Cult practices of Vissarion’s (Sergey Torop’s) followers

Abstract

The authors of the article consider the liturgical (liturgical, as well as prayerful) practices of the followers of Vissarion, the founder of the so-called "Church of the Last Testament", living in the Abode of the Dawn and near it. The research problem that the authors state at the very beginning is the lack of a systematic description of the liturgical practices of Vissarion's followers and the obvious lack of individual point studies of this direction within the framework of the existence of this religious movement. The beginning of the article is devoted to a brief analysis of historiography, after which the researchers proceed to a detailed analysis of the festive liturgies, based on video evidence from the community members themselves, and then describe individual sacred rites, rituals and liturgical elements of the Vissarion cult. Throughout the text, the authors analyze the liturgical symbols and paraphernalia. Attention is paid to the ritual inventory, ritual clothes of the priests of the movement, the architecture of temples, the liturgical calendar, etc. This article does not solve the problem of a systematic description of the liturgical practices of Vissarion's followers, which has not yet been done by domestic religious scholars, but is an attempt to start a study of this topic, in including through the introduction into scientific circulation of new sources - liturgical chants of Vissarion's followers. In particular, the work presents one of the most complete versions of the liturgical chant "Gore-gori yasno" (also known as "Sobiraytes' ludie vo edinom kruge"). The authors use publicly available sources - texts of community members on the Internet, videos and documentaries made by the followers themselves, and come to the conclusion about the dynamic development of liturgical practices and the gradual formation of a certain liturgical canon, an annual cycle of rituals, rites and liturgical norms in the life of the Vissarion communities. Throughout the text of the article, the authors supplement, comment on or refute some theses from the works of religious studies of previous years, which brings novelty to the study and testifies to the development of the object of study - the community of followers of Vissarion (Sergey Torop).