Tambov philanthropists. Relations between merchants and the Church in the 19th century

Abstract

According to modern researchers, Russian merchants have always been deeply religious. The Church has always been an object of investment for merchants' capital. Churches were built during their lifetime or contributions for their construction were bequeathed. The merchants of the cities of the Tambov province actively participated in the construction of churches. The participation of townspeople in the confessional life of a Russian district town and the relationship between merchants and the Orthodox Church constantly attract the attention of Russian historians. A sufficient amount of scientific literature is devoted to this problem. The most interesting city for consideration of the topic is Morshansk, which in the 19th century was a multifunctional, economically highly developed administrative center of one of the populous districts of the Tambov province. Confession statements allow us to form an idea of ​​the religious affiliation of the merchant class. The author of the article used the confession lists of the St. Sophia Cathedral Church of Morshansk for 1850, the only ones that have survived for the city. They register all residents - members of this parish, who came (or did not come for some reason) to confession and communion, which are obligatory for every Orthodox believer. The merchants made up 18% of all parishioners of the central cathedral of the city. Among the merchants, those who did not come to confession and communion "due to inattention" or even "due to absence" were not found. The value of the confession lists of cities lies in the fact that, unlike the census tales, they present real merchant families, not households, and also record representatives of the "Old Believer sect". In 1869, a charitable society for the care of the poor began to operate in Morshansk "with the aim of alleviating the lot of the poorest residents." The founders included: Princess Varvara Gagarina, Ekaterina Gorlova, nobleman A. Salov, honorary citizens Nestor Popov, Nikolai Shelepuzhnikov, Dmitry Mikhailov, merchants Kirill Fomin, Semyon Stepanov and Savely Fomin. In Yelatma, the almshouse was built at the expense of "a sum donated by the merchant Strizheva", and housed ten people. The author concludes that the merchant environment, along with the peasant environment, was the guardian of Russian spirituality and traditional national culture.