What is a religious community. religious community. About the norm of parish life

Religious community of monks or nuns

Alternative descriptions

Community of monks

. "Castle" of monks

Abbey

Where the heroine Whoopi Goldberg hid from the mafia in the comedy "Act, Sister!"

Women's institution where men appear only as icons

Kiev-Pechersk Lavra as a monastery

Kiev-Pechersk as a monastery

Religious building, under which they sometimes fail

M. monastery, dormitory of brothers and sisters, monks, nuns, monks, monastics, monastics, monastic dinner. Yaroslavl The cemetery is also called a monastery, but the schismatic cemeteries in Moscow are, in fact, monasteries. Moscow churchyard, graveyard, church land with buildings, with houses of the priest and clergy. He lives in a monastery, in a churchyard. A monk who renounced secular vanities, tonsured into an angelic image, mnyah, a monk, a monk, assigned to a monastery. Catholic monasticism forms orders, brotherhoods. A cassock monk, a novice in a cassock and klobuk, only without a mantle. There are educational monasteries, such as our Smolny. Monk silkworm, twilight, which the caterpillar eats the forest. undermining, a monk, a piece of tinder, for arson. Nun, nun; southern app. the nun nun, blueberry. The nun is also a butterfly monk. You will not be blacker than a monk. the devil, under old age, went to the monks. Not every monk is wearing a klobuk. The monks also accept it, wine. The monk missed when death was in their heads. The devil is not a monk's companion, the monk will guide him. A monk (or nun) at a wedding, ominous to the young. Bring affairs under the monastery (kill the king). I would go to a monastery, but there are many singles (sorry for them). it is the expense of the Cyril Monastery, and the arrival of the turnip desert. Go under the stukals of the monastery (soldiers under the fortress, to the battle). I will go to a monastery where there are many singles. his house is like a monastery, abundance. The dokuku monastery loves (i.e. requests and offerings). don't go to someone else's monastery with your charter. Monks, nun, -shenkin, -shkin, belonging to them, -shesky, relating to them .; -styrsky, related to the monastery. On the monastery carpet, he is throwing on the cheek. Monks m. charcoal smoking candle. Monastery. -retz, diminish. -groove, increase. -Rishka, despises. -rische cf. remains, ruins, settlement of the monastery. Monastery, resident, pupil of the monastery. Monastyrnik m. -schik, -shchitsa, minister, servant, or ordinary visitor to monasteries. Monastery monastic life, custom; possessions, property of the monastery. Monastic, like a monk. Monk or -sya, imitate what the monks for the sake of appearance, hypocrisy, pretend to be saints

Novodevichy...

Monastery of monks

Community of monks

You can put it under

The premises of the monastic community

The story of the Russian writer M. Zoshchenko

Regime organization (church)

Religious community, which is a separate church and economic organization

Refuge from worldly turmoil

Church and living quarters of the monastic community

What is hidden behind the abode

. monks' castle

Where did the heroine Whoopi Goldberg hide from the mafia in the comedy Go Sister?

What is hidden behind the dwelling?

Do contemporary urban Christians need a community? If yes, what should it be? Anna Galperina reflects.

"We need a community!"

Today in the Church one of the main problems is called building. Everyone writes and talks about this - from the Patriarch to the laity in blogs. We need to build a community! It almost sounds like a slogan. Only for some reason verbal spells do not help. In fact, there is no church community in Russia today.

There are exceptions, positive examples, and even then, most often, this is the result of the work of a particular priest, his efforts, multiplied by the strength of his personality, gather people into the parish. But as soon as this priest disappears (transferred, banned for being active, died), the church community crumbles.

We will not now touch on the issue that many in the church "administration", as well as in the state, by the way, are frightened in general by the appearance of a community - it is strong, active, unpredictable. So what is a community?

What is a community? Wikipedia answers...

A religious community, as Wikipedia says, is “a community of people of a certain locality of any religion, religious persuasion, united for the purpose of performing worship, prayers and rituals.”

So when we come together once a week to pray together, we are already a community? In general, then you can not know who is standing next to you, pray only for yourself. In general, we already have such a wiki community. Temples are filled, people come in, rituals are performed - what else do you need?

However, we understand that the essence of the Christian community is not that some people at some time gather in one place in order to perform some action.

The Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church answers

In the same place, he mentions another distortion, so often mistaken for a “community”, a kind of escapism: “We represent the Church in the image (as the fathers already spoke about, this image is quite legitimate even now) of Noah's ark. We are inside, the door is closed, and we are not threatened by what is outside. In fact, everything is not so calm and simple.

Yes, Noah's ark is an image of the Church in the sense that outside is death, inside is life, inside is the saving will of God, etc. But the Church differs from the ark in the sense that it is impossible to be in it once and for all, to get into appropriate cage - and I'm talking about cages, because it's quite obvious that during the long months of rain and the Flood, some animals were ready to eat others for food or out of boredom. It is not that simple".

Community as Christ

Of course, the main thing in the community is not even worship and not prayer, but Christ, it is He who stands in the center of the community, gathers the faithful, creates the unity of people who are strangers to each other. Here is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer resolutely writes about this: “The incarnated Son of God was both Himself and the new humanity ... Incarnation makes it necessary to embody the connection of the disciples in walking after.

