a refuge for all dissatisfied society, but it lived for itself. This unconsciousness killed the Cossacks. The last of his heroes was Stepan Razin. In his time, about the middle of the 17th century, when the Cossacks were becoming obsolete and falling under the rule of autocracy, a new representative of freedom appeared, also without consciousness, but preaching and sparing nothing for preaching, a split. The emergence and development of the Old Believer movement in Russia coincided with a period of political and social changes that demanded huge expenditures of forces and resources from the state, and were shifted onto the shoulders of the people. The reform movement, on the one hand, and serfdom, on the other, aroused the determined resistance of the people. The beginning of the Old Believer movement was also associated with the correction of church books. Invited to Moscow from Athos in the 16th century to translate church books from the Greek language, the scholar-monk Maxim the Greek revealed errors in the translations. When Maxim Grek noted inaccuracies in the translation, he was accused of "defaming the Russian holy miracle workers who were saved by old books." Then several more groups of learned monks found out the correctness of the translation, and the hierarchs of the Greek Church, who came to Moscow, noted the differences in the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church. Second half of the 17th century was determined by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon (the introduction of new rites and the correction of books) and the split of the Russian Orthodox Church into the official Orthodox Church and defenders from the old rite. The latter deserve attention as carriers of the characteristic features of the Russian people. In the Old Believers, a deep

4 4 religiosity, combined with the strength of feelings and will, which even led to fanaticism. The struggle for their religious beliefs, freedom of spirit gave rise to the Old Believer ideology. The ideology of the Taro-believers is a system of their views on the world, on the course of the historical process, on events in the state and on their place in them. Despite the fact that the Old Believer ideology is an integral part of the feudal-church ideology in the Russian medieval state, it had its own distinctive features, which in turn made it possible to single out the Old Believer ideology as an independent doctrine. The formed system of views in the Old Believers had the opposite character in relation to the official ROC. The relevance of the problem of the Old Believers in Belarus at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 20th centuries, posed in the monograph. determined by two factors. The first circumstance: in Belarusian historiography there are works that examine the history of various religious confessions, but there is no fundamental research on the history of the Tarot-rites in the Belarusian lands; on the Belarusian lands, the defenders of the old rite appeared even before the official split of the Russian Orthodox Church; complex interstate relations were connected with the residence of the Old Believers on the Belarusian lands, and it is important that their activities were and are of a rich spiritual and cultural character; studying the history of the Old Believers in Belarus is an expansion of knowledge on Belarusian history and one of the most complex phenomena in Russian history. The second circumstance concerns both the history of the Old Believers and the issues of the coexistence of the defenders of the Old Rite alongside those who profess a different faith on Belarusian soil. History testifies that the authorities of the Commonwealth were tolerant of all religions, and there was no confrontation between representatives of confessions. In the historiography of the history of Belarus, there are still very few scientific works that address the issues of new approaches to understanding the essence of the split and the guilt of all branches of the tsarist government and the Russian Orthodox Church in this. Dwelling on the first circumstance, it should be noted that the Old Believers in Russia have always been among the exiles. Increased attention to this church from the authorities, incl. and kings, is explained by the fact that the ideology of the Old Believers in many respects contradicted the ideology of the official Orthodox Church; Old Believers were settled throughout Russia, and their number

5 5 in the middle of the XIX century. accounted for at least ⅛ of the population; influence from the Tarot-Rite extended to all branches of the economic, social and cultural life of the country. Striving for economic and spiritual freedom, for liberation from persecution by the government, the defenders from the old rite left their original place of residence and moved to other states. Considering the second circumstance, we note that all states throughout their historical development have resolved the issue of regulating relations between secular and spiritual authorities. In each individual state, this issue was resolved taking into account local socio-economic and cultural characteristics, forms of the state-political system, the level of development of scientific knowledge and the spread of religious ideology. At different stages of development of the socio-political formation, the issue of relations between secular and spiritual authorities had its own characteristics. Thus, during the development of feudalism in Russia, there was an ideological monopoly of the church, there was a powerful union of the church with the feudal state, and the level and nature of the consciousness of the masses had its own specifics. The dominance of church ideology in feudal society was based on significant support from the state, which required the church to support the existing system. All this led to a struggle in the form of heresy, rebellions and a split of the masses with the dominant church ideology. Analysis of the historical development of the Tarot-believing movement in the late 17th and early 20th centuries. makes it possible to distinguish eight stages. The first stage is the intra-church struggle of Nikon and his supporters with opponents of intra-church reforms (gg.). At this time, both supporters and opponents of the reforms did not yet represent all the upheavals and the depth of the confrontation. Even then, the defenders from the old rite in small groups began to settle in the Belarusian lands. The reason for such migrations was most often economic interest. The second stage (gg.) can be called the stage of a wide internal Russian social conflict, in which influential representatives of other states were also involved. The internal church policy was brought to the attention of the general public, and monks from other countries acted as experts. During this period, Archpriest Avvakum reads his sermons and gathers his numerous supporters from the supporters. At the same time, the official church, supported by the tsar, is trying to remedy the situation by depriving Nikon, the organizer of the reforms, of the patriarchal rank. The number of defenders of the old rite,

6 6 who moved to Belarusian lands, increased. The reason for the resettlement, in addition to economic interest, was the search for places safe for life and the performance of religious rites. The third stage (years) is characterized by the expansion of the Old Believers; its representatives enter the outskirts of the state and go beyond its borders in large numbers, incl. and on Belarusian lands. At this time, the boyars and the official Orthodox Church dealt with the leaders of the Old Believers, there were cases of self-immolation of the Old Believers. The last popular performance in Russia in the 17th century. there was a streltsy uprising (1698), which took place under the slogans of the Old Believers. Queen Sophia makes her first attempts to return the Old Believers from the Commonwealth to Russia. The fourth stage (gg.) is characterized by the implementation by the tsarist authorities of an active "invitation" policy, the purpose of which is to return the Old Believers to their former places of residence. During these years, the activities of the Old Believers were activated, especially on the Belarusian lands: the small town of Vetka with neighboring settlements became the center of all priestly Old Believers (at that time the territory where the Old Believers settled was also called Vetka), attempts were made to get their own bishop, book-writing centers appeared, interesting dogmatic-political essays are written on Vetka, and their charter is written. The fifth stage (gg.) Is marked by the publication of a large number of royal decrees and government decrees that limited the rights and freedoms of the Old Believers. Since the "invitation" policy did not give results, the tsarist troops broke into the Belarusian lands twice and drove out the Old Believers. Vetka was especially affected, where priests mostly lived. As a result of two forcings in 1735 and 1764, Old Believer settlements, churches, and monasteries were destroyed; a large number of handwritten and printed books, as well as icons, disappeared without a trace. The sixth stage (gg.) was determined by the government as a policy of tolerance and strictness in relation to the Old Believers. Despite the forcing carried out by the government troops, the resettlement of the Old Believers abroad did not stop. In 1800, another "experiment" began on the Old Believers, inclining them to Orthodoxy. This policy was called unity. The Old Believers did not stop moving to other places in Belarus: they end up in the Minsk province, in particular, in the Bobruisk and Borisov districts. The seventh stage (gg.) is characterized by an active common faith policy pursued by both the government and the Russian Orthodox Church. At this time, secret advisory committees were created, the task

