Наукові праці Національної бібліотеки України імені В.І. Вернадського (Jan 2023)

Mental Models of the Kyiv-Caves Community Regarding Sadness and Tears (based on the analysis of the texts of Kyiv-Caves, Eastern Christian and Russian traditions)

  • Petrushko Liudmyla

Journal volume & issue
no. 69
pp. 346 – 362

Abstract

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The article presents the study of behavioral models and worldviews of the emotional community of the Kyiv-Caves Lavra (Kyiv Pechersk Monastery) according to the texts of the Kyiv-Pechersk paterikon, Teachings of St. Theodosius and St. Serapion, Epistle of Isosym). It was found that tears for God and during prayer for the cave community were one of the main and extremely significant components of the life of monastics. A gate or a temple was considered a particularly favorable place. In addition to seclusion, fasting and prayer were considered an important means of achieving and main taining penitential weeping. The Pechersk community also was conscious of the possibility of transitioning to God-pleasing tears from wrong or natural unhappy emotions. Spiritual tears were understood as a gift from God. The text also reflects the perception of penitential tears as those that take place with the participation of the ascetic’s will, when one has established himself in spiritual weeping as a result of many years of repentance. According to the ethics of the Pecherian emotional community, crying after committing a sin was necessary, for the laity as well. Often it was considered almost the only salvation for a person. According to the vision of the cave monastery community, the ethics of experiencing such circumstances as someone’s death, or personal, shared, and others’ misfortunes consisted in trust and hope in God, gratitude to Him, holy joy, pray and good deeds, patience, absence of complaints. For the community of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, the remembrance of death and the telling of one’s sin to fellow monks were the means of escape from sinful grief. Since the line between correct and natural unhappy emotions, on the one hand, and wrong ones, on the other hand, was understood to be extremely thin, it was considered necessary to comfort those who were in grief. A comparison with the translated and original Rus text revealed a commonality in the view of grief and tears.

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