A prophet or teacher who follows him is of no use, he needs listeners and supporters. And the incarnated Son of God, who entered into human flesh, needs a community of those who follow, which would be involved not only in his teaching, but also in his body. Those who follow have communion with the body of Jesus... The body of Jesus Christ is the new humanity itself perceived by him. The body of Christ is his community. Jesus Christ is both himself and his community (1 Cor. 12:12).

After Pentecost, Jesus Christ lives on earth in the form of his body - the community ... Therefore, to be baptized means to become a member of the community, a member of the body of Christ (Gal. 3, 28; 1 ​​Cor. 12, 13). Therefore, to be in Christ means to be in the community. And if we are in the community, then we are truly and bodily in Jesus Christ.”

That is, the Christian community, according to Bonhoeffer, is Christ Himself. A believer can become a Christian only in the community. However, it is not very clear how simply a collection of people can become a community?

What prevents us from becoming a community?

How rightly Rev. Pavel Velikanov, “if we look at the current situation, we will see something different. People who really believe in God come to the temple of God, each for his part trying to somehow implement the gospel commandments, but, frankly, most of them are quite indifferent to what happens both in the Temple itself and with those people who are in this Temple next to them. They came to solve their personal spiritual problem.

I have a disease in my soul, I have a non-peaceful state, I have sin, I want to take communion and be with my Christ, everything else does not really bother me. The main thing for me is to get into this very narrow corridor of salvation, which can lead me to the Kingdom of Heaven. We partake of the Gifts of Christ, we are quite satisfied and leave happily, and then practically nothing ties us to the Church.”

In fact, that is exactly what the reality is. Both the fault and the misfortune of this are not only the individualism and egoism of modern Christians, but also the very change in life realities: for a long time in Christian history, it was the community (in particular, the peasant community) that was the basis not only and not so much of the Church, but of society in general, the social structure.

Today, when the bulk of the population lives in large cities, the creation of a community becomes problematic. Firstly, the very way of life does not imply joint work, joint living of some events. The same community five hundred years ago, for example, saw each other every day - in work, in relationships with each other, in life and death. Now the members of one community of one city are separated and do not feel any mutual attraction. They come to Christ in the Sacrament of Communion, and not to meet with the community. And this is the second reason.

In fact, it turns out that the same individualism grew out of Christianity: many theological works say that the main thing is a “Personal meeting with Christ”, mine, only mine, and not some kind of joint event. Here are some quotes: “What is the difference (Christianity from other religions)? It differs in that (and this is very important!) that is based on personal experience. Not on the experience of knowledge, although it is also present in Christianity. This is a personal experience of meeting ... a personal experience of meeting the living Christ ”() or“ A personal meeting between a person and Christ is the core of Christianity. It cannot be replaced by anything else ”() or the well-known“ Save yourself, and thousands around you will be saved. After all, the most important thing is still my salvation? My efforts in this direction? Where is the community here?

We can say that in the community people can do Christian deeds: help the poor, feed the hungry, comfort the sick. But in the same way, can I do it on my own, or in general with some other group of people, not at all with my community?

Well, let's add here the personal traits of people and our history. For example, starting from my pioneer-Komsomol childhood, I have been rejected by any meetings and collective actions. Of course, one can say that I am wallowing in the sin of “individualism” (is there such a thing?), but one can assume that these are personal qualities - I am not a “public figure” by nature ...

Do we need a community? And if so, which one?

To summarize all that has been said, we can say that today the “necessity for the existence of a Christian community” does not grow from within society, including Christian society. He, the society, in fact, has no need for a community. On the one hand, there is little that connects us: I cannot immediately fall in love with all the people standing next to me on Sunday just because they also believe in Christ, I don’t have such a toggle switch inside that could be turned - and - click - love lit up.

On the other hand, in modern society in Russia there is still no mechanism for creating a church community, at least in large cities. My question is how? How to create a community? I haven't heard a single clear answer yet. Perhaps such a mechanism does not exist, because once upon a time the Christian community was not actually created from scratch, it was, as it were, the result of a transformation, the churching of an already established community, even if it was pagan. And today it turns out that in the modern industrial structure of society, we are trying to grow some archaic fruit.

Maybe today Christian communities should not be tied to a parish? Maybe they should grow up at nursing homes, at hospitals, where the backbone of the community is made up of people engaged in a common cause? But then there will still be those who do not go to hospices and do not help sick old people. How to be it? Do they need a community? And what should it be today? Maybe it can be virtual, like the organization of search engines "Lisa Alert", when people coordinate on alarm, and then - everyone lives their own lives? And - most importantly - where in today's community and our entire church society is Christ?

Rites

As evidenced by archaeological and ethnographic material, there is no reason to talk about a certain set of “primordially Slavic” rituals common to all Slavic peoples. Apparently, already in the Proto-Slavic era, there were significant regional and tribal differences in the performance of rituals.

