Novye Issledovaniâ Tuvy (Mar 2019)
Old Belief monasteries of the «Yenisei meridian» in the 20th century: origins, traditions and current state
Abstract
The article analyzes the role of Old Belief monasteries in the rise of a universal confessional space of contemporary Chasovennye («chapel-goers» or “chapel people”, a non-priestly faction among Old Believers) in the Krasnoyarsk oblast and Tuva. Also explored are the trends and motives of their migration routes, peculiarities of the religious life within their communities and the structure of Old Belief monasteries as religious and economic centers. The source base of the study includes eyewitnesses’ recollections and testimonies from other informants, as well as documents from the state archive of the Republic of Tuva. The article is complemented with a brief review of the settlement of Old Believers throughout southern Siberia in the 20th century. The traditions of spiritual and economic life in Old Belief monasteries along the Yenisei in the 20th century receive special treatment. The confessional space of the Сhasovennye knows no other boundaries than the sacred. The Сouncil (sobor) appears where the community’s “own” people are, such as relatives or co-religionists. Despite the seeming fragmentation and remoteness of their settlements, the ties between them never break. Dubches monasteries never ceased to be spiritual centers for both its immediate neighborhood and the whole community of the Chasovennye in the world, including Tuva. The need for the community to preserve the common confessional space, the still-practiced joint discussion of the challenges of the time, the support for the purity of marriage ties and, as a consequence, the preservation of the family and the community in need of the monasteries as its ideological and spiritual centers — all of these hold out our hope in the future of the skete tradition and even, perhaps, in its revival in Tuva in the foreseeable future.
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