7 7 of which was to collect statistical data on the Old Believers and draw up specific proposals for the authorities to work with the "schismatics". Old Believer churches and monasteries were closed. In the first half of the XIX century. in Russia, the most stringent laws were adopted in relation to the Taro-believers. The tsarist government tried to introduce these laws on the Belarusian lands annexed to the Russian Empire. However, internal political circumstances in the Belarusian lands forced the tsarist government, in many cases temporarily, to yield to the Old Believers who lived here. The eighth stage covers the years. Its beginning is characterized by the absence of thoughtful actions on the part of the government that would make it possible to change the situation; the unwillingness of the official Orthodox Church to compromise; inconsistency between government and local regulations and decisions; maintaining secrecy in relation to the Old Believers. The policy of closing Old Believer churches and monasteries continued. The Old Believers who lived on Belarusian lands had problems with buying and renting land. And yet the beginning of the twentieth century. brought the defenders of the old rite and positive results. Royal decrees and decisions of the years. regulated the rights and obligations of the Old Believers. To write the monograph, mainly written sources, archival and Old Believer manuscripts, were used. In addition, the author used the ethnographic material he collected. The work used monographic literature, which was written in different periods. In the process of working on the monograph, the author collected a large archival material on the history of the Old Believers in the Belarusian lands, which was not introduced into scientific circulation. Particular attention is paid to archival material studied in the National Historical Archive, the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, the Russian State Historical Archive (in St. Petersburg). Of great interest are the Old Believer manuscripts. For example, in the manuscripts located in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, such as the “Collection of the Old Believers, the end of the 18th century.” (Kolobov Fund, 260), "Old Believer Collection of Extracts on Prayer for Tsarist Power, late 18th century." (Fund Kolobov, 270), "Collection of church regulations, Old Believers, XVIII century." (OLDP, 0-142), "Collection of religious and moral, Old Believers, XIX century." (Tikhonov Fund, 491), we are talking about events in the life of the Old Believers, moral norms, sacraments, there are also texts of disputes between the Old Believers of the Bespopovtsy and the priests who lived in Vetka.

8 8 At the same time, the author conducted ethnographic expeditions to the places where the Old Believers still live: Braslav, Sharkovshchina districts of the Vitebsk region; Vetka, Dobrush districts of the Gomel region; Borisovsky, Volozhinsky districts of the Minsk region The research papers used in writing the monograph can be divided into 4 groups. The first includes works that arose in a secular and spiritual environment, they are written, as a rule, by devoted supporters of Orthodoxy. They include: A.I. Zhuravlev "Complete historical news about the ancient strigolniks, the so-called Old Believers, about their teachings, deeds and disagreements." St. Petersburg, 1799, P.S. Smirnov, The History of the Russian Schism of the Old Believers. Ryazan, 1893, Ep. Macarius "History of Russian. schism, known under the name of the Old Believers. St. Petersburg, 1889, I.T. Nikiforovsky "In the field of the anti-schismatic mission." Vitebsk, Ep. Pitirim “Sling against schismatic issues” M., 1752, etc. In these works we note a negative and hostile attitude towards the Old Believers, and the very content of the works reflects the official point of view of the government and the Russian Orthodox Church. For example, in the book “The Works of Ivan Pososhkov” (M., 1863 4 2), the author compares with the Taro-believers, who left the Orthodox Church and fell into different agreements, “with blind puppies that crawl in different directions; with moles, because cannot see the light; with bats that hide in their hollows during the day” (p. 201). The second group consists of works written by revolutionary and democratic historians in the 2nd half. XIX beginning. XX centuries These include A.P. Shchapov "The Russian schism of the Old Believers considered in connection with the internal state of the Russian church and citizenship in the 17th and in the first. half of the 18th century." Kazan city; V. Kelsiev "Collection of government information about the schismatics." London. Issue. 1, 1860; Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich "Materials for the history and study of Russian sectarianism and schism". SPb., Issue. 1, 1908; A.S. Prugavin “Old Believers in the second half. 19th century Essays from the recent history of the split "M., 1904; S.F. Platonov "Monuments of the history of the Old Believers of the 17th century." L., Issue. 1, vol. 1, 1927 and others. These authors in their works showed the connection of the Old Believers with the peasant anti-feudal ideology, with the struggle of the masses for freedom against the absolutist monarchy, raised questions of the culture of the Old Believers. For example, V. Kelsiev wrote: “The schism does not know how to express, but knows how to suffer for the following desires: he wants complete freedom of conscience, freedom of confession to all rumors, unrestricted by any external

9 9 decrees Let every faith by itself show the fruit of the gospel virtue. The third group includes works on the study of Old Believer manuscripts. Pre-revolutionary researchers studied and published a large number of works by Old Believer writers of the 17th century. and the 18th century, as well as in the years. a number of works were published by the Old Believers themselves: V.G. Druzhinin "The original manuscript of the Pomor responses and its editions". St. Petersburg, 1912; N.I. Subbotin "Ivan Alekseevich's writings against the imaginary priesthood of priests" M., 1890; A.K. Borozdin Archpriest Avvakum. Essay on the history of the mental life of Russian society in the 17th century, St. Petersburg, 1900; Ya.L. Barskov "Monuments of the first years of the Russian Old Believers", St. Petersburg, 1912 and others. The fourth group consists of the works of Belarusian historians. The history of confessions as a sphere of individual research has been formed in Belarusian science in the last twenty years. But even earlier, the first of the Belarusian researchers turned to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, including the Old Believers, N.M. Nikolsky in his book History of the Russian Church. M.: L., 1931. The greatest amount of research has been done in the field of studying the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and Catholicism. Works on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church were published: M.S. Korzun, The Russian Orthodox Church in the Service of the Exploiting Classes. X century 1917, Mn., 1987; "Russian Orthodox Church Years", Mn., 1987; G.M. Philistine “Introduction of Christianity in Russia: Background. Circumstances. Consequences”, Mn., 1988; V.P. Orgish "Ancient Russia. Formation of the Kievan state and the introduction of Christianity. Mn., 1988, etc. The works of E.M. Babosov, V.G. Doktorov, K.K. Koitoy, T.P. Short, Ya.N. Maroshem, D.M. Matyas, E.S. Prokoshina and others. In 1987, a collective study "Catholicism in Belarus: Traditionalism and Adaptation" was published. Studies have also been conducted on other denominations. So, N.M. Nikolsky in his book names the reasons for the split of the Russian Orthodox Church, analyzes the religious and social movements in the 2nd half. XVII century; considering the features of the Old Believers in the 18th century, he connects the growth of merchant capital with the activities of the townspeople of the Old Believers (the author names three ways in the Old Believers: boyars, townsmen and peasants). M.S. Korzun, speaking of the Old Believers as a peculiar stage in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, addresses only the question of the social essence of the church schism. However, in his works N.M. Nikolsky and M.S. Korzun do not touch on the history of the Russian Old Believers in the Belarusian lands, there is no analysis in their works

