All-Russian olympiad of schoolchildren in foundations of orthodox culture in 2008–2018: educational aspect

The article briefly examines the history of the emergence of the All-Russian Olympiad of schoolchildren on the basics of Orthodox culture "Holy Russia, keep the Orthodox faith!"; analyzes and summarizes the experience of its conduct; notes the role of the Pedagogical Faculty of St. Tikhon's Orthodox University for the Humanities in its organization and preparation. Based on the results of the ten-year work of the Methodological Commission of the Olympiad, the main methodological recommendations for the preparation of Olympiad tasks are formulated, the stages of their preparation identified during the long-term analysis of competitive works and the most common types are outlined. The Olympiad on the Basics of Orthodox Culture, held by the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities, for a little more than a decade of its existence, has turned into a powerful cultural and educational project that brought together teachers and students from five countries and eighty Russian regions. The purpose of this article is to summarize the experience of the Olympiad through the eyes of one of the members of the Methodological Commission responsible for the preparation of the verification content. The main sources of the research were methodological manuals and collections of tasks published in different years, as well as posted on the Olympiad website. As the main methods, we used the analysis of the products of creative activity, synthesis, generalization, observation. The chronological boundaries cover the period from 2008 to 2018. The lower chronological boundary is characterized by the beginning of the All-Russian Olympiad of Schoolchildren on the Basics of Orthodox Culture (hereinafter referred to as the Olympiad); the upper boundary is characterized by the holding of the Jubilee X Olympiad.