Memory. Protopop Avvakum

On December 5, 1620, Protopop Avvakum, one of the main ideologists of the Old Believers, the Holy Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, was born.

Personal business

"Holy Martyr and Confessor Avvakum" Fresco in the Ilyinsky chapel of the Nikolsky Church (Moscow)

Avvakum (1620 - 1682) was born in the family of a rural priest Peter, son of Kondratyev, in the village of Grigorovo near Nizhny Novgorod. His father was committed to “drinking hoppy”, the upbringing of children, apparently, was more engaged in his mother - “postpartum and prayer book”, who inspired his son, a deep religious feeling. At the age of seventeen, Avvakum married the fourteen -year -old daughter of the blacksmith Anastasia Markovna. In 1642 he was ordained into deacons, two years later - to priests. He began to serve in the church of the village of Lopatitsa. From the very first days, the severity of Avvakum restored his flock against him. With the same severity, he exposed the sins and negligence of the peasants, the nobles, and representatives of the clergy. The uncompromising priest constantly came into conflicts with the local authorities, governors and clerks, reproaching them in abuses. Because of this, the Avvakum was often beaten, and once they threw it into the Volga, so that he barely swam.

In 1647, Avvakum with his wife and a newborn child was forced to flee from Lopatets to Moscow.

In Moscow, Avvakum met with the Protopop of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kremlin and the royal confessor Stefan Vonifatiev. Avvakum entered the circle of representatives of the clergy united around the Vonifateeva, striving to correct church life and morals of Rus' by combating vices among the clergy, preaching of Christian morality among flocks, social measures (the closure of the zones, the structure is rich in), as well as the correction of church rites and worship books. In history, this informal community is known under the name "A circle of zealots of piety." Among the members of this circle was the archimandrite of the Novospassky monastery Nikon - the future Patriarch.

In the early 1650s, Avvakum was appointed Protopop in the Yuryevets-Petelsky (modern Yuryevets of the Ivanovo region). But there the story repeated that previously happened in the village of Lopatitsa: the severity of Habakkum was so great that two months later, local residents “beat him with a jig and trampled it”. Avvakum runs to Moscow again. He serves in the Kazan Cathedral, the abbot of which was his close friend John Neronov, and also participates in the work organized by Patriarch Joseph to correct church books, by reconciling them with the most ancient examples.

In 1652, Nikon became the Patriarch, who sharply accelerates the course of church reform. The correction of liturgical books continues, but not according to Old Russian, but according to Greek patterns.

Stefan Vonifatiev, John Neronov and Avvakum become the leaders of the church opposition, opposing the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. After the conclusion of Neronov in the Savior-Kamenny Monastery, Avvakum refused to serve in the Kazan Cathedral in the new rite and defiantly transferred the service to the courtyard of the disgrace of the disgrace Neronov, adapting for this purpose “drying” (hay). He was captured right during the all -night and enclosed in the dungeon of the Adronikov Monastery. He suffered beating and torture by hunger, but refused to accept Nikon’s innovations.

On September 17, 1653, the Avvakum “Many Remanding for Evo” was exiled with his family in Tobolsk. There he continued to “rebuke heresy Nikonov”, so in 1655 he was ordered to be sent to Yeniseisk. Then, the Avvakum was prescribed as a detachment priest to go to Transbaikalia with a detachment of the governor Athanasius Pashkov. With Pashkov, Avvakum continuously conflict and underwent a lot of oppression from him. In the fraternal prison, by order of Pashkov, Avvakum was beaten with a whip and enclosed in the “Student Tower: there winter lives, but God warmed without a dress! That the dog is lying in the straw: if they feed, if there is no. There were a lot of mice: I beat them Skufia - and they will not give Batoshka! Everything in the belly lay: the back was rotting. " Having wintered in the fraternal prison, the detachment of Pashkov went further, through Baikal he proceeded along the Selenga and Hilka to the Irgeen-Oser, then dragged to the Ingoda River, from there on Ingoda and Shilka, reaching the mouth of Nerch in early July 1658. On the return trip from the Nerchinsky prison, Avvakum went in the spring of 1661, again crossed Baikal, winter in 1662 - 1663 in Yeniseisk and in June 1663 he found himself in Tobolsk. All these years, he shared the works of the Cossacks: he pulled the ships with them, the sled, drove a drill forest, hunted the beast, and caught fish.

In 1663, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich called Avvakum to Moscow, hoping to attract a popular enemy to his side. He took the path to Moscow for almost two years, while Avvakum “in all cities and villages, shouted in churches and at auction”, exposing Nikonian reforms. Arriving in the capital, Avvakum was surrounded by honor. Alexey Mikhailovich in every possible way showed him his location. “He bowed often with me, just the same,” said Avvakum, “and he said:“ Bless me de and pray for me ”; And the hat in a different time Murmanka was removed, he dropped from his head while riding. From the carriage, it would have stuck to me, and all the boyars after the king is a brow, but a brow: Protopop! Bless and pray for us. " But Avvakum did not give up the persuasion of the king and the boyars, did not flatter the high position of the tsarist confessor and the wealth proposed to him and continued to defend his views. After he gave the king an angry petition demanding to restore the old rites, Alexei Mikhailovich sent him to a new link, this time to the north, to Pustozersk.