10 10 relations between Russia and the Commonwealth in matters of Russian Old Believers. A separate area of ​​historical and religious research was the analysis of religiosity as a phenomenon of traditional folk culture, and only a few authors began to consider folk culture depending on church institutions. In our opinion, the shortcoming in the works of Belarusian historians is that, while studying traditional folk culture, they showed its dependence only on the largest confessions, ignoring smaller confessions, incl. and with the tarot. Similar, we observe in the works of scientists from other countries. But recently this approach has begun to change. So, A.S. Ryazhev, in his Ph. 20th century in Russia, the dominant position, the currents in Russian Orthodoxy, namely the Old Believers. In Belarus, only in the 1980s, at the junction of the history of religion and the history of folk culture, interest was shown in the Tarot rites in historical and sociological terms. In 1992, the monograph "Old Believers in Belarus" by T.P. Short, E.S. Prokoshina and other authors, in which the material is presented in philosophical and sociological terms. Based on the purpose of the study, the authors of the monograph present the historical part in a general way. In 1994, Olga Fadeyeva's monograph "Belarusian Handbook" was published. Its author, narrating about regional features, methods of making a handbrake and its decoration, touches upon the issue of the ritual use of a handbrake in the places of residence of the Old Believers. Of particular interest are the articles of the employee of the Vetka Museum of Folk Art S.I. Leontieva. In his theses “Vetka Old Believer Manuscripts. Dialogue between a book and a person” the author talks about Vetka’s handwritten heritage. In 1998, a collective monograph was published in the republic under the general editorship of V.I. Novitsky "Confessions in Belarus (the end of the 18th - 20th centuries)". In this monograph, V.V. Grigoryeva gives a general description of the Old Believers in Belarus by provinces in the 2nd half. 19th early 20th century The issue of relations between Orthodox priests and Old Believers is also touched upon. The monograph "Old Believers in the Belarusian lands" is the first specialized study of the history of the Old Believers in

11 11 Belarus at the end of the XVII beginning. XX centuries The work was done mainly on the basis of little-known archival sources, some of the data from which was used by the author in publications. Much attention in the monograph is paid to the consideration of fundamentally important materials on the Old Believers from sources found both in Belarus and in Russia, Lithuania and Poland. In the process of writing the monograph, the author faced the question regarding the choice of terms and concepts of Old Believers and Old Believers, Old Believers and Old Believers and their translation into Belarusian. Regarding the translation, we note that the Old Believer and the Old Believer, the Old Believers and the Old Believers in Belarusian dictionaries are translated only as the Old Believer and the Old Believers. In Russian explanatory dictionaries, these concepts are presented as synonyms. For example, in V. Dahl’s dictionary, Old Believers and Old Believers are given in one dictionary entry, although there is a distinction in the very interpretation of the concepts, different meanings are given: “Old Believer is a more general name, sometimes including direct schismatics, and an Old Believer is a co-religionist of the blessed church” (with 318). In the dictionaries of Ushakov and Ozhegov, in the 4-volume Dictionary of the Russian Language, the term Old Believer is given a synonym for the Old Believer. However, in the 4-volume "Dictionary of the Russian Language" in the dictionary entry with the Taro-believer, an interpretation is given: "A person belonging to one of the sects of the Old Believers" (1984, vol. 4, p. 251). In our work, we use the terms with the tarot-believer and the old-believers. To substantiate this, let us turn again to explanatory dictionaries and show that the words faith and ritual are not synonymous, they differ in meaning: Rite “A set of strictly defined actions that accompany the performance of religious rituals or everyday traditions” (TSBM, vol. 1, p. .70); Faith 2. The state of consciousness associated with the recognition of the existence of God, confidence in the real existence of something supernatural” (SRYA, vol. 1, p. 149). Considering that one of the reasons for the split of the ROC was the issues of the church rite, then, in our opinion, the terms Old Believer and Old Believer are the most appropriate. Unified Old Believers in the 1st half. 18th century divided into priests and bespopovtsy. The Bespopovtsy abandoned most of the sacraments, which allowed a certain group of historians to use the word "Old Believers" in relation to the Bespopovtsy, who did not question the tenets of Orthodoxy. We believe that the word "Old Believer" is a later one and most specifically defines the initial essence of the schism of the Russian Orthodox Church.

12 12 In the scientific literature there is no precisely defined meaning of the concepts of agreement and sense. In our work, we use the term consent to define a large section of the Old Believers according to the peculiarities of the dogma into Bespopovtsy, priests who accept the Belokrinitsky hierarchy, Bespopovtsy: Pomortsy, Fedoseyevtsy, Filippovtsy, Netovtsy, etc. In our work, the term sense means a division of the Old Believers, smaller than agreement, as a result of differences in the peculiarities of the dogma. In the scientific literature, the term sense at the same time means both a larger and smaller section of the Old Believers than consent. The author in his monograph explores the problem of Tarot-rites in Belarus from a historical point of view, in no way interfering with theological issues. Literature 1. Ershova O.P. Split and power. /relations between the state and the Old Believers in the city of the 19th century/. Dis. cand. ist. Sciences. M., Kelsiev V. Collection of government information about the schismatics. London, Leontieva S.I. Vetka Old Believer Manuscripts. Dialogue between a book and a person. B: Old Believers. Story. Culture. Modernity. M., Ryazhev A.S. Irgiz Old Believer Communities in the Second Half of the 18th and First Half of the 19th Centuries. Dis. cand. ist. Sciences. M., Nikolsky N.M. History of the Russian Church. 3rd ed. M., CHAPTER 1 FORMATION OF THE OLD RELIEVE 1.1. Prerequisites for the formation of the Old Believers. Until the 17th century Byzantium was the spiritual head of Muscovite Russia, which instilled in Russian people hostility towards foreigners. Therefore, for several centuries, the Muscovite state was isolated from the West, and Byzantine influence covered all aspects of life. According to Kostomarov, the Russian spirit was slavishly bound by Byzantine chains. However, the events of the 15th century in the Greek East did not favor Byzantium. The former high authority of the Greeks began to fall in the eyes of Moscow society. Even Ivan the Terrible, in disputes with Posevin, noted that “the Greeks are not the gospel to us,” and such a view in the 16th century becomes widespread. It should be noted that trust in the Greeks had already been lost since the Council of Florence in 1439, when the Greeks signed a union with the Pope. Since that time, the Russians have been wary of the Greeks, as they have lost their piety and purity of morals. The authority of Byzantium in church affairs was also little recognized, because the Greek church was characterized by unrest and discord,

13 13 most of the territory did not have its own schools and the Greek hierarchs had to study in Latin schools and academies, and the condition for admission was the renunciation of the Greek faith. Already in the XV century. The Greeks did not have their own printing houses, so they had to publish books in Latin printing houses, and this made it possible for the Latins to make their own amendments to the Greek texts. After Byzantium fell under the blows of the Turks, its world-historical role is lost, which passes to Moscow: the latter becomes the successor of the Greek monarchy. Moscow scribes are beginning to remake Byzantine theories in a Russian way. Having got rid of Byzantine vassalage, the Moscow prince is elevated to the rank of autocrat, he receives the reins of government over the holy thrones of God of the holy world church. All this testifies to the actual strengthening of the power of the Moscow princes and their transformation from princes-landlords into princes-autocrats. In Russia, the unity of the state and faith was established, with worship in the Church Slavonic language, which greatly contributed to the unification of the people. The southwestern lands of Ukraine and Belarus turned out to be in a different situation. In the XIII first half of the XVI centuries. on the territory of Belarus, the formation and improvement of feudal relations continued, the main means of production, land, was redistributed. The forms of land ownership and land use have changed. Agricultural labor became the basis of economic life, the majority of the population was engaged in it. The main occupation of the people was agriculture, animal husbandry, handicrafts, as well as beekeeping, fishing, and hunting. New economic relations were associated with the development of handicrafts and trade. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which included Belarusian lands, there was a rapid development of handicraft production. Metalworking required such specialists as blacksmiths, locksmiths, boilermakers, tinkers, tinkers, and tinsmiths. Orthodoxy, hierarchically connected with the Metropolitan of Kiev, penetrates into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from Polotsk Rus. It should be noted that the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, such as Jagiello and Vitovt, in assessing the role of religion in the state, sought to find a way out of the religious differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. At the beginning of the XV century. at the suggestion of Vitovt, the council of bishops elected Gregory Tsamblak as metropolitan. Dissatisfied with this, Moscow tried to have the Patriarch of Constantinople cancel this decision. However, Tsamblak remains a metropolitan and later took part in the Council of Constantinople as a representative of the Orthodox Lithuanian-Belarusian Church.