Fundamental transformations occurred with the funeral rite. As noted above, the Proto-Slavic era was marked by a sharp turning point - the transition from cremation to cremation. At the same time, however, we are not talking about a complete replacement of one rite by another, but about the predominant type of burial. From barrow burials (XVI-XIII centuries BC), the Proto-Slavs, together with other ancient Europeans, moved to barrow-free burial grounds with the burial of cremated remains in burial urns (Central European cultural and historical community of burial urn fields, XIII-VII centuries BC e.) 1 . Among the tribes of the Lusatian culture (VI-V centuries BC), with which many researchers associate the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, burials were made "in soil pits, into which the remains of corpses were poured." “The custom is emerging and gradually becoming widespread to cover the remains of cremations with a large bell-shaped clay vessel turned upside down (“klosh” in Polish)” 2 . Existing in the V-II centuries. BC e. the archaeological culture of the under-klosh burials can be considered early Slavic.

The population of the Slavic Przeworsk culture (end of the 2nd century BC - beginning of the 5th century) buried their dead in barrowless burial grounds according to the rite of cremation. The tribes of the Chernyakhov culture (II-V centuries), in which the Scythian (Iranian-speaking), Germanic and Slavic populations mixed, basically still cremated their dead, however, there are quite a few inhumed burials. Among the Slavs of the Prague-Korchazh group from the 6th-7th centuries. the kurgan rite of burial is born, while "for a long time mounds and ground burials coexisted." Meanwhile, the Slavs of the Penkovskaya group, who settled between the lower Danube and the Seversky Donets,

Cm.: Sedov V.V. The origin of the Slavs and the location of their ancestral home. The resettlement of the Slavs in the V-VII centuries.//Essays on the history of the culture of the Slavs. M., 1996. S. 21.

Sedov V.V. The origin of the Slavs ... S. 27.
18 - 3404 273

and their descendants, "the custom of building mounds was absolutely alien." The Krivichi, having settled on the lands of the Ilmen-Pskov basin, began to bury the remains of the cremation in long mounds, while the Ilmen residents who settled near the Slovenes buried cremated bodies in rounded mounds - hills 1 .

Changes in the funeral rite took place under the influence of ethno-religious contacts and the internal evolution of Slavic religious beliefs. Each Slavic type of burial corresponded to special religious ideas, which had their own temporal and territorial boundaries. At the same time, along with significant differences in the Slavic funeral rite, some stable elements can also be distinguished.

Slavic burials, as a rule, have no inventory. The cases of weapons and funeral food found in the graves should rather be attributed to foreign cultural influences (Germanic, Scythian-Sarmatian). It is noteworthy that the custom, apparently adopted by the Iranian-speaking tribes, to put red-hot charcoal and ashes in the grave was preserved in the Russian North until the 20th century: “A pot of coals was an indispensable attribute of a funeral procession; after the funeral, the pot was placed on the grave upside down, and the coals crumbled” 2 . During excavations of places of worship related to the culture of barrow burials, many broken clay vessels were found; broken earthenware pots were also found in the graves of the zhalniks of the Russian North next to the deceased 3 . Among the different branches of the Slavs, ethnographers have witnessed the custom of turning over the deceased or objects of the funeral ritual. Breaking, breaking, turning over during the funeral rite has broad parallels in religions and is usually interpreted as a change in the nature of an object, opening it access to the "other world" 4 .

Cm.: Sedov V.V. The origin of the Slavs ... S. 60, 67, 78-80.

Tolstoy N.//. Turning objects in the Slavic funeral rite / / Tol-stay N.I. Language and folk culture. Essays on Slavic mythology and ethnolinguistics. M., 1995. S. 216.

Cm.: Volkenstein A. L. A few words about the anthropology of the zhalniks of the Valdai district // Proceedings of the II Archaeological Congress in St. Petersburg. SPb., 1881. S. 12.

On this occasion, N.I. Tolstoy writes: “In general, turning an object (body) over is an action that is included in a wider semantic and semiotic sphere of actions of transformation, transformation, metamorphosis, taking on a different appearance, transition from one state to another, and finally, to the sphere communication of "this world" with "the next world" (Tolstoy N.I. Turning objects in the Slavic funeral rite / U. Tolstoy N. I. Language and folk culture. Essays on Slavic mythology and ethnolinguistics. M. 1995. S. 221).

Above, we have already talked about the general idea for the Slavs of death as the beginning of a long journey and the corresponding funeral rites.

The Slavs preserved a tradition dating back to the Indo-European era to arrange competitions and a feast - a funeral feast - at the funeral. Slavic word trizna meant both a feast at a funeral and an intoxicating drink - beer, mash or honey 1 . The main religious meaning of ritual competitions and feasts was the magical activation of the forces of life, in victory over the forces of death. The memorial meal has retained its place in the syncretic Slavic religion (strava). Together with intoxicating drinks, the basis of the memorial meal was porridge from cereals - kutya. “In addition to porridge or kutia, they use grain and baked bread at funerals. Grain is sprinkled on the bench where the deceased lay, or on the road along which he was carried. Among the Serbs, Slovaks and Czechs, a piece of bread is placed at the head of the dead man, which is then divided among those who were at the burial. Broken pots in the grave - a trace of the memorial meal.

