Предисловие

All Russian history reads like the lives of saints. Saints are truly living icons. Being at the same time visible messengers of God and indisputable moral ideals, they seem to concentrate in their images the spiritual aspirations of the eras that gave birth to them. Despite the obvious timeless nature of Christian values, such a connection of the saint to the time in which he was destined to become famous is undeniable. Therefore, the original image of a saint may, over time, begin to meet the spiritual needs of descendants less and less. So, for example, a tough temper, demanded in situations of great upheaval, may later, in more peaceful times, seem overly aggressive. If a saint during his lifetime chose a political path or succeeded in another worldly field, it is possible that later such circumstances will turn into an unfortunate anachronism, significantly complicating his church veneration. If the discrepancies between the dictates of the times and church practice become too noticeable, then measures to overcome such a situation can become the most radical, up to and including changing canonical texts. So, in the 20th century. the political situation forced the Russian Orthodox Church to stop praying for the health of the emperor and his victory over his enemies; forced the Roman Catholic Church to expel St. Christopher from the host of saints and exclude from the liturgical rules phrases that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic; obliged Protestant denominations to rework chants that showed “discrimination” against women. In this sense, the image of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt is paradoxical. Despite his undisguised and even deliberately demonstrated political position, he remains an unquestioned authority for several generations of believers, with a wide variety of ideological convictions and predilections. Its amazing organicity is striking both for post-reform Russia and for the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Today he is contemporary for us to the same extent as he was more than a hundred years ago - for his truly multi-million flock, scattered across the vast expanses of the Russian Empire. Isn’t that why now, as a century earlier, many Orthodox Christians call Fr. John "saints of our time"? So who is he, this “saint of our time”? John Ilyich Sergiev, or holy righteous John of Kronstadt, was born on October 19, 1829 in the family of a sexton in the remote Arkhangelsk village of Sura. He was born such a sickly child that his parents immediately baptized him, fearing that the child would not live to see the morning. Having received his theological education first at the seminary and then at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, he became a priest in 1855. At this time, the empire entered the period of modernization Great Reforms, which radically transformed it. Against the backdrop of the social activity that shook the whole of Russia, Fr. John managed to find his own path - he helped the poor, participated in the creation of shelters and the organization of new jobs, and called for a sober lifestyle. And at the same time, first of all, Fr. John remained a shepherd. He prayed selflessly, calling on believers to receive communion more often. People were so eager to attend his service that the church hierarchy allowed him to regularly conduct general confession. Despite the fact that individual representatives of both spiritual and secular authorities tried to “cool down” the priest’s ardor, his popularity among believers grew rapidly, and people spoke more and more about the effective power of his prayers. Real fame came to Fr. John in 1883, when the capital’s newspaper “New Time” published an open letter from grateful parishioners healed by the priest’s prayers. After this, Kronstadt, where Fr. served. John, became one of the main objects of pilgrimage in Russia. Whole ships began to arrive there who wanted to receive miraculous help and relief from the shepherd. Those who could not get to Kronstadt literally flooded the priest with letters for help. Very soon Fr. John became a “celebrity”: his image appeared on souvenir scarves, mugs, posters and postcards; in fact, the whole country became his parish. In 1894, when Fr. John was invited to pray at the bedside of the dying Alexander III, his fame crossed the borders of the empire, and the shepherd began to receive letters from Europe and America. Uniquely combining vigorous social activity, the performance of purely priestly duties, the gift of divinely inspired prayer and healing, Fr. John seemed to embody a clear and timely Orthodox response to the challenges of the secular civilization of the New Age. When revolutionary radicals and terrorists loudly declared themselves, Fr. John became a staunch conservative, joined the ranks of some monarchist organizations and even consecrated the banners of the “Union of the Russian People.” After such demonstrative steps, there were practically no people left who would treat him neutrally. The right-wingers proclaimed him a prophet, the liberals shamefully turned away from the shepherd, and the left-wing radicals made Fr. John one of the main objects of defamation. Father turned out to be a kind of indicator: by the way people treated him, one could understand their views on the relationship between Church and state, Tsar and revolution, priests and flock, men and women. And after completing his earthly journey at the end of 1908, the shepherd continued to remain a kind of measure of truth and falsehood. The revolutions of 1917, the policy of state atheism in the Soviet years, emigrant otherness, perestroika, the millennium of the baptism of Rus' in 1988, the vicissitudes of the last decade and a half - in each of these eras a new image of Fr. John, corresponding to the realities of the current moment. The need to change biography to suit the historical conjuncture is as old as the