Church schism: causes, essence, consequences. Church schism of the 17th century in Rus' and the Old Believers

a) Avvakum Petrov, Ivan Neronov, Epiphanius, Deacon Fedor, Spiridon Potemkin (schismatics): denunciation of the wrongness of the Nikonians (and the strongest argument in the struggle was mass martyrdom - “sacrifice” of oneself for the faith).

b) Simeon of Polotsk, Patriarch Joachim, Bishop Pitirim, Metropolitan Macarius (spiritual-academic school): condemnation of schismatics, accusing them of “ignorance”, “inertia”, “stubbornness”, “heresy” in order to prove the Old Believers wrong.

c) V. O. Klyuchevsky: the problem of the schism is the problem of the Third Rome, Holy Rus', Ecumenical Orthodoxy, the schism contributed to the spread of Western influences; highlighted not only the church-historical, but also the folk-psychological side of the schism.

d) S. M. Solovyov: schism is a conflict that affected only the sphere of ritual.

e) A.I. Herzen, M.A. Bakunin: schism is a manifestation of the freedom of spirit of the Russian people, proof of their ability to stand up for their beliefs.

Key events of the church schism

1652 - Nikon’s church reform;

1654, 1656 - church councils, excommunication and exile of opponents of the reform;

1658 - break between Nikon and Alexei Mikhailovich;

1666 - church council with the participation of the ecumenical patriarchs. Nikon's deprivation of the patriarchal rank, a curse on the schismatics;

1667-1676 - Solovetsky uprising.

Key figures: Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Patriarch Nikon, Archpriest Avvakum, noblewoman Morozova.

Reasons for the split:

1) the power-hungry desire of Nikon and Alexei Mikhailovich for the world Orthodox kingdom (“Moscow is the Third Rome”);

2) the process of centralization of the Russian state inevitably required the development of a unified ideology capable of rallying the broad masses of the population around the center;

3) political fragmentation led to the collapse of a single church organization, and in different lands the development of religious thought and rituals took its own path;

4) the need for a census of the sacred books (during the rewriting, mistakes were inevitably made, the original meaning of the sacred books was distorted, therefore, discrepancies arose in the interpretation of rituals and the meaning of their performance); Maxim Grek began enormous work, acting as a translator and philologist, highlighting different ways interpretations Holy Scripture- literal, allegorical and spiritual (sacred);

5) in February 1551, on the initiative of Metropolitan Macarius, a council was convened, which began the “church dispensation”, the development of a single pantheon of Russian saints, the introduction of uniformity in church life, which received the name Stoglavogo;

6) during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Joseph, after many years Due to the Troubles and the beginning of the restoration of the Russian state, the problem with the introduction of triplets became the “topic of the day”.

In March 1649, Nikon became Metropolitan of Novgorod and Velikolutsk, showing himself to be an energetic ruler. In 1650, Nikon took an active part in the massacre of the rebellious Novgorodians. On July 22, 1652, the church council elected Nikon as patriarch, who defended the principle "the priesthood is higher than the kingdom". Nikon's opponents: boyars, who were frightened by his imperious habits, former friends in the circle of zealots of piety.

The Council of 1654 approved the innovations and made changes to the divine service. Having the support of the tsar, Nikon conducted the matter hastily, autocratically, demanding the immediate abandonment of old rituals and the exact fulfillment of new ones. Russian culture was declared backward, and European standards were adopted. The broad masses did not accept such a sharp transition to new customs and greeted the innovations with hostility. Opposition to Nikon also formed at court (boyar F. P. Morozova, princess E. P. Urusova, etc.).

In December 1666, Nikon was deprived of the highest clergy (in his place was installed the “quiet and insignificant” Joasaph II, who was under the control of the king, i.e., secular power). The reason was Nikon’s extreme ambition and the intensifying conflict with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Nikon's place of exile was the Ferapontov Monastery on White Lake. Secular power triumphed over spiritual power.