The funeral rite of the Slavs corresponds to the type of "rites of passage". Just as clearly, wedding and birth rites belong to the "rites of passage" in the Slavic tradition. Like the funeral rite, these rites were associated with the magic of death and rebirth: in wedding rituals, the bride and groom "died" in their former social status and were "born" in a new one. The archaic layers of Slavic maternity rites suggested that in the act of birth, a child comes into this world as an unclean and alien being. Special cleansing actions removed "impurity" from the newborn and mother. The maternity rites also included the actions of the ritual recognition of the child as the father, only after them the newborn became a full member of the family. A child who died before the administration of these rites, in a syncretic religion - before baptism, found himself, according to Slavic beliefs, in the position of a malicious dead man.

In syncretic religion, ideas rooted in archaic beliefs about the magical productive power of marriage, which enhances fertility in nature, were widespread. These beliefs also assumed the reverse effect of natural fertility on the childbearing of the young: the fruitful power of the earth was transferred to the young through the rituals of sprinkling the married couple with grain, hops,

Cm.: Toporov V. N. Equestrian competitions at the funeral // Research in the field of the Balto-Slavic spiritual culture: (Funeral rite). M., 1990. S. 17.

Sumtsov N. F. Bread in rituals and songs // Sumtsov N. F. Symbolism of Slavic rituals: Selected works. M., 1996. S. 200.

eating ritual breads and other magical ways. Concern for the productive power of the married couple and nature was due to numerous methods of protecting the wedding from evil witchcraft - conspiracies and amulets were widely used, often a specially invited "good" sorcerer played a prominent role.

Initiations, a special kind of "rites of passage", did not leave a noticeable trace in the syncretic religion of the Slavs. First of all, some folklore stories that tell about the extraordinary trials of the hero: leaving home and wandering in wonderful lands, competitions, death-rebirth, finding magical objects and helpers, etc., are reminiscent of their presence at more archic stages.

In archaic cultures, calendar rituals are closely connected with the "rites of passage". The stronghold of the ancient Slavic division of the year was the winter solstice. The change that took place in December with the sun, the “solstice”, marked the beginning of a two-week period of “holy days”, “Christmas”, which were accompanied by calls to deities and ancestors, ritual songs and games, ritual meals 2 . The ancient idea of ​​Christmas time is the awakening along with the "birth" of the sun of natural life and participation in this awakening of man. Condensed in the rituals of Christmas games, erotic entertainment, ritual meals, the archaic idea provoked a burst of cheerful energy in the religious community, which, according to the participants, combined with the emerging energy of fertility, doubling it.

Christmas time, one of the most archaic holidays, in its psychological content is not only a fun, but also a terrible period. According to beliefs firmly held in the syncretic religion, the solstice and the days following it are marked by rampant demonic power. It was also believed that deceased relatives returned to their homes at Christmas time. Families gathered at the Christmas feast for a joint meal with their ancestors, who were exposed to separate appliances and offered treats. By the end of Christmas time, the ancestors were "escorted" back to the "other world."

In the East Slavic syncretic religion, one of the main links of winter Christmas time is caroling, a rite of collective detour

See more about this: Eremina V.I. ritual and folklore. L., 1991; Sumtsov N.F. Bread in rituals and songs / / Sumtsov N. F. Symbolism of Slavic Rites: Selected Works. M., 1996; Ethnography of the Eastern Slavs. Essays on traditional culture. M, 1987;

See details: Chicherov V.I. The winter period of the Russian folk agricultural calendar of the 16th-19th centuries./LGruda of the Institute of Ethnography. New series. T. 40. M., 1957.

yards in order to collect food gifts (sacrifices to Kolyada), which were then eaten with songs and dances by carolers 1 .

An important milestone in the division of the year was the March holidays, especially Shrovetide. Shrovetide marked the beginning of spring, and hence the economic year of the farmer. Ritual bonfires were burned at Shrovetide, the main ritual dish was prepared - butter pancakes, which symbolized the sun with their shape. Colored eggs were also prepared for the spring holidays. For a long time (approximately from the 10th century), the custom was to use specially made ceramic painted eggs - Easter eggs. It was believed that a painted ritual egg has magical properties: for example, it can heal a sick person, put out a fire caused by a lightning strike. The cycle of spring holidays ended with the summer solstice - the feast of Ivan Kupala (June 24). The spring rites, like the Yuletide ritual, were largely motivated by the desire to protect themselves from the harmful influence of evil spirits and expel the demons who were outrageous during this period.

In the Slavic calendar, winter and spring were definitely distinguished, while “summer had neither a clear beginning nor an end; it was a continuation of spring; likewise, the timing of the beginning of autumn is not exact; autumn in some manuscripts begins to count from the harvest, and in some from July 1 ... ". The situation was similar with the autumn-winter frontier - "the transition from autumn to winter was shaded like the transition from summer to autumn" 2 . Therefore, apparently, the calendar summer and autumn rituals did not have such obvious forms as winter and spring ones.

In the archaic picture of the world, calendar rites and holidays set stable reference points in the flow of time. Religious consciousness endowed segments of time, as well as loci of space, with qualitative certainty, bringing them under the signs of the sacred and profane.

In Slavic societies, agricultural by the nature of their main economic activity, calendar rituals were closely connected with fertility cults. Calendar, natural-cosmic, cycles acted in archaic culture at the same time as production cycles of preparation, beginning and completion of agricultural work.

