Secret Monastic Communities of the Soviet Period: Problems of Typology

Abstract

This article is aimed to continue the development of a typology of secret monastic communities of the Soviet period. The existing systematizations of the forms of monasteries and the monastic life of the Russian Middle Ages and imperial period are discussed in detail. The development of a typology of the monastic underground in the Soviet Union is considered as one of the stages in the search for explanations for the diversity of forms of this phenomenon. Attention is drawn to the fact that secret communities differed not only in terms of “objective” features (for example, in terms of gender or age composition) but also in terms of “subjective” features, for example, regarding the position of their leaders and members in relation to church divisions or in relation to the admission of new members. Accordingly, the question can be raised about the reasons for the formation of specific positions, about the reasons for the choice of certain strategies of behavior by the monks of the Soviet period, and about the intellectual attitudes that stood behind these strategies. It is concluded that the position in relation to the admission of new members, or the openness vs. closeness of secret monastic communities was one of their key characteristics, which determined their other, including “objective,” parameters.