구교파의 종교문화

Abstract

Raskol` produced by Patriarch Nikon church`s reform in the second half of seventeen century divided Russian society and orthodoxy church into two parts. The Old believers in the oppression of Tsars` government and the State Church were ready to suffer severe sacrifice for preservation of the traditional purity of Russian orthodox church and their own culture. Popular Russians couldn`t accept the facts that the very principles by which Russian culture defined itself were transformed. The struggle against church reforms merged with a popular movement known since the end of the 1650s as the Schism. Russians shared the notion that Moscow was now the capital of the orthodox world. The theory ``Moscow - Third Rome`` traditionally related with Russian Messianism. This belief, shared after the Council of Florence and the fall of Constantinople, was encouraged also by the numerous Greek and Eastern clerics who frequented Moscow in their search for financial and political support. Tsar Alexis firmly believed that Moscow was the capital of the Orthodox world, and that he himself was heir to the Byzantine emperors. The Old believers confirmed that ``the Third Rome``, accepted heresy from Greek Church has completely its ruin and then come to be the end of World. The eschatological atmosphere and religious confidence captured by the Old believers functioned as effective motive to their sturdy opposition to the State Church and Tsar`s government. The Church Council of 1666-1667 excommunicated the traditionalists, finalizing the Great Schism that split the Old believers from the Sate Church. The State and Church launched repressive attacks on the Old believers, who came to see the year 1666 as the beginning of the rule of Antichrist. Hagiography forms an integral part of the cultural life of the Old believers. They have treasured the stories of the lives and the martyrdom of defenders of the faith. When they rejected the reforms of Patriarch Nikon and began their struggle to preserve rigorous and authentic Russian orthodoxy as they understood it, the old believers not only continued the cultural traditions of Russian Orthodoxy but also added to them works honoring the memory of the saints and martyrs of their own movement. The best known of the early Old believers hagiographical works is the ``life of Avvakum``, whose title explicitly links it to the genre of saints` lives. Hagiographical works functioned as a means of defend of their own traditional Orthodoxy faiths and behaviors. Ironically, the traditional culture and Russian orthodoxy theology oppressed by the State Church and tsars` government has played role to preserve the original nature of Russian orthodox culture.