See details, e.g.: Vinogradova L. N. Winter calendar poetry of Western and Eastern Slavs: Genesis and typology of caroling. M., 1982.

Prozorovsky D. On the Slavic-Russian pre-Christian reckoning of time / LGruda of the II Archaeological Congress in St. Petersburg. Issue. 2nd. SPb., 1881. S. 203.

See details: Sokolova V.K. Spring-summer calendar rites of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. M, 1979.

Each stage, in addition to purely economic, had its own magical component 1 .

Since natural fertility was thought to be the result of the sacred intercourse of the Earth-mother and Heaven-father, since the productive agrarian rites primarily assumed ritual sexual practice, or actions that symbolically replaced it. Both forms were present in the Slavic tradition. Old Russian church authors wrote a lot about the "fornication" that accompanied the administration of agrarian rites. Thus, written texts and ethnographic materials point to a ritual rolling across the field or a man lying on the ground, motivated by the idea of ​​magical copulation with the earth 2 . The symbolic substitution for magical copulation was Christmas games of erotic content (“playing the goose”, “playing the bull” 3), ritual exposure, sprinkling with grain or dousing with water, ritual erotic songs, ritual foul language and other actions designed to magically influence the natural power of life creation. . It is clear that the productive rites were not entirely reduced to varieties of ritual copulation. So, among some groups of Slavs up to the 20th century. the ceremony of baking a large ritual cake was held, behind which the owner of the house tried to hide, and in ancient times among the Pomeranian Slavs - a priest.

In addition to producing rituals, agrarian rituals also included protective magical actions. Ethnographic materials indicate the special role of ritual bonfires and brooms, scaring away evil spirits, plowing the village to protect against the loss of livestock. The propitiatory agrarian rites were aimed at maintaining good relations with the deities of fertility: for example, after harvesting, the Eastern Slavs left several uncompressed spikelets on the field - the “Veles beard”, hoping to ensure fertility next year with this gift.

The agrarian rites were performed mainly by the agricultural population. With the formation of a socially differentiated society and the isolation of the "druzhina" layer, professional

See details: Propp V. Ya. Russian agricultural holidays. L., 1963.

“Even walking on a plowed field means losing virginity,” noted A.A. Po-tebnya (Potebnya A.A. About some symbols in the Slavic folk poetry/Shotebnya A. A. Word and myth. M., 1989. S. 375-376. See also e.g.: Kagorov E.G. Magic in the economic and production life of the peasantry // Atheist. 1929. No. 37.

See for example: Maksimov SV. Unclean, unknown and cross power. T. 2. M., 1993. S. 298-300.

flax engaged in military craft, military cults are further developed. The veneration of maces, axes, and arrows goes back to deep Indo-European antiquity. In East Slavic culture, battle axes and arrows became the subject of religious cult as attributes of Perun, the warrior god, the patron of the princely squad. Some Slavic warrior gods (for example, Perun, Sventovit) had their own sanctuaries, where special rites were performed in their honor. Slavic squads, according to ancient authors (Procopius of Caesarea, Leo the Deacon, author of The Tale of Bygone Years, etc.), having fallen into a difficult situation in a war, resorted to sacrifices, sometimes human sacrifices. Archaeological data indicate that military people used amulets (nauzes, as they were called in Ancient Russia) as magical protection. In the syncretic religion, one of the most common types of military amulets were serpentines - metal amulets with an image (often a snake, a dragon) and inscriptions. Folklore texts have preserved numerous military incantations, some of them have archaic features in their content.

An essential part of the military cults was the poetry of squad singers, who praised in songs - "glories" of the patron gods, the deeds of ancient heroes, the victories of the prince and squad. The singing of the squad singer accompanied the burial of fallen soldiers, princely ritual feasts in honor of victories and other important religious ceremonies. The singer's speech was perceived as a magical act of addressing the gods, to the patron ancestors, as a conspiracy word that appeases the higher powers or escorts the deceased to another world. The inspiration of the singer served as a sign of a special ecstatic state of involvement in the divine mysteries of the past and future, due to which singing was interpreted as divination. A vivid monument of the squad cult of the era of syncretic religion is the "Tale of Igor's Campaign", which depicts the characteristic figure of the squad singer - "prophetic Boyan".

Apparently, the word that arose in the Proto-Slavic language to denote singing rap was originally associated with ritual practice. According to O.N. Trubachev, rap arises from the word pojiti“to give to drink, to give to drink”, “to make libations” 1 . Singing was an integral part of the "drinking" of the deity, the ancestor in the act of libation of the sacrificial drink. It is known that the custom of giving water to the dead, making libations at the grave or leaving the deceased with intoxicating chara, has been preserved in East Slavic culture up to the present time.