14 14 In the ruling Lithuanian groupings, the idea arises of a union with the aim of separating Western Russia from Moscow Russia. Since 1468 Grigory the Bulgarian was the Metropolitan of Kiev. He accepted the union and promised the pope and the king of the Commonwealth to bring all of Western Russia to the union. The church was divided into eastern and western. It was officially believed that the Western Russian Church recognized the union with the Roman Church. The union, proclaimed at the church council in Berestye in 1596, was an attempt to unite the Catholic and Orthodox churches on the territory of the Commonwealth. The main political idea of ​​the union was to consolidate people of different faiths around the state power of the Commonwealth. The imposition of the ideas of the union caused a popular protest, which was perceived as the slogan of the national liberation struggle. The Russian Orthodox Church, for its part, prevented the rapprochement of northwestern Russia with the Latin West, calling it heretical. For example, priests ordained by the Kiev Metropolis were allowed to be allowed to worship in the Russian lands only when they confess and if there is a guarantor in their trustworthiness. In Russian trade and craft cities, similar to Western European cities, an anti-feudal heretical movement was born. An example of this was Novgorod. There in the second half of the XIV-XV centuries. the heresy of the Strigolnikov arose. The latter opposed the venality of the Orthodox Church, against extortions, denied repentance before the priest, the sacrament of your priesthood. Moscow was alarmed by the rapprochement between Novgorod and Lithuania. In the formation of a centralized Russian state, after the fall of Constantinople in 1454, religion takes on great importance. The establishment of Turkish domination in the Balkans was seen as God's punishment for the Byzantine Empire for the Florentine apostasy. After these events, the views of the Russian tsar and the church turn to Kazan and Astrakhan. But recalcitrant Novgorod still remained, and the church began indoctrination of the population for the annexation of Novgorod and its possessions to Moscow. Novgorod was annexed in 1478, Tver in 1485, and Pskov in 1510. In the east, the conquered Kazan and Astrakhan were declared Russian cities and were supposed to be Christian cities, a separate hierarchy was established here. The first archbishop of Kazan and Sviyazhsk, Guriy, went to his diocese from Moscow in the spring of 1555. The Russian state in the west used not only weapons, but also the Orthodox cross. The armed confrontation between East and West is included in the religious doctrines of ancient Russian piety. Ivan

15 15 Grozny started a war with Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and Poland. Heavy and not popular among the people was the Livonian War, which began in 1558 between the Moscow state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and moved to the territory of the latter. In 1562 Moscow troops stood at the walls of Vitebsk, Orsha, Dubrovna, Shklov, Kopys. On February 15, 1563, Polotsk was captured. The state urgently needed an ally. As a result of long and difficult negotiations, on July 1, 1569, the Union of Lublin was signed. Since that time, the two states, Lithuania and Poland, were one Rzeczpospolita. Fearing a possible rapprochement with the Commonwealth of the northwestern Russian lands, Tsar Ivan IV in 1570 defeated Novgorod and Tver. Since the 17th century a new page in Russian history opens: the merging of local markets into the all-Russian market begins. Small-scale production and money circulation are further developed, the process of social division of labor is intensifying, serf manufactories and serf farms are emerging. The process of enslavement of the peasants was reflected in the new code of laws, the Council Code, adopted in 1649, which legally formalized serfdom. The position of Muscovite Russia was also worsened by an unsuccessful foreign policy. The rearmament of the army and the construction of defensive lines in the south demanded huge new costs, and this in turn led to an increase in taxes. Exploitation of the people, poverty, hunger became commonplace in the Muscovite state. Patriarch Nikon in a letter to the tsar noted: “You preach to everyone to fast, and now it is not known who does not fast for the sake of the scarcity of bread; in many places they fast to death, because there is nothing to eat. There is no one who would have been pardoned: the poor, the blind, widows, blacks and blacks, all are heavily taxed; everywhere weeping and contrition; there is no one who rejoices in these days." The approach of a new socio-economic crisis in the Muscovite state coincided with the rapid growth of the people's liberation movement. In 1648, under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the liberation war of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples began. It was caused by feudal, religious and national oppression on the part of the magnates and gentry of the Commonwealth, the Catholic and Uniate clergy. These events led to the Russian-Polish war. The church played a significant role in the life of the country. The state and the church tried to mitigate social contradictions, and both carried out their activities from the position of the ruling class.

16 16 It was also characteristic that both the state and the church claimed priority. Metropolitan Philip's attempt to resist Ivan the Terrible ended not in his favor. The union of church and state was established in Russia under Mikhail Romanov, who headed the royal throne, and his father, Patriarch Filaret, managed the church. In the 17th century the church became the largest feudal lord: it owned a large number of peasant farmsteads in the Muscovite state. The church had its own crafts, was engaged in usury, received income from the monastery and church white settlements. Temples and especially monasteries in the XVII century. distinguished by great wealth. This situation caused dissatisfaction among the parishioners: the clergy and monks in their eyes were losing their prestige. It should be noted that the authority of Byzantium as a spiritual leader was weakening all the time. For the sake of self-interest, the Greek hierarchs used various means, including flattery, to praise Russian piety. At the same time, they tried to prove that from the moment the Byzantium was conquered by the Turks, the streams of God's wisdom began to dry up in it. They came to Moscow in large groups and for a long time lived at the expense of the royal court, collected donations. All this led to the fact that the Greek hierarchs began to be denied letters. The Greeks, in turn, did not treat the Moscow people very kindly. This was noted by many contemporaries, in 1650 one of them reported to the Ambassadorial order: “which Greeks in the Volga land and those Moscow and Kiev people hate Russian people, and who have arrived and call those dogs” . The ruthless class struggle in Russia, the loss of prestige of the official Russian Orthodox Church, are reflected in such a phenomenon as a schism. In the middle of the XVII century. there is a sharp polarization of the main classes of feudal society. In socio-economic development, two points of view are outlined: the first is pro-Western-noble, the supporters of this view linked their interests with the West; the other point of view was the pro-East-peasant. In the religious sphere, too, there were two different approaches to the question of church organization. Under feudalism, the most acceptable form of government was the monarchy. However, a critical attitude towards power was already emerging among the people, the concept of a “good king” appeared. Foreign policy of Russia, as well as the beginning of the reform of the church in the first half of the 17th century. led to the formation in Moscow of the circle "Zealots of piety"; it included Nikon, who was then