John Neronov, who was already reconciled with church innovations, wrote to the king a petition with a request to soften the fate of Abvakum. The king allowed to change the place of links to the Mezen. In March 1666, Avvakum was brought to Moscow, where a specially assembled church cathedral was sitting. Avvakum was detained in the Krutitsky courtyard, where Metropolitan Paul "exhorted" him, then he was sent "under the beginning" to the Borovsky Pafnutiev Monastery. On May 13, Protopop Avvakum and his comrade -in -arms deacon Fedor, after a stormy controversy with the participants of the cathedral, were set up and betrayed by the church curse in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. In response, Avvakum himself cursed his opponents.

After the separation, Avvakum was brought to the Nikolsky monastery on the Ugrashi and placed under the church in a separate “student’s tent above the glacier” under the protection of Sagittarius. Then he was again sent in conclusion to Borovsk, and in August 1666 - to Pustozersk. There he was sharpened in an earthen prison, where he spent fifteen years.

On April 14, 1682, Avvakum, along with the “sobes” - Pop Lazar, the monk Epiphanius and Deacon Fedor, by decree of Tsar Fedor Alekseevich, were burned in a log house in Pustozersk.

What is famous

The most prominent leader of the Old Believers, an ideologist and teacher. Largely thanks to his works, the Old Believer tradition was preserved during the years of persecution of the XVII century. The glory of Avvakum began to spread throughout Rus' during his Siberian exile, and later his authority intensified many times. While in conclusion, Avvakum wrote many messages to his co -religionists. When there were no written accessories, he wrote Luchina. Through the “faithful people”, his letters were transmitted from Pustozersk to Mezen, from there to Moscow, where in many things they corresponded and spread throughout Rus'. In the epistles of Avvakum, the correctness of the Old Believers defended and the vices of the official church and authorities were denounced.

Avvakum was the spiritual father of another famous figure of the Old Believers - the boyars of Feodosia Morozova - and conducted correspondence with her. When she, together with Evdokia Urusova and Maria Danilova, was soiled in hunger in Borovsk, Avvakum wrote about them an essay "On the three confessors of the word of the deplorable."

The Old Believers began to read Protopop Avvakum as a saint immediately after his death. The official canonization of it by the Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky consent took place at the 1917 Cathedral.

What you need to know about

Avvakum was an outstanding writer and publicist. Generally passion, confessional sincerity, a combination of eloquence with the conversational language in his writings do not leave indifferent even a modern reader. The main work of Avvakum - his own “life” - was written by him in Pustozersk around 1673. It was the first autobiographical work in Russian literature. Life has been preserved in several editions, among the lists there are two autographs of Avvakum itself. He also composed the “Book of conversations”, aimed at the “Cross -Subordinate heresy of Nikonian”, “The Book of Interpretations”, which is the thoughts of the Holy Scriptures, the work “Haste and interpretation of the deity and the creature, and what is the creature of man”, “The book to all our widespread cute”, three words against the interpretation of the Trinity by Diaconi Fedor petitions and messages.

Direct speech

“The same from the Nerch of the Paki River back returned to Rus. Five weeks on ice were rode on the sled. I was timid and gave me two nags under the junk, and the protopopics himself wandered ashes, killed on ice. The country is barbaric, foreign foreigners; We do not dare to lag behind horses, and we won’t hasten it, hungry and languid people for the bastard. The Protopopitsa Poor crazy, and it will fall,-Kolzko is much! In the native time, nonsense, it fell, and another languid man came across her, and immediately fell; Both shout, but they cannot get up. The man shouts: “Mother-Substantine, I'm sorry!” And the protopopics shouts: “What did you, dad, crushed me?” I came, “poor, blaming me, saying:“ How long is the flour of sowing, Protopop, will be? ”And I say:“ Markovna, until the death! ”She, the breath, we will still defeat.
From the "Life of Protopop Avvakum"

“And he was still in a bon, he came to me as a girl, burdened with many sins, for the prodigal business and all sorts of guilty, the beginning of me, crying, details.

Write in the church, before standing. Az, the three -year -old doctor, who heard from her, was ill, inward in the prodigal fire, and the hill is at that time. He lit up three candles and stuck to the tax, and laid his right hand on the flame, and held, the evil ignition was faded in me. And letting go of the girl, laying off the ries, praying, went into his house, sorrow. ”
From the "Life of Protopop Avvakum"