Ancient Slavic prayer, one of the most important types of ritual, is associated with the archaic practice of sacrifice. Prayer Acts

Cm.: Trubachev ON. Ethnogenesis and culture of the ancient Slavs. S. 183.

and their nomination already existed in the Proto-Slavic religion, being a legacy of the common Indo-European culture. This is definitely indicated by the fact that "Proto-Slavic modlity refers to the oldest part of the Indo-European vocabulary" 1 . Proto-Slavic modlity has close correspondences in Hittite ma-al-ta, ma-al-di "to make a vow, to ask something from the gods, promising to sacrifice". Hittite parallels, Czech modla "idol, temple" and such Russian expressions as, for example, prayer beast, where pray has the meaning "to beat the cattle" (cf. also: pray beer, prayer beer), reveal the original semantics of the Slavic modlity- "to make a request to the deity, performing sacrificial rites, sacrificing livestock, food, drink" 2 .

Linguistic indications contained in the original semantics of the Slavic peti, modliti, clarify the direction of evolution of the verbal side of the archaic ritual. In the Proto-Slavic religion, a prayer appeal to the gods, a ritual song were originally an organic part of the ritual complex, which also included physical manipulations with objects or living beings. Gradually, verbal accompaniment part of its formulas is separated from the physical ritual actions. There is a functional change in verbal texts: from the accompaniment of physical manipulations, they become an independent method of magical operations. Prayer formulas take on the meaning of a direct appeal to a deity, which over time in a developed religious consciousness will acquire the meaning of personal verbal contact.

Sacrifice until the era of Christianization remained the main link in the pagan rituals of the Slavs. They were part of both regularly performed calendar and occasional rites, the appeal to which was dictated by the situation that arose.

The type of sacrifice depended on the significance of the event and the nature of the deity. The beliefs of the Slavs required, under certain circumstances, human sacrifices. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions that the religious reform of 980 was accompanied by numerous sacrifices of young Kievans before the idols of Perun, Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargl and Mokosh. Under 983, the chronicle tells that in honor of Vladimir's victory over the Yatvags in Kiev, lots were cast "on youths and maidens" to be sacrificed.

Much more often than the blood of people, the blood of animals and poultry was shed during rituals. Often chosen as a victim

1 ESSAY. 19.90.

2 ESSAY. 19.89.

horse. Slavic rituals are related to the ancient Indian ritual of sacrificing a horse. The Romans, after the solemn slaughter of the horse, played out ritual rivalry for the right to possess the severed head of the animal.

However, the most common in Slavic culture were bloodless sacrifices of bread, porridge, intoxicating potion, money and other valuables. Ritual food served as a treat to the deities, if it was not burned or heated, rarely remained untouched. After pronouncing prayer addresses, the participants themselves ate it. The collective eating of sacrificial food took the form of a ritual feast in Slavic culture. The memory of ritual feasts, especially the feasts of Vladimir, was kept by folklore for many centuries. From the concept of a sacrificial meal, in which the god invited by prayer participated simultaneously as a host and a guest (Proto-Lavonic guest), the ancient Slavic word is formed lord with the original meaning "master of the ritual feast" ("master of the guest/guests" 1).

Divination played an important role in the religious life of the Slavs. The archaic ritual, like its variety - the archaic mantic, was a single complex of mental, mental, verbal and physical actions. The Proto-Slavic concept, denoting one of the forms of mantika, is gatati "to tell fortunes, to guess, to predict", "to guess", "to treat with a conspiracy", "to tell" (a related word - gadati - "to guess", "predict", "speak"). The ambiguity of the semantics of gatati/gadati indicates the variety of actions that fell under the idea of ​​divination. The similarity of the most ancient meanings allows us to establish that the Proto-Slavic practice of divination, nominated gatati/gadati, in its original form - a verbal omen, which had the form of rhythmic speech. Obviously, the rhythmic prediction was made by the prophet in an ecstatic state of mediumistic trance.

The Proto-Slavic mantic arsenal was not limited to the practice of mediumistic trance. One of the key words of the Proto-Slavic mantic vocabulary is koby- "Divination by signs", "Divination". Ancient authors name among Slavic fortune-telling according to the signs of prediction by the cry of a bird, by a chance meeting, by lot, by the behavior of a horse. The last two types of mantle suggested preliminary

1 See: ESSYA. 7, 61.

See: ESSYA. 10, 101. See also: Dictionary of the Old Russian language (XI-XIV centuries). T. 4. M., 1991. S. 230.

cooking and certain ritual manipulations. So, the Baltic Slavs kept a white horse at the temple of Sventovit, which in the rituals of divination had to step over three rows of spears; among the Eastern Slavs, and later, a similar practice was preserved: if a horse, which was taken out of the stable in the ritual of divination, stepped over the barrier with its right foot - a good sign, with its left - a bad one.

Divination was perceived as one of the ways of communicating with the creatures of the other world, sending from the "other world" in one way or another the answer to the fortuneteller. Since the "other world" in the religious picture of the world was separated from this reality by a water barrier, manipulations with water played a significant role in the rites of divination. In a syncretic religion, fortune-telling about marriage required a girl to put a vessel of water at the head of her bed before going to bed, and then solve the dream as a sign of the future. “Fortune-telling is marked by the simplest ritual actions, during which one simply had to look into the water in order to see the face of the betrothed. It was typical for the southern and eastern Slavs to go for this purpose to springs, rivers, to the ice-hole” 1 .