genre of hagiography itself, but the swiftness of such “clarifications” in the case of Fr. John is unique. This book describes the relationship between Fr. John of Kronstadt and contemporary Russian society. Starting from the image of the shepherd, I also tried to identify and generalize the ideas about holiness that had developed and were rooted in the mentality of people of the post-reform era and trace how far the priest himself corresponded to them. His social undertakings are considered in close connection with the performance of his church duties. Spiritual practice Fr. Joanna is included in the broader context of socio-ecclesiastical issues. In particular, attention is drawn to such seemingly elusive aspects of this topic as the role of the priest in strengthening the piety of believers, as well as in the phenomena of “high” politics, or the importance of the press in popularizing the lives of contemporary saints. And here I tried to analyze the features of modern views on holiness. Finally, special attention is paid to the posthumous “reputation” of Fr. John and the ideas about his image that developed after the death of the priest. This approach helps to understand what exactly from the heritage of Fr. John of Kronstadt turned out to be the most durable and his name continues to be used today. Study of the personality of Fr. John brings to light a number of very significant problems for understanding Russian political history and spiritual culture. Here is the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the last decades of the Russian Empire, and the image of popular piety, and gender differences in religion, and the mutual interweaving of traditional and new customs of venerating saints, and, finally, the political context of the dialogue between the Church and society. Surprisingly, the ideas about popular piety established in Russian culture are not suitable for describing Fr. John, although contemporaries pointed to his “national” fame. Apparently, in this case, the very concept of “folk” turns out to be ambiguous due to a certain convention and artificiality of dividing sociocultural phenomena into “high” and “low” 7 . When applied to Russia, “folk” implies “village,” “peasant,” or even “proletarian,” as opposed to “urban” or “elite” 8 . Western researchers offer a number of definitions alternative to the definition of “folk”. Thus, W. Christian uses the term “local”, I. Duffy uses “traditional”, and L. Boyle, starting from liturgical practice, speaks of “semi-liturgical” and “para-liturgical” varieties of piety 9 . However, none of these characteristics can be the key to recreating the image of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt. His influence extended not only to representatives of a wide variety of social groups, from workers to aristocrats, but also to people of other nationalities and even religious affiliations. Therefore, if “folk” piety is considered in isolation from elite or official piety, then such an approach is clearly discordant with the veneration of Fr. John - a veneration that goes far beyond the traditional and seemingly stable and self-sufficient social, geographical, gender and confessional barriers. Hence, the need to change the very paradigm of research thinking becomes completely obvious, and in this book such an attempt is made on the basis of the method of “living religious experience” 10. This method makes it possible to discern the relationship, and not the opposition, of the concepts of “high” and “low”, as well as to “legalize” for the academic style of presentation a view of religious practice “from the inside”, from its inherent semantic and value guidelines. To analyze the personality of Fr. John, two more observations can be very productive. One of them is based, if we use the conceptual language of E. Kantorovich, on the idea of ​​intense confrontation between two “hypostases” of the holy priest: private, associated with the salvation of one’s own soul and purely personal spiritual experience, and public, predetermined by the high mission of the priest and responsibility to the parish 11. As the life path of Fr. John, these two hypostases not only complemented each other, but almost as often came into conflict. The second observation comes from the idea of ​​a “self-reproducing” growth of fame, when the cult of a saint itself turns into a kind of energetic impulse, acting independently of God’s chosen one and even sometimes prompting him to very unexpected actions 12. For many years, both Soviet and Western researchers did not consider it necessary to deviate even slightly from the persistent idea of ​​​​the Russian Orthodox Church as the most faithful and devoted “handmaiden” of the autocracy 13. In the 1970s More balanced judgments began to appear in the West, stating that the Church primarily sought to ensure its own interests, which only partially coincided with the interests of the absolutist monarchy 14. Meanwhile, despite such adjustments, the figure of Fr. Joanna still does not fit into the one-dimensional scheme of church-state relations. His entire extraordinary and vibrant life convincingly proves how closely official ideology and personal beliefs were intertwined in his own pastoral practice and what a colossal role the clergy played in general in nurturing and supporting ideas about the impossibility of the existence of Holy Rus' without a crowned representative, about Russia as an oasis of Russian Orthodox identity. The example of the Kronstadt shepherd clearly demonstrates that living religious experience does not always lead directly to sectarianism, and charismatic individuals are capable of not only destroying, but also maintaining and strengthening law and order, and therefore the stability of the existing regime 15 . There are many biographies of Fr. John, and most of them were published during his lifetime or immediately after his death. It is obvious that all of them were