The Church Council (1666-1667) completed the triumph of the Nikonians and Grecophiles, canceled the decisions of the Stoglavy Council, approved the reforms and marked the beginning of the church schism. From now on, all those who disagreed with the introduction of new details in the performance of rituals were subject to excommunication from the church, received the name schismatics (Old Believers) and were subjected to severe repression by the authorities.

The split took the form of extreme confrontation: ideological factors were touched upon, and the polemics between the Old Believers and the Nikonians resulted in a real ideological war. The most influential of the church traditionalists were Ivan Neronov, Avvakum Petrov, Stefan Vonifatiev (who had the opportunity to become patriarch instead of Nikon, but refused to nominate his candidacy), Andrei Denisov, Spiridon Potemkin. The Church Council of 1666 anathematized and cursed as heretics and rebellious all those who did not accept the reform.

Consequences of the split

— By many ordinary people the abandonment of previous rituals was experienced as a national and personal catastrophe.

— The reform was carried out from an elite position.

— The reform was carried out with the help of violence, the essence of the pre-Nikon understanding of Christianity in Rus' was that it was impossible to force people to believe by force.

— Before the split, Rus' was spiritually united. The reform prepared the ground for the spread of disdainful sentiments towards national customs and forms of organizing everyday life.

— The consequence of the split was a certain confusion in the people's worldview. The Old Believers perceived history as “eternity in the present.” In the worldview of the New Believers, more material practicality and a desire to quickly achieve practical results appeared.

— The state persecuted the Old Believers. Repressions against them expanded after the death of Alexei, during the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich and Princess Sophia. In 1681, any distribution of ancient books and writings of the Old Believers was prohibited. In 1682, by order of Tsar Fedor, the most prominent leader of the schism, Avvakum, was burned. Under Sophia, a law was passed that finally prohibited any activity of schismatics. The Old Believers showed exceptional spiritual fortitude, responded to repression with acts of mass self-immolation, and burned entire clans and communities.

— The remaining Old Believers introduced a unique current into Russian spiritual and cultural thought and did a lot to preserve antiquity. The reform outlined a substitution of the main goals of education: instead of a person - a bearer of higher spiritual origin began to train a person to perform a narrow range of specific functions.

In the history of Russia and Russian Orthodox Church great value played Its consequences were reflected in riots, religious persecution, giving rise to countless martyrs for the faith. This religious and political movement, powerful in scale and significance, had its own prehistory, without studying which it is impossible to understand the reasons for this great Russian drama. First of all, although this event concerned the sphere of religious rites and, mainly, the order of the liturgy, it also had other reasons. You can also especially highlight the role of Tsar Alexei the Quiet and thanks to which political background turned into driving force split. It should be noted that church reasons played a secondary role in this situation.

So, with the ascension to the throne of the second in the Romanov dynasty, nicknamed the Quietest, Moscow’s imperial appetites increased. The monarch cherished ambitious plans to unite under his wing all the Orthodox peoples living in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans. But after the capture and annexation of Left Bank Ukraine, a problem of a ritual nature suddenly arose. Most believers in the conquered lands were baptized with three fingers, as was done in Greece and throughout the Orthodox world, while the Russians were baptized with two. The king’s aspirations to found the “Third Rome” required a single ritual. There were two ways out of this situation: either to impose Russian rituals on the conquered population, or to force their own believers to confess Christ in a new way. Therefore, the church schism is a consequence of the incompetent policy of the authorities to introduce a unified Orthodoxy.

Since it was dangerous to impose anything on the already dissatisfied provinces, the king decided to take on “his own.” And he did this with tough, “police” measures. In 1653, Metropolitan Nikon, who had been elected the Patriarch of All Rus' a year earlier, sent out a decree in which he most categorically ordered to be baptized with three fingers and to make four prostrations instead of sixteen when praying to St. Ephraim the Syrian. He also replaced monophonic singing with polyphonic singing and allowed priests to preach sermons of their own composition. Thus, the church schism is inextricably linked with each other.

