Manifestation of religiosity of Tambov merchants in the 19th - early 20th centuries

Abstract

The population of the Russian Empire was largely guided by religious traditions and the church calendar in their everyday family, business and public life. But each class had its own unique external forms of manifestation of religiosity. In the 19th century, it was customary to consider the merchant class to be conservative and devout. For his research, the author turned to the confessional records of the St. Sophia Cathedral Church in Morshansk for 1850, the only ones preserved in the city. Among the merchants, no one was found who did not come to confession and communion "due to inattention" or even "due to absence". The author also came to the following conclusions: in the Russian Empire, the Orthodox Church existed as an institution of society and the state, its sacraments and rites were traditional, including for the merchant class. The motivation for actions in the sphere of religious life is undetermined from the sources available to the author, but their results are obvious. The facts testify to both the deep sincere piety of the bulk of the merchant class and the use by some entrepreneurs of affairs for the benefit of the church in order to raise their social prestige. The use of church institutions as a social elevator for wealthy merchants was perceived by contemporaries as the norm. Among the Orthodox clergy of the late 19th century, there was a noticeable grumbling of individual priests about the merchant vanity unbecoming to Christians.