17 17 archimandrite, archpriests Ivan Neronov, Avvakum, Daniel, Login, Lazar and others. The circle also included representatives of the secular court nobility, and its confessor S. Vonifatiev headed it. The main goal of the circle was the revival of Orthodoxy in its purity by correcting liturgical books and eliminating disorders in church life. And the most influential supporters of Nikon Avvakum, Neronov, Login and others went even further. They suggested simplifying some ceremonies, shortening the duration of prayers, and expressed the idea of ​​the need to legitimize the practice of clergymen delivering sermons composed by them on various life issues. Representatives of this circle advocated the transformation of the church into a more effective force of influence on the masses. However, already in the early 50s, the circle disintegrated, a struggle began between fellow thinkers, the cause of which was the problem of correcting books. Nikon, for example, insisted on bringing books in line with Byzantine ones, while Avvakum, supporting the idea of ​​eliminating errors, opposed blind, thoughtless corrections according to Greek models. He opposed such novelty in the church, which amounted to the elimination of differences between Russian and Greek liturgical practice. Avvakum and Login demanded to rely on the decisions of the Stoglavy Cathedral of 1551. Nikon became the main executor of the reform. Nikon was born on May 24, 1695 into a peasant family in the village of Veldemanovo, Knyagininsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province. At baptism he received the name Nikita. Nikita was tall, of a heroic build, with an expressive look. In childhood, he, not getting along with his stepmother, fled to the Makarovsky Zheltovodsky monastery in the Kostroma province. Nikita returned to his parents' house at the age of 20. After a certain time he was a priest in the village of Lyskovo on the Volga. On the other side of the river was the famous Makarov Fair. Moscow merchants who came here found out about a good local priest and invited him to Moscow. For ten years he served in one of the Moscow parishes. Three of his sons suddenly die, and shocked by this, Nikita, together with his wife, decide to "leave the world." It was decided that the wife would take monastic vows in the Moscow Alekseevsky Kremlin Monastery, and the husband would go to the Solovki to the Anzersky Skete under the guidance of Elder Elizario. Here Nikita, at the age of 31, became a monk and took the name Nikon. Living in absolute solitude, he read a lot of church literature and holy writings. Once the wise Elizario took Nikon with him as an adviser to Moscow, where they were introduced to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.

18 18 In 1648, Nikon again ends up in Moscow. The young Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich decides to leave Nikon in Moscow. Nikon became an archimandrite in the Novo-Spassky Monastery, a friendship developed between him and the tsar. Soon, the tsar invited Nikon to the metropolis of Veliky Novgorod, where he determines the goal of his life and church service: this is a victory over the secular worldview in order to subordinate the state to the church. With his deanery, the role played in pacifying the rebellion in Novgorod, Nikon gained great popularity among the people. The tsar also treated Nikon with favor. Nikon sought love for himself not only for personal reasons, but also with the aim of achieving submission to secular authority by church authority. When Patriarch Joseph died, Metropolitan Varlaam of Rostov, Bishop Anthony of Uglich and Nikon became candidates for the patriarchate. Nikon was elected, but after the conciliar election (1652), he did not agree to accept the patriarchate for a long time. It was the right moment to get exclusive powers, and Nikon was playing for time. And time worked for him. The tsar with the clergy and the boyars in the Assumption Cathedral tearfully asked Nikon to become patriarch. It was at this moment that the latter demanded exceptional promises and oaths from them. “If you want me to be a patriarch, make a vow in this cathedral church that you will keep the gospel dogmas and observe the rules of the holy Apostles and holy fathers and the laws of pious kings. If you promise to listen to me, as your chief archpastor and father, in everything that I will proclaim to you about the debts of God and the rules, if you let me build a church, then, at your desire and petition, I will no longer renounce the great bishopric. Nikon received the desired promise from the tsar and the cathedral. This happened on July 22, 1653. Nikon was 47 years old. Apparently, the tsar and the participants in the council had in mind that the change in the church would occur with an attempt to change the Code of 1649. And Nikon himself saw this as one of his main tasks. The Code of 1649 provided for many changes. However, the Code did not yet affect the agricultural church base: the land remained in the hands of bishops and monasteries. The judicial function over the population of church estates and partly the administrative function were transferred to the subordination of the secular authorities. Achieving central power, the tsar gradually took power, administration, and finances into his own hands. Under the new conditions, the state needed an even larger supply of land for settlement with the service class. At least part of the church and monastic lands was needed. Cathedral Code of 1649

1919 abolished the privileges of the clergy, monasteries and churches. Although the church remained the largest landowner for a long time, the reforms that took place at that time were historically necessary and natural. The problem was that none of the parties had concrete plans: the church defined its role as an eternal canonical norm, and the state, with its new forms of industrial relations, did not know how to act. What was needed was an understandable theory that would substantiate the historical necessity of change. Uncertainty in the balance of power led to compromises. For example, the Council Code of 1649 had an exception for patriarchal lands. The patriarch's right was left behind: his diocese-region was excluded from the jurisdiction of the Monastic Order, people were judged in the old way, which means they were judged by their patriarchal representatives. However, in the first half of the 17th century, despite all the disagreements in the state, the representatives of state power, mainly the boyars and the majority of the higher clergy, had one common desire: to annex the lands of Ukraine and the Commonwealth to the Russian state. Supported their ideas and Patriarch Nikon. We find confirmation of this in the book by M.A. Filippov "Patriarch Nikon". In a conversation with the royal confessor Stepan Vanifatiev, Nikon, speaking about the correction of church books, convincingly argued: “our church must adhere strictly to what is recognized by the Greek church: otherwise there will be no church unity with the churches of Little, White Russia and Lithuania, and in this case there will be no There will also be political unity. Disagreeing with Nikon's thoughts, Vonifatiev replied: "The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world, therefore there is nothing to attach earthly affairs to faith." The reason for the beginning of the schism was the reform of Patriarch Nikon, which consisted in a certain change in church rites in accordance with the rites adopted by the Greek Church, from which Russian Orthodoxy once went. The central point of these reforms was the correction of liturgical books. It should be noted that even before Nikon, in 1636, nine Nizhny Novgorod priests submitted a petition to Patriarch Joseph about unrest in the church. Among the supporters of church reforms were the future guides of the Old Believers, Ivan Neronov, Avvakum, and others. They expressed the idea of ​​correcting books. The defenders of antiquity were not stopped by the decree of the Stoglavy Cathedral (1551), according to which, after eliminating the errors that had crept into the “immaculate Christian faith”,