Since innovations were imposed “from above”, without any explanation or conviction of the correctness of such measures, this decree met with the most fierce resistance, and from all segments of the population. Even some nobles and boyars advocated non-deviation from ancient piety. Representatives of the clergy, especially Archpriests Daniel and Avvakum, also acted as conductors of the opposition. But both the king and the patriarch remained unshaken. Even the fact that in 1658 Nikon fell into disgrace, and in 1666 he was deposed from the rank of patriarch, did not affect the ever-widening church schism: in 1667, the Great Moscow Council anathematized those who refused to accept new rituals, and also continued “ blaspheme the Church,” accusing her of apostasy.

The first manifestation of discontent among the broadest masses of the population was the Solovetsky Uprising (1667-1676). It ended in the massacre of the dissatisfied. Church schism widened and deepened. Many families, fleeing persecution and not wanting to betray their faith, fled to the outskirts of the Russian kingdom - to the floodplains of the Danube, to the north, to the Volga region and Siberia, spreading the doctrine of the onset of the last times and the kingdom of the Antichrist, who is now served by both the tsar and the patriarch. The death of Alexei Tishaishy did not change the situation at all. Sofya Alekseevna only intensified the persecution of the rebellious Old Believers.

The church schism found its most terrible manifestation in mass self-immolations - the so-called “burnings”. People driven to despair took their own lives so as not to betray their faith. These suicides continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The secular authorities put an end to the persecution: the decree of Nicholas II “On Tolerance”, which guaranteed the Old Believers. And in 1929, the Holy Synod adopted a resolution that “old Russian rituals are also saving.”

Church reform of Patriarch Nikon in 1653.

In 1652 Nikon was elected patriarch. 1589 – Patriarchate introduced. In the world Nikita Minov. Nikon was in good relations with the king. Therefore, I wanted changes in church dogmas:

Correction of books according to Greek models

Changes in religious rites

The rise of church power over royal power

Habakkuk opposed! The archpriest spoke for the Old Believers. Led by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the Church Council of 1666-67 decided to deprive Nikon of his post, but begin to carry out his instructions.

1681 – Nikon died.

Henceforth the church was divided into the state and the Old Believers.
Consequences church schism:
1) Old Believers considered church reform an attack on the faith of their fathers and ancestors. They believed that state power and the church leadership found themselves in the power of the Antichrist;
2) Old Believers fled to the outskirts of the country, into deep forests, abroad, and when government troops approached, they resorted to collective self-immolation;
3) large scale This movement was given a social motive that lay at its basis, namely a return to antiquity, a protest against centralization, serfdom, and the domination of the state over the spiritual world of man;
4) dissatisfaction with the new order in the country also explained the rather motley composition of the Old Believers, this included both the “lower classes” and the boyar elite, priests.
Results of church reform:
1) Nikon’s reform led to a split in the church into the mainstream and the Old Believers;
2) church reform and schism were a major social and spiritual revolution, which reflected tendencies towards centralization and gave impetus to the development of social thought.

32. Reveal the content of the reforms carried out in the era of Peter I, indicate their significance for the modernization of Russia.

The main directions of transformations in Russia. Reasons:

1. An external threat to the state, which posed a serious danger to national independence.

2.Russia’s backwardness from European states.

Direction of transformation:

1. It is necessary to develop industry and trade.

2.Improving the state structure.

3.Creation of a strong army.

4. Strengthening Russia on the shores of the Baltic Sea.

5.Administrative-territorial transformation.

6. Reorganization of education and change in culture.

Transformations of Peter. In economics:

1. Manufactures were developing. (the number of manufactories was constantly growing. By the death of Peter there were 180)

2. Decrees were issued on pession and registered peasants in 1771. Pession - workers for the season.

3. A poll tax was introduced to replace the household tax (when you work, pay, when you don’t work, don’t pay)

4. A policy of Protestantism was pursued (barring foreign goods from entering the country, promoting the export of its products), based on mercantilism.

