Rural parishes of the Tambov diocese (late 19th – early 20th century)

Abstract

A kind of blank spot in the history of Orthodoxy remains the problem of the grassroots structure of the church - the Orthodox parish, to which the peasant population belonged. Studying the history of peasant parishes allows us to find out the real needs of the population for churches and worship, the peculiarities of the relationship between parishioners and priests (within the parish community). The parishioner and the priest are iconic figures personifying the way of life of the peasant Orthodox. The activity of priests, who were the bearers of spiritual and social activity, conductors of the Orthodox ideology, seems to be a necessary and justified phenomenon throughout the history of Christianity, and its scientific understanding is very relevant. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that, undoubtedly, the most powerful watershed in the relationship between the world and the Church was the first Russian revolution. Researchers call the period from 1905 to 1907 the initial period in the process of mass decline of religiosity among the people. Against the background of the general secularization of the consciousness of peasant society, accelerated at the beginning of the 20th century by the process of growth in the number of migrant workers and rural paupers, accusations of the clergy being in favor of the authorities became a necessary element of opposition sentiments, which often added an anti-church direction to peasant uprisings.