Secret monastic communities of the Soviet period. Problems of typology

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to take the next step in the development of a typology of secret monastic communities of the Soviet period. The author considers the development of a typology of the monastic underground in the USSR as a tool for explaining the diversity of forms of this phenomenon. First, the author raises the question of the evolution of the types of monastic life during the transition from the synodal to the Soviet period, and to solve it, he dwells in detail on the classifications of forms of monasteries and monastic life existing in science in the Russian Middle Ages and the Imperial period. The author then points out that the secret communities differed not only in terms of “objective” (for example, gender or age composition), but also in terms of “subjective” features, for example, in the position of their leaders and members in relation to church divisions, or in relation to the adoption new members. Based on this, the article raises the question of the reasons for the formation of various strategies for the behavior of the monks of the Soviet period, as well as the intellectual attitudes that stood behind these strategies. The author concludes that the position in relation to the admission of new members, or openness vs. the closeness of the secret monastic communities was one of their key characteristics, which determined others, including their “objective” parameters.