5. Domestic and foreign trade developed. 1719-bergprivilege (I'll find something - mine)

Social sphere:

1. The class of nobility was emerging. 1714 – a decree on unified inheritance was issued.

2. The urban population was divided into regular (permanently living) and irregular (to earn money)

3. Merchants were divided into guilds

4. 1724 - passport mode is installed

5. A “table of ranks” was published

In the field of management:

1. In 1721, Peter 1 becomes emperor. Russia-emeria

2. The Boyar Duma was liquidated, and the government senate was approved.

3. The Institute of Fiscals was created in 1771. 1772 - the prosecutor and police were created.

4. Collegiums were established instead of orders.

5. The patriarchate was abolished in 1700 and the “Holy Senod” was formed -1721

6. The country is divided into provinces, districts, and provinces.

7. The new capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, was founded. 1713-1712

In the field of culture:

1. Western European culture was introduced.

2. A system of secular education was created

3. New printing houses opened

4. New textbooks were published

5. The first museum was created - the Kunzkamera

Implemented military reform:

1. A recruiting system was introduced

2. A system for training military forces has been created.

3. Created navy Russia.

4. The structure of the army has been streamlined.

5. A unified military reform was introduced.

6. Military regulations were adopted.

7. Certain military rituals.

Result: Thus, a new type of army appeared in the state, the power acquired sea ​​ports, the state has improved significantly. management and economic relations actively developed.

33. Expand the content of the transformations of Catherine II and indicate their significance for the development of Russia.

In 1762, Catherine the Great came to power. Rules from 1762 - 1796. She implemented the “policy of enlightened absolutism” - this is a policy of autocracy aimed at protecting serfdom by creating a legal monarchy. The largest meeting was the “meeting of the laid commission.” In order to create new sets of laws Russian Empire. It was written by order of 1767. Policy changes:

· Resumed the work of the Senate 1763

· Eliminated the autonomy of rights of Ukraine 1764

· Subordinated the church to the state (secularization of the lands 1764)

· Conducted self-government reform

· Russia was divided into 50 provinces in 1775

· In 1775, she reformed the judicial system. The nobles have their own courts, the peasants have their own, and the towns have their own.

Economic transformations:

· 1765 a free economic society was created for nobles and merchants.

· Customs tariffs were introduced

Increases duties on foreign imported goods

· 1765 granted charter

· Enters new uniform trade

· The number of manufactories is growing

Social area:

· 1765 permission for landowners to exile their peasants without trial to Siberia for hard labor.

· 1775 the nobility receives a charter.

In fact, Catherine the Second made the 18th century “the century of the nobility.” Conclusion: in general, Catherine’s reforms strengthened the monarchy and serfdom in Russia.

Church schism (briefly)

Church schism (briefly)

The church schism was one of the main events for Russia in the seventeenth century. This process quite seriously influenced the future formation of the worldview of Russian society. Researchers cite the political situation that developed in the seventeenth century as the main reason for the church schism. And the disagreements themselves ecclesiastical character classified as secondary.

Tsar Mikhail, who was the founder of the Romanov dynasty, and his son Alexei Mikhailovich sought to restore the state that had been ruined during the so-called Time of Troubles. Thanks to them, state power was strengthened, foreign trade was restored and the first manufactories appeared. During this period, the legislative registration of serfdom also took place.

Despite the fact that at the beginning of the Romanovs’ reign they pursued a rather cautious policy, Tsar Alexei’s plans included the peoples living in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

According to historians, this is what created the barrier between the king and the patriarch. For example, in Russia, according to tradition, it was customary to cross with two fingers, and most others Orthodox peoples baptized in three, according to Greek innovations.

There were only two options: to impose our own traditions on others or to obey the canon. Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich took the first path. A common ideology was needed due to the centralization of power going on at that time, as well as the concept of the Third Rome. This became a prerequisite for the implementation of the reform, which split Russian people for a long time. A huge number of discrepancies various interpretations rituals - all this had to be brought to uniformity. It should also be noted that secular authorities also spoke about such a need.