20 20 "For the Ages" national and church features of Russian Orthodoxy. And given that there was no necessary material for the amendments, it was very difficult to correct the books. However, from the moment when Greek sympathies began to win in Moscow, the problems became simpler. In order to unite the Eastern Church with the Russian one, it was only necessary to compare the Moscow books with the Greek texts and bring them into line. This point of view was also supported by the book correctors, students of the Kiev Theological Academy, Epiphanius Slavinetsky and Arseniy Sukhanov. But if we take into account that the Greek books were printed in Latin printing houses, and the texts were corrected by the Latins, then these books were considered insufficiently authoritative. The point of view of the defenders of antiquity was that the then books were printed only in Moscow, and here only books translated from ancient Greek originals were considered authoritative. There were very few such books: according to the patriarchal library, there were about six handwritten and printed Greek originals. Even before Nikon, the Greekophiles expressed the idea of ​​the need for a church reform, in which the main provisions would be consistent with the Eastern Church. In 1650, on Mount Athos, in the Serbian Hilandar monastery, an event occurred that excited not only Muscovites, but also other Orthodox believers. The tsar became aware that here the Russian liturgical books that he sent to the Athos monasteries were kept in a careless condition, their texts were being altered, and the icons sent by the tsar to the Greek elders were sold at auction. Thanks to a well-established printing business, Moscow was able to send liturgical books to Eastern monasteries. They were sent in large numbers during the time of Patriarch Filaret Nikitich (gg.). Having received the Moscow liturgical books, the Slavic Athos monasteries began to conduct divine services on them. And it was immediately noticed that there are differences between the Russian and Greek church rites and rites. But given that on Mount Athos, Slavic monasteries were located next to Greek ones, then in each monastery they knew what was happening in the neighboring one. The difference in rank and rites caused various rumors, the main questions of which were: where did the differences come from, who deviated from the ancient rank and rites, who was right Russians or Greeks? Athos was divided into two groups that had opposite views: the first was Greek and dominant on Athos, the second consisted mainly of Serbs, who had a particularly strong national feeling against oppression and violence from

21 21 sides of the Greeks. The Athos Greeks defended the point of view that the Greek rite, books and rituals correspond to the ancient ones and have no violations. They did not recognize Moscow books at all and claimed that additions and inventions of correctors were made to these books. Based on this, the Greeks called Moscow books heretical, offered to burn them, and excommunicate those who used them. The interests of the state set the most difficult religious and political tasks for Nikon. The first is the reform of church dogmas and rituals, the need to bring them into line with the Orthodox of southwestern Russia. This was especially necessary during the struggle for the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. The second task was to resolve the issue of possessions. For the sake of the actual fight against the restrictions on the property rights of the church economy, Nikon actively expanded the boundaries of his patriarchal territory, which reached a significant size under him. The tsar “forgot” the Code of 1649 and donated estates to Nikon. From Moscow, the patriarchal lands of Vologda, Novgorod, and Arkhangelsk stretched for hundreds of miles in the north. Kristetsky, Valdai, Starorussky counties departed from the Novgorod province. From the Tver region, Astashkov region, the city of Rzhev; fishing on the Volga in the Kazan and Astrakhan regions; in the southwest, a lot of land was taken in Poland. In the south, lands almost to the Crimean steppes were transferred to the patriarchal ones. According to Pavel Olezhsky, before Nikon, there were up to ten thousand households in the patriarchal estates. Under Nikon, their number increased to twenty-five thousand. Nikon built three monasteries in this internal ecclesiastical empire: the Iversky Monastery (near the city of Valdai (Novgorod Region)), the Cross Monastery on an island in the White Sea, near the mouth of the Onega River, and the Resurrection Monastery, which was called "New Jerusalem" (near the city of Voskresensk, near Moscow). In 1654, the year of the announcement of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, Nikon convened a church council in Moscow, which finally approved the bringing of Russian church rites and books in accordance with Greek ones. The "new faith" differed from the old one in many ways. For centuries, the recognized essence of Christian doctrine was the symbol of the cross, the image of which depended on the addition of fingers. In the old Russian finger composition, two fingers symbolized the dual unity of Jesus Christ as God and man, and three bent fingers symbolized the Trinity of God. For the defenders of antiquity, the idea of ​​the personification of God in man was closer, more understandable than the idea of ​​the trinity of God. Nikonians on this question had

22 22 their own view: for the cross they adopted the symbol of the Trinity, a three-fingered sign. In ancient books, in the Symbol of Faith (member 8), it is written: “And in the Holy Spirit, the true and life-giving Lord,” and after the correction, the word “true” was removed. In accordance with the principle of the dual unity of Christ in Orthodoxy, a divine service was performed in honor of Christ the God-Man, using a special hallelujah, “hallelujah, hallelujah” was repeated twice. With the innovations of Nikon, the special hallelujah was replaced by the treguba, i.e. the word hallelujah was repeated three times. The spelling of the name of Christ was also announced: instead of “Jesus”, they began to write “Jesus”, which the adherents of antiquity considered as a renunciation of the existing Son of God. The ancient Russian symbol of the cross, the symbol of the sufferings of the Lord, provided for its image and execution as eight-pointed: four ends of the cross-piece of the crucifixion plus the ends of the crossbars: the upper board with the title I.Kh.Ts.S. and lower foot. Nikonianism, without forbidding the eight-pointed cross, introduced the main form of the four-pointed cross. In addition to those listed, there were other ritual innovations: enclosing the child during baptism around the font; walking during the wedding around the lectern "according to the sun", after the innovations, walking was carried out "against the sun"; the divine service on seven prosvirs was replaced by the divine service on five prosvirs; traditional earthly bows were forbidden; they were replaced by low bows; It was ordered not to use the icons of Old Russian writing, but to replace them with new ones. The ancient church "znamenny" singing by hooks (a kind of musical signs of monody, that is, monophony, singing in unison), began to be replaced by polyphonic, choral singing from notes. Church architecture changed, for example, the construction of temples, which were widely built in the 16th century, was prohibited. These reforms aroused widespread protest, first of all among the people and among the lower clergy: Nikon's reforms were seen as an encroachment on national foundations. The fight against reforms was led by the universally recognized Avvakum. He was supported by Bishop Pavel Kolomensky, Archpriest Ivan Neronov, Priest Login, and Deacon Fyodor. Opponents of the innovations, led by archpriests Avvakum and Neronov, accused Nikon of apostasy from the ancient worship. In essence, the protest was a reflection of the attitude of most of the clergy towards the centralization of state and church administration, which affected the interests of both secular and spiritual feudal lords. For example, the Council Code of 1649 limited the growth of church land ownership by the clergy and boyars. It was forbidden in the cities

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Old Believers in Belarusian jersey
- an ethno-cultural group of Russians in Belarus who adhere to the Old Believers.

If we are talking about the Russian minority in Belarus, then it must be remembered that it is not always possible to perceive the Russian population as one community. Scientifically correct is the nomination of the Old Believers into a separate minority, as a group with its own historical destiny, cultural complex and separate self-consciousness, formed under the influence of a specific religious tradition. Despite living in a different ethnic and cultural environment, the Old Believers retained their cultural characteristics that distinguished this minority from the local population.

• 1. History
  • 1.1 17th century
  • 1.2 XVIII century
  • 1.3 19th century
  • 1.4 XX century
• 2 Culture
  • 2.1 Decorative arts
  • 2.2 Household
  • 2.3 Settlements
  • 2.4 Clothing
  • 2.5 Kitchen

Story

17th century

The first permanent group of Russians in Belarus appeared the Old Believers (Old Believers), who in the middle of the 17th century. settled in the Belarusian lands. Russia in the first half of the 17th century. reform of the Russian Orthodox Church. It split society into those who supported change and those who refused. The latter became known as the Old Believers. Against them, the authorities pursued a policy of repression, which encouraged them to emigrate. A significant part of those who did not accept the church reform immediately went to the Commonwealth. Old Believers (modern scientific tradition uses this term as more correct than “Old Believers”) founded two large centers on Belarusian lands - around Braslav and Vidz (Podvinye) and around Vetka (Polesye).