The idea of ​​divination and mantic manipulations were due to the general idea of ​​predestination. In the words of the prophetic singer, in the sounds of the "bird fay", in the behavior of animals, in dreams and meetings, the archaic consciousness imagined signs of the future. The mantic act was a meeting point with the mysterious line of fate, arbitrarily or under the influence of magical techniques, revealing itself in sensually accessible signs. It is characteristic that the semantics of Proto-Slavic koby includes the meanings of "meeting", "clutch", "intersection with something", reflecting archaic ideas about the manifestations of fate.

In the pre-Christian period, fortune-telling rites were an important part of private and public religious life; in developed religions, for example, in the East Slavic 10th century, some mantic rituals were performed as an official princely (state) cult. With the adoption of Christianity, the situation changes. In the syncretic religion, the mantic was wholly related to witchcraft. All otherworldly forces and creatures with which the fortuneteller sought to make contact acquired a demonological nature under the influence of Christianity. Of great importance in the rituals of divination began to play magical methods of protection from the "evil spirits" with which the fortuneteller came into contact. However, neither the ecclesiastical censure, nor the reduction of the religious status of man-

Vinogradova L. N. Maiden fortune-telling about marriage in the cycle of Slavic calendar rituals (West-East Slavic parallels) // Slavic and Balkan folklore: rite and text. M., 1981. S. 54.

tics to "disobedience" did not force her out of religious life. On the contrary, along with the spread of book culture and the expansion of cultural contacts, mantic texts enter the Slavic environment from Byzantium and Western Europe, which, together with the Slavic ones, constituted a rather impressive library of “forsaken books” (“Magician”, “Charovnik”, “Rafli”, “Gromnik” and etc.).

Along with magic aimed at ensuring fertility, health and safety, harmful magic was widespread in the Slavic environment. Relics of ancient Slavic harmful magic are embodied in folklore - in incantations, fairy tales, spiritual poems and other monuments. In the syncretic religion, judging by written, folklore and ethnographic data, belief in witchcraft and rites of harmful magic was further developed.

The archaic layer of harmful magic is reflected in the spiritual verse "A verse about the soul of a great sinner" 1 . The verse considers depriving cows of milk by magical “calling out”, creases (knots of ears) in the fields with the aim of magically suppressing the growth of bread, pitting the fetus or cursing the born child, as well as witchcraft separation of families and spoiling weddings as harmful actions. The actions described in the verse are typical. Harmful magic is aimed at undermining the foundations of the existence of an agricultural community that lived on the fruits of the earth, and a patriarchal way of life that rested on large families: the object of magic is the power of reproduction of children and fertility, the ability of natural growth, marriage as a condition for communal well-being.

A significant part of the harmful conspiracies and magical techniques were directed at an individual and were aimed at provoking death, illness or lack of will, longing - in essence, the same force of life acted as their object. It is no coincidence that East Slavic conspiracies often call upon the dead as associates of magical sabotage.

Church persecution did not eliminate Slavic magic. Even the judicial reprisals of the 17th-18th centuries did little to eradicate it. It existed in all strata of society. "Court cases of the 17th century. testify that magic and conspiracy were not necessarily the property of any one circle of people or any individual person; a conspiracy was needed both in the city and in the countryside, at the royal court and in the peasant family, when the opportunity arose, everyone studied it, and very many knew it. Ancient magical rites

See: Spiritual Poems / Comp., entry. Art., prepared. texts and comments. F. M. Selivanova. M, 1991. S. 213-215.

Eleonskaya E. N. To the study of conspiracy and witchcraft in ?osspi/1Eleonskaya E. N. Fairy tale, conspiracy and witchcraft in Russia. Sat. works. M., 1994. S. 103.

supplemented by Christian elements, continued its existence in the forms of syncretic religion.

Archaic consciousness did not set up insurmountable barriers between this world and the other world. Therefore, the religious community included in its composition not only the living, but also the ancestors who had gone to another world. Compliance with mutual obligations, punishment or, on the contrary, good deeds, the exchange of gifts and other ritual actions, up to marriage ceremonies, regulated the relationship between this and other parts of the archaic religious community.

The primary cell of religious life was the family or the consanguineous community of families - the clan. The main character in the performance of household rituals was the head of the family. Worship of common gods, genealogical heroes, local spirits united clans and families within a settlement or tribe. Initially, the most important sacred rites of the tribal community were performed by the "elders", boyars or princes. Under the year 983, in the Tale of Bygone Years, it is written that Prince Vladimir “with his people” himself makes sacrifices to the gods, and in Kyiv, the verdict on human sacrifice by lot is passed by “elders and boyars”.

The administration of the most important sacred functions was assigned to the prince in the archaic collective. “It is possible that in the conditions of the primitive tribal system, the prince (from the root “kan” - the basis) was both the head of the family and the main performer of rituals. [...] At such a family-clan level, the “prince” was obviously regarded as the head of everyday affairs and as the head of family religious spells” 1 . It is significant that in Czech and some other West Slavic languages ​​the meaning of "priest, priest" is preserved in the word knyaz. The materials collected by J. Frazer in The Golden Bough convincingly testify to the typicality of the archaic figure of the king-priest.