“... captured in the living hell tightly much; It is possible to build a well to the sky to the sky. They serve food in it that the dog; In it, we’ll be a dilapidate; We immediately rest. At first it was hard to smoke: sometimes lying on the earth, strangling, you will rest. And on the floor, tumes are kneeling - all the trouble. From the sadness of Greatness and Tugi are unnecessary and alive to be, many times and the spirit will do in the television, as if you are dead - you will rest. And Seju Nuga, there is not a shirt on me, the lice of the cross with Goytan: I can’t wear clothes in the mud in the mud. I really regret it when I ate when I didn’t eat, I don’t ask and do not touch it many times. Sometimes the seventh days, sometimes ten, and sometimes forty, and God helps and the prayers of the saints and the fraternity hasten. From Maslenitsa to a verbal resurrection, I did not eat, but how I became bread from eating, I was tormented for five weeks to wash for five weeks: it was dead, good, I am not bad to pity myself ... ”
Description of the Pustozersky prison in the "Life of Protopop Avvakum"

“And in the present, sovereigns, in 165 (1656) on September 15, like me, your servant, I will be along the Tunguska River, not reaching Bratskovo, on a long threshold, and that exile Rospop Avvakumko, the intent of the thieves' unknown by whose thieves' teaching was written by his hand, the thieves' constituent memory was deaf, butt. Sovereigns, everywhere in the initial people, in all the officials there is no truth. And others, the sovereigns, wrote many obscene speeches of his thieves in that estate memory, although in your sovereign Daurian service in my regiment to make troubles. And then, the sovereigns, it is known that he, the thief of Rospop, was like his thieves' letter to bring serving people that you, the sovereign, changed the sovereign and you would not listen to the sovereign’s decree, and the slave of your sovereign, and would not have been under your sovereign decree <...> and that sovereigns, an Eve of the Rospopo Torovsk letter, a good hand, for me, was brought to me, to me, for me. I, according to your sovereign, I, your servant, ordered him, the thief of Rospop, to make punishment - to beat him with a whip on the goat, so that, sovereigns, look at the same time thieves in your sovereign Rate, no such thieves' letters did not repair the troubles. And how, sovereigns, to him, the thief of Rospop Avvakumka, according to your sovereign, the decree was given punishment - a bite with a whip on the goat, and he, his own thieves' intentions, spoke at that time at that time: "Brothers Cossacks, do not give it!" - Buttos, he, a thief, on them, serving people, is reliable in that theft. And the other, sovereigns, he spoke many inexhaustible speeches, a thief, often. ”
Putting the governor Athanasius Pashkov on the punishment of Protopop Avvakum with a whip for "many frantic speeches"

10 facts about the Protopop Avvakum

• Protopop Avvakum is often called Avvakum Petrov, but in this case it should be remembered that Petrov is not a surname, but a middle name.
• In modern Russian and in Church Slavonic, the stress in the name Avvakum falls on the second syllable, but in the Old Believer tradition, the stress in it falls on the penultimate syllable.
• Avvakum with his wife Anastasia Markovna (1628–1710) had nine children: Ivan, Agrippina, Procopius, Cornelius, Ogranden, Ksenia (Oxinia), Afanasy. The names of two more sons were not preserved, since they died small - one on the way to Tobolsk and the second - on the river Nerch.
• Pustozersky prisoners could only secretly secretly pass the messages to their like -minded people. For example, they used a cache made in the Berdysh pole, which was armed with one of the Sagittaries-Guards.
• Undering the Catholic Church, Avvakum also used the techniques of “folk etymology”: “Almost the sample of Rimsty people and the whole West over the Church, Narekosha, her name is a church, stand on the bones of the Apostle Peter.”
• The decision of Tsar Fedor on the execution of Avvakum may have been influenced by the fact that in January 1681, adherents of the old faith, "secretly intact to the Cathedral Churches," coated the tomb of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich tar. It is reported that among them was the son of Protopop Avvakum Afanasy. The authorities, not without reason, believed that this was done by the “instruction of the same split of the head ... Avvakum. He himself ... In birch bark charters, he was drawn by the royal persons and high spiritual leaders with a dick inscription. "
• The “Life” of Protopop Avvakum served as a source for the books of D. L. Mordovtsev (“Great schism”, 1881), A.V. Amphitheatrova (“Semik”, 1921), A. Altaev (“Rented nests”, 1928), A.P. Chapygin (“Walking People”, 1938), poems and poems by D. S. Merezhkovsky (188) and 188) M. A. Voloshin (1919), tragedies of V.F. Botsyanovsky (1923).
• The son of Avvakum Prokopy disappeared from Mezen, where the family lived in exile. He reached the Urals, where, according to local legend, he founded the village of Martyanov on the Chusova River. It was called Procopius Mezenin. His descendants live in the Sverdlovsk region to this day.
• In Petrozavodsk, in 1982, an anniversary meeting of the memory of Protopop Avvakum was organized, but in order not to cause the authorities to discontent, in the official name of the event, he was called "Russian writer A. Petrov."
• In the homeland of Avvakum in the village of Grigorovo, a monument was erected to him.

Materials about the Protopop Avvakum

Protopop Avvakum in the fundamental electronic library "Russian literature and folklore"

The life of Protopop Avvakum

Trusov V.A. The descendants of the Protopop Avvakum in the Urals

Article about the Protopop Avvakum in the Encyclopedia "Circumspices"

Protopop Avvakum in the project "Chronos"

Article about Protopop Avvakum on Russian Wikipedia