mainly preparatory materials for some kind of summary biography of a hagiographic nature. However, despite the fact that these biographies contain a lot of useful information, in particular for analyzing the perception of the shepherd by his contemporaries, they are undoubtedly “overloaded” with didactic edification, while the social and political activities of the priest are discussed in them very superficially 16. Memories of Fr. John, published simultaneously with biographies, either, like the hagiography of the shepherd that was emerging at the same time, are in the spirit of pietism, or, on the contrary, are full of sharp and malicious attacks on him and rather resemble caricatures. Here and there there are glaring inaccuracies - one can only guess whether they were intentional or accidental 17 . Many historians in the West simply repeated such extremely subjective negative assessments, taking them as an axiom 18 . Against this background, the demonic image of the Black Hundred elder, established in the works of Soviet authors, even more so looked like something taken for granted. If we talk about detailed and information-rich publications about Fr. John, one of the first such publications was a fundamental two-volume study by I.K. Sursky (Ilyashevich), published in the 1930s in Belgrade 19 . In general, in the Russian diaspora throughout the past century, the memory of the Kronstadt priest did not weaken. This was largely the result of the extensive publishing activities of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville and the Memorial Foundation of St. John of Kronstadt in Utica, both located in New York State (USA). The most serious contribution to the reconstruction of the biography of Fr. John was contributed by the works of Bishop Alexander (Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky) and Alla Silori 20 . Fragmentary and, unfortunately, very limited references to the priest are also present in general works devoted to the problems of Russian religiosity 21. This book uses materials from all mentioned publications. Moreover, such a “variegated” evaluation panel turns out to be very useful for the research task at hand. Indeed, in accordance with how ideas about the saint differ, one can quite accurately imagine how different groups and even generations of his admirers interpret the life path of the shepherd through the prism of their own value guidelines and motivational attitudes - so unsteady and unstable in the realities of the all-consuming everyday life. For the first time in both Western and Russian historiography to analyze the figure of Fr. John is drawn to his diaries, which he kept from the day of his ordination until his death, as well as a significant volume of letters addressed to him. These materials are located in the Russian State Historical Archive. The book also uses documents from the Police Department stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. Diaries of Fr. John is a kind of key to understanding the conflict between the private and public life of a person whom society considers a great righteous man. Recording the milestones of his spiritual evolution, they complement the canonical version of his life with events from everyday life, reflect the path of the pastor’s religious experience - from reflection on the Holy Scriptures to the feat of personal asceticism following the example of the desert fathers, and ultimately to the realization of the predestination of his priestly mission: to do everything possible and impossible to save his people. It should be noted that the diaries of Fr. John are extremely poor in factual information that primarily interests historians. Very few events or impressions are mentioned there that do not directly relate to one or another aspect of Orthodox doctrine; There is no consistent dating in the records, and there is almost no information about the priest’s social activities. However, these “inconveniences” completely lose any meaning if we take into account the very nature of the diaries and their genre specificity. The extremely self-critical, even openly negative tone towards himself, the seemingly petty and frivolous close attention to each of his own missteps become understandable if we consider the daily notes of Fr. John not as diaries in the generally accepted sense of the word, but as a special spiritual chronicle, which was prescribed to be kept by every Orthodox priest to strengthen faith and maintain the proper “degree” of his pastoral service 22 . Diaries are not about. John and a complete retrospective autobiography like the records of St. Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila or Archpriest Habakkuk. The priest’s texts, rather, record the dynamics of his inner world - reflections on the Holy Scriptures are replaced by a listing of his endless meetings and visits. A new topic often forces one to choose a different intonation, which allows one to observe with one’s own eyes all the specific features of the perception of Fr. John of the divine and secular. Letters addressed to the shepherd are another unique mass source. About ten thousand letters are stored in the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg. And this is just a small part of the epistolary heritage of Fr. John, since in the last years of his life the correspondence emanating from the priest alone amounted to an average of fifteen thousand letters a year 23. Of course, this book does not pretend to be an exhaustive analysis of this array, however, even the most general characteristics of the requests of the flock given in it help to better understand the phenomenon of living holiness of Fr. John. We see that the priest was expected to help with almost any problem that a person might encounter in his life, be it business negotiations or choosing a number for a lucky lottery ticket, healing sick relatives or teaching the Jesus Prayer. After all, in the end, no matter how popular and revered a saint is, if he really, in practice does not help people, from all walks of life, then the people will inevitably turn away from him and begin to look for someone who is capable of taking on such a mission. See, in particular, the works: Zemon Davis N. Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Popular Religion // Trinkhaus Ch. (ed.). The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion. Papers from the University of Michigan Conference on Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion. Leiden, 1974, pp. 307–336; Carroll M. Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy. Baltimore, 1996. P. 5–6; Harline C. Official Religion – Popular Religion in Recent Historiography of the Catholic Reformation // Archive for Reformation History. No. 81 (1990). P. 239–262. For example, on the identification of the concepts “village” and “folk”, see: Shevzov V. Popular Orthodoxy in Late Imperial Rural Russia. Ph.D. diss. Yale University, 1994, pp. 13–17. On peasant perception, see: Gromyko M. M. The World of the Russian Village. M., 1991. For ideas that existed in the working environment, see: Zelnik R. E. “That the Unaccustomed Eye”: Religion and Irreligion in the Experience of St. Petersburg Workers in the 1870s // Hughes R. P., Paperno I. (eds.). Christianity and the Eastern Slavs. Vol. 2: Russian Culture in Modem Times. Berkeley, 1994, pp. 49–82; Pretty D. The Saints of the Revolution: Political Activists in 1890s Ivanovo-Voznesensk and the Path of Most Resistance // Slavic Review. Vol. 54 (Summer 1995). No. 2. P. 276–304. Christian W. A. ​​Jr. Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Princeton, 1981. P. 178; Duffy E. Stripping the Altars: Traditional Religion in England circa 1400 to circa 1580. New Heaven, 1992; Boyle L. Popular Piety in the Middle Ages: What Is Popular? // Florilegium. No. 4 (1982). P. 188. For a discussion of this method, see Hall D. (ed.). Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice. Princeton, 1997, pp. VII–21. Kantorowicz E. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton, 1957. On the connection between the saint and his cult, see: Kleinberg A. M. Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. Chicago, 1992. P. 7. For typical examples of such views, see: Nikolsky N. M. History of the Russian Church. M., 1983; The Church in the history of Russia (IX century - 1917): Critical essays. M., 1967; Russian Orthodoxy: milestones in history. M., 1989. For similar assessments by Western scientists, see: Pipes R. Russia Under the Old Regime. N.Y., 1992. P. 221–248 (Chapter 9: The Church as Servant of the State). Freeze G. L. Handmaiden of the State? The Church in Imperial Russia Reconsidered // Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Vol. 30 (January 1985). No. 1. P. 82–102; Nichols R. L., Stavrou Th. (eds.). Russian Orthodoxy Under the Old Regime. Minneapolis, 1978; Timberlake Ch. E. (ed.). Religious and Secular Forces in Late Tsarist Russia: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Treadgold. Seattle, 1992. Before the revolution, this idea was developed by Archpriest. G. S. Debolsky. See: Debolsky G.S. About love for the fatherland and work according to the word of God. M., 1996. For the most detailed pre-revolutionary studies, see: Bolshakov N.I. Source of living water. Description of the life and work of Father John of Kronstadt. St. Petersburg, 1910; V. M. (Archbishop Evdokim (Meshchersky)). Two days in Kronstadt: from a student’s diary. Sergiev Posad, 1902; Mikhail (Semyonov), hieromonk. Father John of Kronstadt. Full biography with illustrations. St. Petersburg, 1903. Even when the authors were clearly interested in the political views of Fr. John, they preferred to focus attention primarily on the religious – indisputable – aspects of his activity. See: Chetverikov S. Spiritual appearance of Fr. John of Kronstadt and his pastoral covenants. Jordanville, 1958; Fedotov G. P. A Treasure of Russian Spirituality. Belmont, 1975, pp. 346–349. For example, the obvious absurdity in the obituary of Fr. John, see: The New York Times. January 3, 1909. P. 4. – “John of Kronstadt DIED IN POVERTY.” Laqueur W. Black Hundred: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia. N.Y., 1993. P. 50; Rosenthal B. G. (ed.). The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca, 1997. P. 396. Sursky I.K. Father John of Kronstadt: In 2 volumes. Belgrade, 1938–1941. Critical remarks about this publication are contained in a letter from Protopresbyter G. Shavelsky dated June 12, 1939. See: Bakhmetevsky Archive of Russian and Eastern European History and Culture of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Columbia University Library (New York, USA). Alexander (Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky). Father John of Kronstadt. New York, 1955; His own. Father John of Kronstadt: A Life. Crestwood, 1979; Selawry A. Johannes von Kronstadt, Starez Russlands. Basel, 1981. Felmy K. Ch. Predigt im orthodoxen Russland, Untersuchungen zu Inhalt und Eigenart der russischen Predigt in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Göttingen, 1972; Florovsky G. Ways of Russian theology. Paris, 1937; Heller W. Johannes von Kronstadt // Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon. Bd. 3. Herzberg, 1992. S. 448–451; Lassus L.-A. Jean de Cronstadt, prêtre de Dieu – ami des hommes // Contacts. No. 94 (1976). P. 143–154; Zernov N. The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century. N.Y., 1963. See: From a priest's notebook. M., 1996. In one personal foreign archive there is a letter written by Fr. John, dated July 27, 1905 and numbered by the priest’s clerk under the number 8994. If by the end of July 1905 alone the pastor sent about nine thousand letters, then this corresponds to the average monthly volume of his correspondence of 1285 letters. If such intensity of correspondence were maintained, 15,500 letters could be sent in a year.