≪Deprive of Monasticism and... Send... to the Places of Previous Dwellings≫

Abstract

The article deals with the legal framework and practice of investigation in the cases of monks’ vows performed in 1730s following the prohibitive edicts of 1720s. The research showed that the restrictive standards regarding age, education and social attitude, fundamentally contradicted the existing traditions of formation of Orthodox monasticism in Russia. This was the main reason for their mass non-fulfi lment. Only the investigations performed in 1730s and the subsequent harsh measures of defrocking, fining, public punishment and exiles along with the established mechanism for reporting and control of the vows made monasteries to fulfill the edicts. The implementation of restrictions on the monks’ vows led to a sharp reduction in the number of monks and put monasteries on the brink of survival. Thus, the investigations of 1730s became a fundamentally important milestone in the implementation of the secularization reform of Russian Orthodox monasteries.

Keywords

• Russian Orthodox Church
• monasteries
• monasticism
• secularization
• the church and the state
• the investigation files
• the synodal period