The church schism is closely connected with the name of Patriarch Nikon, who had great intelligence and love for wealth and power.

The church reform of 1652 marked the beginning of a schism in the church. All of the above changes were fully approved at the council of 1654, but too abrupt a transition entailed many of his opponents.

Nikon soon falls into disgrace, but retains all honors and wealth. In 1666, his hood was removed, after which he was exiled to White Lake to a monastery.

When the Russians Orthodox traditions began to evade the Greeks more and more, Patriarch Nikon decided to compare Russian translations and rituals with Greek sources. It should be noted that the very question of correcting some church translations was by no means new. He was initiated under Patriarch Filaret, the father of Mikhail Fedorovich. But under Alexei Mikhailovich, the need for such corrections, as well as a general revision of rituals, was already ripe. Here it is worth noting the growing role of the Little Russian Orthodox clergy, who have waged a heroic struggle for Orthodoxy since the establishment of the union. Since the Little Russian clergy had to enter into polemics with highly educated Polish Jesuits, they inevitably had to raise the level of their theological culture, go to the Greeks for training and get acquainted with Latin sources. From this Ukrainian Orthodox environment came such learned defenders of Orthodoxy as Petro Mohyla and Epiphany Slavenetsky. The influence of the Kyiv monks began to be felt in Moscow, especially after reunification with Little Russia. Greek hierarchs came to Muscovite Rus' through Little Russia. All this forced the Russian Moscow clergy to think about the discrepancies in the Greek and Moscow readings of the same theological texts. But this involuntarily broke the self-closure of the Moscow Church, which was established especially after the victory of the Josephites and after the Council of the Hundred Heads under Ivan the Terrible.

Thus, a new meeting with Byzantium, in which there were elements of an indirect meeting with the West, became the reason and background for the emergence of a schism. The results are well known: the so-called Old Believers, of whom there were almost the majority, refused to accept “innovations”, which were essentially a return to more ancient antiquity. Since both the Old Believers and the Nikonites showed fanatical intransigence in this dispute, things came to a split, to going into religious underground, and in some cases to exile and executions.

It was, of course, not only a matter of two or three fingers or other ritual differences, which now seem so insignificant to us that many attribute the tragedy of the schism to simple superstition and ignorance. No, the real reasons for the split lie much deeper. For, according to the Old Believers, if Rus' is “Holy Rus'” and Moscow is the Third Rome, then why should we follow the example of the Greeks, who once betrayed the cause of Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence? After all, “our faith is not Greek, but Christian” (i.e. Russian Orthodox). For Avvakum and his like-minded people, the renunciation of Russian “antiquity” was a renunciation of the idea of ​​the Third Rome, i.e. was in their eyes a betrayal of Orthodoxy, which, according to their faith, was preserved only in Rus'. And since the tsar and patriarch persist in this “betrayal,” therefore, Moscow - the Third Rome is perishing. And this means that the end of the world is coming, " last times».

This is exactly how the Old Believers perceived Nikon’s reforms tragically. No wonder Avvakum wrote that his “heart grew cold and his legs trembled” when he understood the meaning of Nikon’s “innovations.” These apocalyptic sentiments explain why the Old Believers went to torture and execution with such fanaticism and even staged terrible orgies of self-immolation. Moscow - The Third Rome is dying, but there will never be a fourth! Muscovite Rus' had already established its own rhythm and its own way of church life, which was revered as sacred. The rank and ritual of life, visible “prettiness”, the well-being of church life - in a word, emphasized “everyday confession” - this was the style of church life in Muscovite Rus'. Orthodox clergy in Moscow, it was imbued with the conviction that only in Rus' (after the death of Byzantium) true piety was preserved, because only Moscow is the Third Rome. It was a kind of theocratic utopia of the “earthly, local City.” Therefore, Nikon’s reforms produced among the majority of the clergy the impression of apostasy from true Orthodoxy, and Nikon himself became, in the eyes of the zealots of the old faith, almost Antichrist. Habakkuk himself considered him the forerunner of the Antichrist. “They are already doing it now, only the last one is where the devil has never been before.” (And about Nikon’s church it was said in the following expressions: “As if the present church is not a church, the mysteries of God are not Mysteries, baptism is not baptism, the scriptures are flattering, the teaching is unrighteous and all filth and impiety.” “Antichrist’s charm shows its face.”)