Settlement in these regions was in close connection with the existence of two currents among the Old Believers - priesthood and priestlessness. The priests had their own priests and the whole spiritual structure, recognized the sacraments of initiation and anointing. In the clergy, the most prosperous part of the Old Believers stood out, which, due to its economic situation, was friendly to the state. It was the priests who created the Vetka center of the Old Believers, which eventually became the largest and formed a special trend of priesthood - the Vetka consent (consent, or "consent" - an association of Old Believers, bearers of a separate system of religious beliefs). Vetka priests in ritual practice differed from other priestly agreements - Dyakonovsky and Epifanovsky.

In the Podvinye settled mainly Bespopovtsy. They abandoned the institution of the priesthood and sacraments, where priests were needed - the Eucharist and marriage. This flow of the Old Believers was characterized by spontaneity of protest against social evil, the search for heavenly and earthly truth. Bespopovstvo was divided into a large number of directions (consent), the largest among which were Pomor, Fedoseevsky, Filippovsky (burners), Netovsky and Shepherd. The social base of radical consent was the peasants, who had lost contact with their community. The governing bodies of the state were perceived by the bespopovtsy as servants of the Antichrist, which is why there were negative attitudes towards statehood. The leadership of the Commonwealth had a different attitude towards the currents of the Old Believers. The radical communities of Podvinsya were repeatedly attacked by the troops of the Commonwealth, and the Vetka priests, on the contrary, had very good relations with the authorities.

A special commission headed by A. Potsey was sent in 1690 to Vetka to get acquainted with priestly settlements. The study was conducted in four areas: “about the origin; about Vera; about life; about the quantity. The commission, whose work was initiated by the Catholic Church, came to the conclusion that the Vetka priests do not pose a threat to the state. The Catholic Church considered the Old Believers as a group departing from Orthodoxy. Therefore, the king of the Commonwealth, Jan III Sobieski, in 1691 allowed the opponents of the religious reform of the Orthodox Church to live freely in the state.

18th century

The migration of Old Believers to the territory of modern Belarus was negatively perceived by the authorities of the Moscow State. This provoked the punitive expedition of Colonel Sytin in 1735, during which the Vetka settlements were devastated. The majority of the population (according to some sources, about 14 thousand Old Believers) were evicted to the Russian Empire. The tragic events were repeated in 1764. Part of the Old Believers, who were lucky to escape deportation, settled throughout the Minsk Voivodeship. The Old Believers captured by Russian troops were exiled to Siberia and Altai.

The communities of those who did not recognize the church reform occupied empty socio-economic niches in the GDL. They sought to live in isolation from the surrounding population. Local Belarusian residents did not perceive migrants as competitors, so there were no conflicts between them. The Old Believers were considered kind and hardworking owners. Landowners sought to settle them on their own land, offering preferential lease terms.

19th century

After the divisions of the Commonwealth, migration waves to the territory of Belarus continued and were mainly associated with the Old Believers.

20th century

The number of Old Believers by 1914 reached 100 thousand people.

culture

decorative arts

Within the framework of a separate religious tradition of the Old Believers, the Vetka school of book graphics and ornament stood out. It was characterized by a combination of the "old printed" style with the "Moscow baroque" style, and the widespread use of floral ornaments. screensavers and initial letters used images of animals, birds and insects. The books had a rich color scheme. The Vetka school of icon painting gained popularity, which was characterized by a combination of ancient traditions with new elements in technology. The combination of the canons of the Byzantine and Russian Orthodox churches with the technique of Moscow, Novgorod, Ukrainian and Belarusian masters is explained by the fact that Vetka had the status of a religious center of the Old Believers, which all outstanding masters aspired to.

economy

The main occupations of the Old Believers were agriculture and cattle breeding. They were supplemented by handicrafts and waste crafts. Since the 18th century among the Old Believers, trade is expanding. The Old Believers of Belarus had close ties with all the Old Believer communities, which greatly contributed to the development of trade. The main role was played by the Vetka merchants, who were intermediaries in trade with Russia. They traded in grain, salt, livestock, timber, and fur.

Settlements

The layout of the settlements depended on the security conditions, the landscape and geography of the region, as well as the structure of land use. The type of settlement among priests and bespopovtsy differed. So, in the Podvinya, where the small-yard settlements of the Bespopovtsy were scattered, an unsystematic layout of the nested or cumulus type was observed. The popov settlements on Vetka were quite large and initially had a comb type of building, and from the middle of the 18th century. - already street. Vetka itself quickly turned into an urban-type settlement. Historically, on the territory of Belarus, a closed type of courtyard was common among the Old Believers. Covered yards gradually appeared, if the house and the barn had a common roof. A cage, sheds, etc. were attached to the house. There was a practice of the existence of a secret passage from the yard. The yard necessarily had a bath. The house was decorated with wood carvings. There was even the term "Vetkovskaya carving", which testified to its peculiarity, clear artistry. It should be noted that the Old Believer community of Belarus had a certain social stratification, according to which there were quite different cultural complexes: peasants and bourgeois, wealthy and poor, farmers and merchants, etc. For example, Old Believers-philistines had rather large multi-room houses with original interior.

clothing

The clothes of the Old Believers also differed from the clothes of the local population. The basis of the women's clothing complex was a sundress and a shirt. A shirt was sewn from linen or calico, a colorful sundress or skirt was put on top. A bright apron was always worn on the skirt. Dresses were sewn from chintz, silk or wool. The headdresses of the girls were different from those of women. Girls braided their hair in one braid. For women, a headdress was obligatory. In winter they wore fur hats or wool bands. The fabrics from which the clothes of the bourgeois women were sewn were more expensive than those of peasant women.

The men's clothing of the peasants also differed from the philistine or merchant's. The peasants wore loose-fitting shirts made of linen or chintz with a slanting collar. Under the armpits, triangular inserts were made from another fabric. Wide trousers made of linen were tucked into boots or bast shoes during work. A sleeveless jacket made of cloth was always worn over the shirt. A cap or cap was worn on the head. In winter they wore sheepskin coats. Merchants and philistines wore shirts, trousers, a long caftan and boots (yellow or red). The shirt was belted with a belt. A separate type of clothing was a vest. In winter, they wore a long fur coat, which testified to prosperity.

Kitchen

The food of the Old Believers has preserved the traditions of Russian cuisine. The main dishes were cabbage, various cereals, kvass. Tobacco and alcohol were prohibited. Tea and coffee were once considered "unclean" and "antichrist".

The wedding ceremony of the Old Believers was interesting. It differed from Orthodox traditions. The priest's blessing replaced the parent's. Marriage, on the one hand, was recognized as sacred, and on the other, it was considered sinful. At the wedding in most communities it was forbidden to attend unmarried youth. Vodka, honey gingerbread and dishes with mushrooms were considered mandatory at the wedding.

Old Believers in Belarusian jersey

Old Believers in Belarus Information About

The opening of the XXIV International Book Exhibition, held in Moscow in September, was the photo album "Living Faith. Vetka". It was presented by the publishing house "Belarusian Encyclopedia", and the album is dedicated to the art of the Old Believers. More than three hundred years ago, it was the Polesie town of Vetka, now a district town not far from Gomel, that became the center of the Orthodox Old Believers.

