Granì (Dec 2019)
Official Church and Old Believers in Ekaterinoslav in the XVIII – early XX centuries
Abstract
The purpose of article is to consider a priority the relationship Old Believer communities with the Established Church with the help of the same religion and missionary activities. The Old Believers don’t constitute a monolithic group with identical views on the nature of relations with the official church. The certain part of it was consciously isolated from the structures subordinate to the Synod, while others made efforts to ensure that the hierarchs of the ruling church recognize the Old Believer’s priests. The result of such efforts was the emergence of consensus. The essence of consensus was to subordinate the Old Believers to the official church in an organizational sense: the appointment of priests, the reporting to the diocese, etc. while maintaining the basic rules of the Old Believer’s service – church service was held by priests of the dominant church for Old Believer’s books. At the same time, the unity of faith was regarded not so much as the final goal, but as an intermediate stage in the transition from the Old Believers, did not maintain ties with the official church, to the «prevailing» faith. The final result of the faith was to destroy the Old Believers completely. However, the legal unsettledness of the new policy of the royal authority regarding the Old Believers, the weak attempts of the official church led to the fact that the Old Believer’s communities don’t agree to the conditions of single-faith. Together with administrative pressure, the activity of the official church also increased slightly. This manifested itself in missionary work. Currently, state bodies have actually taken over the organization of the missionary activities of Orthodox’s priests. The dioceses of our region don’t have experienced missionaries, therefore they were invited from other places. Active missionary work was carried out, visiting the Old Believer’s villages, local Orthodox’s priests. Specially trained teachers were also sent to them, who knew well the life of the Old Believers and knew how to conduct private conversations with them. The main reason for the emergence of communities was the vacant land, which were annex territory of the Russian Empire, which was necessary to settle. As is well known, Old Believer appeared after implemented church reform head up patriarch Nikon. Old Believers have has regarded as obnoxious communities of the Russian Empire from the beginning and during more one century. The government and lead church even fought them. Suppression, pursuit and duress was counterproductive, Old Believers continued to believe in their believing. Relations between Old Believers and the authorities were very tense and inconstant. There was thaw in relations communities from outside bureaucrats during two centuries. The authorities were not consistent in one’s action in relation to Old Believers. Each of the leaders had their own plans and thought about Old Believers communities. However, not all wanted removed a dissension in the society by all sorts of ways. Old Believers had marginal position in the Ekaterinoslav region in particular, and in a State a whole. In general, the Russian Government used negative of Old Believers, although sometimes were positive changes to them. The government viewed communities as religious opposition State Church. Accordingly, the Old Believers made a stand for their religions opinions, spiritual traditions and manner of life. Nonstop pressure by the authorities, forced communities intercommunicated only with each other thus minimized ethnocultural relationship with locals. Speaking of relationship between church religions common- Established Church and Old-Orthodox Church, they could not had peaceful coexistence with each other, because reasons were significant degree by state political factors. On the other hand, Ukrainian people were usually treated Old Believers tolerantly. Communities existed actually in isolation. Old Believers did not show nothing influence on religion Ukrainians. They did not try to enlist Ukrainians people of different reasons, among them for fear of losing tolerantly attitude. In article described that apartness Old Believers has led to religious persecution, the purpose of which was inclusion them to the established church. Аll attempts ended without result. The Old Believers stayed «not like all the others», retained their national distinctness and faith, despite the fact that against them had used of the religion and missionary activities, other procedures and uprooting common faith. During this period, the efforts of authorities to supplant a dissension had failed.
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