The only way out is to go into the religious underground. But the most extreme defenders of the old faith did not stop there. They claimed that the "end times" had arrived and that the only way out- in voluntary martyrdom in the name of Christ. They developed a theory according to which repentance alone was no longer enough - leaving the world was necessary. “Death alone can save us, death,” “in current time Christ is unmerciful and does not accept those who come to repentance.” All salvation lies in the second, fiery baptism, that is, in voluntary self-burning. And, as you know, wild orgies of self-burning took place throughout Rus' (one of the themes of the opera Mussorgsky"Khovanshchina") Father says it right Georgy Florovsky that the mystery of the schism is not a ritual, but the Antichrist is a fiery (literally) expectation of the end of the world, associated with the practical collapse of the idea of ​​Moscow as the Third Rome.

It is common knowledge that both sides showed passion and fanaticism in this struggle. Patriarch Nikon was an extremely powerful and even cruel hierarch, not at all inclined to any compromises. Essentially the split was great failure, because in it the Old Russian tradition was replaced by the Modern Greek one. Vladimir Solovyov aptly described the protest of the Old Believers against Nikon as the Protestantism of local tradition. If the Russian Church nevertheless survived the schism, it was thanks to the ineradicable Orthodoxy of the Russian spirit. But the wounds caused by the split did not heal for a very long time, and these traces were visible even until recently.

The schism was a revelation of the spiritual troubles in Moscow. In the schism, local Russian antiquity was elevated to the level of a shrine. The historian speaks well about the schism in this regard Kostomarov: “The schism chased after the old, tried to adhere to the old as accurately as possible, but the schism was a phenomenon of new, and not ancient Russian life.” “This is the fatal paradox of the schism...” “The schism is not old Rus', but a dream of antiquity,” Florovsky notes in this regard. Indeed, in the schism there was something of the peculiar heroic romance of antiquity, and it was not for nothing that the symbolists of the early 20th century, kindred in spirit to the romantics, were so interested in the schism - the philosopher Rozanov, writer Remizov and others. In Russian fiction The life of the later schismatics was especially vividly reflected in Leskov’s remarkable story “ Sealed Angel».

Needless to say, the schism terribly undermined the spiritual and physical strength of the church. The strongest in faith went into schism. And it is not surprising, therefore, that the weakened Russian church showed such weak resistance to the later church reforms of Peter the Great, who abolished the former independence of spiritual power in Russia and introduced, instead of the patriarchate on the Protestant model, the Holy Synod, which included a secular person, the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod. But Nikon himself, as is known, fell out of favor with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich even during the split. The immediate reasons for this disfavor lay in Nikon's extreme power. But there were also ideological reasons: Nikon began to lay claim not only to the role of the Russian First Hierarch, but also to the role supreme leader states. For the first time in our history, alien to the Western struggle between state and church, the church, represented by Nikon, encroached on power over the state. Nikon, as you know, compared the power of the patriarch with the light of the sun, and the power of the king with the light of the moon. This is the paradoxical coincidence of Nikon’s thoughts with Latinism, which also laid claim to earthly power. Regarding this, the Slavophile Samarin wrote that “behind the great shadow of Nikon rises the formidable ghost of papism.” The philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, before his passion for Catholicism, also believed that in the person of Nikon the Russian Church was tempted, although short time, the temptation of Rome - earthly power. This encroachment by Nikon was rejected by the tsar with the support of the majority of the clergy.