... Minibuses from Gomel to Vetka run one after another. From the window I catch the names of passing villages: Golden Horn, Prisno, Khalch ... 20 minutes of the road fly by unnoticed.

The path of the Old Believers in the autumn of 1685 was clearly not so fast. From Moscow and other Russian cities and villages they walked, rafted down the river, fleeing their pursuers. And in these places, it was not the streets of a well-equipped city that opened up to them, but dense coniferous forests - the possessions of Pan Khaletsky. The Old Believers rented these lands for their suburban - free - settlements.

There is a legend: after a long journey, the schismatics, relying on God's mercy and offering up their prayers, let a branch of a tree go with the flow: "To which shore this branch will be washed by the waves, our settlement will be there, for this will be the indication of God's finger" ... By the way, from that era, Vetka borrowed the basis for the current coat of arms: the silver letter W (the beginning of the name of the district center) on a red shield-background - from the Khaletsky family.

Where to go is clear without a guide. Residents of the town react automatically to the word "Old Believers":

- To Red Square for you. To the museum, - they wave their hand in the right direction.

Quiet streets, along which foreign cars occasionally pass mixed with horse teams, I cross quiet neighborhoods. Here is the Red Square. Monumental grandfather Lenin, office buildings, department store. Massive carved gates at an old mansion catch the eye:

“The house of the merchant Groshikov, 19th century,” enlightens Svetlana Leontyeva, the chief curator of the Vetka State Museum of Folk Art named after Shklyarov, from the threshold. - And the gate is the work of the founder of the museum, Fyodor Grigoryevich Shklyarov.

- And you have Red Square - just like in Moscow ...

- So the name is from the Old Believers. After all, having settled here, they cherished the memory of their native places as best they could. For example, the then male monastery and the church were also called Pokrovsky in honor of the Moscow Cathedral. But they are no longer...

Fyodor Shklyarov in a cap "looks" at me from behind the back of the chief custodian.

His portrait - sitting at the table, surrounded by the legends of antiquity - welcomes travelers at the entrance to the museum. If not for Shklyarov, there would be no museum known to the whole world.

He himself was from the family of the Old Believers. He graduated from ten classes of evening school. He worked at a local club as a designer, at a weaving factory - he created ornamental patterns, worked hard at construction sites ... An amateur artist, a master of gold hands, a collector of antiquities. I felt in my heart what blocks could be mediocrely lost. But in fact - Columbus, who revealed to the world the uniqueness of the Old Believer Vetka. Shklyarov's personal collection of 400 rarities, collected from the homes of Vetka residents and residents of the surrounding Old Believer villages, laid the foundation for the museum.

In the invigorating coolness of the museum we travel through the halls. The spirit from the walls is such that goosebumps. The Old Believers were not illiterate peasants in bast shoes - a special "cut" of Russian people who deeply revere the holy word and knowledge. They brought with them to these lands not only church handwritten and printed manuscripts, icons dear to their hearts, but also founded their own schools of icon painting, book design, house carving...

An icon of the Mother of God glitters under the glass. I come closer - extraordinary beauty: everything around the face is sewn with beads.

“Sewing with beads and pearls made the Vetka icon stand out among the examples of other schools of icon painting,” explains the chief curator. - Among its features are rich salaries with chasing, gilding, silvering.

The halls about the history of Vetka's book culture are "gold mines" for scientists. Every exhibit is a monument. In one of the showcases I study the corner of the Old Believer "book-making". Svetlana Leontieva captures my interest:

Minerals were ground into powder, yolk was added - icons were painted with this paint and the title pages of books were designed ...

The museum funds contain about half a thousand Old Believer icons, more than a hundred manuscripts of the 16th-19th centuries, about 600 early printed publications, including works by Ivan Fedorov, Pyotr Mstislavets, Vasily Garaburda, Onisim Radishevsky, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Moscow printing houses of the 16th-18th centuries. You feel like a sliver in this cycle of time.

Behind the samovar I...

“I wish I could visit the Old Believers,” I look hopefully at my guide.

“After the Chernobyl accident, there are no Old Believer villages left in our region,” museum workers lower me from heaven to earth. - Almost 50 settlements were resettled. True, there are families of the Old Believer family in the city, only the traditions are already blurred.

The address, however, is suggested. As I walk to the right house, I peer into the faces of passers-by. Suddenly you will meet a stately citizen with a bushy beard. But no luck. But attention is attracted by a mother with a baby on the playground. Carefully start a conversation about the Old Believers. And you have to be lucky.

“I have a husband from an Old Believer family,” I hear in response. - All his relatives are in Moscow.

- And how is it in your house? ..

- Frequent tea parties - times. Family holidays only in the home circle without strangers - two ... There are many of them here. The principles have changed, of course. But something remains.

The house of Anna Yevstratovna Lebedeva, which was pointed out to me in the museum, is a patriarchal picture from the past - wooden, with openwork architraves ... In the past, a teacher of the Belarusian language, from the family of the Old Believers, is surprised: why come to her? But he welcomes you to come in. All around clean and tidy. Knitted napkins, embroidery, a huge geranium. TV, mobile phone on the table - a strong connection with civilization.

“Let’s talk over tea,” the hostess suggests, and I have no doubt that I’ve come to the right place.

Daughter Lyubov Alexandrovna is busy at the table. There are cups, butter, cookies, jam.

- I remember well from my childhood: tea was everything, - the pensioner gladly leaves in the past. - Twice a day between meals. Mom says to father: "Put, Yevstrat, a samovar." And it began. My father used tongs to break the sugar into small pieces. They were sprinkled with jam on top. We drank 5-6 cups. And it's all about talking.

Grandmother Anya picks up the saucer, deftly places it on her fingers and sips store-bought green tea with mint... And I listen to her unhurried story.

They lived in the village of Tarasovka, Vetka district. On one side of the street - locals, on the other - "Muscovites", they are also Old Believers. In the family nest, as far as he remembers, the father was the head of everything. They did not sit at the table without him. Before meals and after the obligatory prayer. Norms of behavior: restraint, modesty, chastity. They didn't swear. Didn't smoke. Didn't indulge in hot drinks. Actually, just like now.

- Yes, I still remember - the daughter picks up the "thread" of the family chronicle. - Grandfather always instructed: do not turn around at the table, do not fall apart, do not grab ... What's wrong, you could even hit your forehead with a spoon.

Anna Evstratovna tries to convey in words the awe with which books were treated in the house. The parent read voraciously, and after all, he graduated from only four classes of the parochial school. And it was easy for the children to study. She was six years old when they began to call to the collective farm - to read the newspaper "For the Bolshevik pace." But there is practically nothing left of the church rarities. Only one single icon. Her father was given to her by her parents before marriage. Survived miraculously. In bad times, they hid in the basement. The house burned down, but she survived.

- Yes, I didn’t tell about the New Year! - Grandma Anya threw up her hands saying goodbye. We didn't have public holidays. Only New Year's Eve. In the evening, families made huge bonfires in the yards, and paper lanterns were made for children, into which candles were inserted. Such was the beauty. Words cannot convey.

Anna Evstratovna refers herself to the Old Believers only by parental memory. In life, he says, he is already a different person. But as for her ancestors three hundred years ago, for her today an indisputable value is the spirit of the family, where they respect each other and value dignity.