“Vladimir was defeated by lust ...”, reports “The Tale of Bygone Years”, confirming the “womanly love” of the prince by listing his five wives and a certificate of eight hundred concubines. Perhaps the notorious “gluttony in fornication” of Prince Vladimir, about which the Christian chronicler reports with condemnation, is explained by archaic views, according to which the ruler’s sexual potencies are magically connected with natural abundance, growth, excess.

Rybakov B. A. Paganism of Ancient Russia. M., 1988. S. 294.

Returning to Slavic names with the element svet-, let us pay attention to the fact that their prevalence in the princely environment and their semantics could be motivated by magical ideas. It is known that according to archaic beliefs in magical "powers", the presence of these extraordinary "powers" in a person is recognized by the presence of special abilities of the individual - fighting spirit, mental insight, obsession, outstanding skill or enterprise. It is clear to an archaic person that an individual who stands out from the collective with one of these qualities is the bearer of an extraordinary “strength” and therefore he is destined to become a leader, a sorcerer, a great warrior, etc. svet-, taken in the meaning of life-giving power, the name could be due to a similar logic of religious thinking: it indicated the possession of an extraordinary “power” or acted as a magical blessing to a youth of a princely family.

The existence of a special layer of clergy in the archaic Slavic religious communities is problematic. In the Slavic environment, the founders of the priesthood entered the stage of isolation, apparently in the second sex. I millennium. In this era, the Slavic tribes gradually settle on the occupied lands. The arrangement of tribal life was accompanied by the creation of sanctuaries (temples) - from small rural to large ritual centers that served intertribal associations. The emergence of large, permanent ritual centers creates proper religious prerequisites for the concentration of people professionally engaged in serving the cult and their consolidation into a special community. The process of isolation of the priesthood advanced most far in the Eastern Slavic religious communities and among the Baltic Slavs.

However, as far as can be judged from the materials that have come down to us, in the Proto-Slavic society the priesthood has not yet become a separate religious group, clearly separated from the rest of the religious community. The absence of special priestly corporations among the Eastern Slavs is indicated, in particular, by the fact that in Kiev the “elders and boyars” cast lots when determining a human sacrifice, they, apparently, sent this ritual. Meanwhile, both categories were not exclusively religious groups 1 . There is no reliable evidence of the existence in the Proto-Slavic society of a special priestly ritual (ritual

In an archaic sense, the word starb. as noted by O.N. Trubachev - "chief, having power, power", it was used to "designate an elder, head of a clan, tribe" (Trubachev O.N. The history of Slavic terms of kinship and some of the most ancient terms of the social system. M., 1959. S. 178-179). Moreover, the word “boyar” (“bolyarin”), apparently borrowed from the ancient Turkic bai in the meaning of “noble, rich”, was not a specifically religious term.

fishing of initiation, etc.), special rules that regulated the way of life and the status of the priesthood, special plots of mythology that supported this status. Finally, in the Slavic pantheon there are no gods who especially patronized the priests.

Although there were no priestly corporations in the structure of the Proto-Slavic religious community, the circle of individuals professionally engaged in the performance of religious rites, the preservation and transmission of religious knowledge was quite wide. In addition to people who served at large temples to communicate with the gods, it included various categories of connoisseurs of magic. Magi - the general name of all connoisseurs of magic or a large group of them. The very word magi indicates a type of religious specialization - magic, that is, witchcraft. The category of sorcerers also included persons called sorcerers, sorcerers, kobniks (specialized in koby - fortune-telling, divination), cloud-persecutors (it was assumed that they magically influenced the weather), balinese (healers who healed with conspiracies), and some others. Not only men, but also women labored in witchcraft, and in terms of the number of women there could be more than men.

With the adoption of Christianity, the ancient Slavic priesthood and all categories of sorcerers in their official status moved to the position of religious outcasts. The Church publicly dismissed all forms of Proto-Slavic magic. However, it could only partially prevent the processes of merging Christian magic with the Proto-Slavic magic that took place in the depths of religious life and the preservation of witchcraft in the forms demanded by medieval and subsequent cultures (quackery, divination, etc.). Therefore, in the era of syncretic religiosity, sorcerers still occupied a prominent place in Slavic religions.

The most important factor in the microenvironment that forms the religiosity of an individual is the religious community.

specifics of a religious community as a special social group:

1 community of religious beliefs and cult activities.

2. A religious community, as a rule, does not exist in isolation. It is an element of a more complex system, usually uniting a significant number of religious communities that share common beliefs and practice common rituals.

There are basically two types of religious communities in our country. One of them is religious communities without a fixed membership, "open". The second type of religious communities is distinguished by a firmly fixed membership of their believers. This type is characteristic of a number of confessions, which are usually referred to as sectarian in Soviet atheistic literature. These include Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals and some other religious associations. between members of the community, in most cases, personal psychological relationships arise, their direct contacts are repetitive and stable. In communities of this type, there is a much stronger and more permanent ideological and psychological impact on each of the members, many phenomena of group religious consciousness (general stereotypes, attitudes, etc.) are formed more intensively.

3. The smaller and more united the religious community, the greater the impact it has on the consciousness and behavior of its members.

4. In any religious community, along with the formal one, there is also an informal socio-psychological organization (or structure). The formal organization is determined by the dogmas, canons and traditions of a given denomination. In the informal structure of interpersonal relations between members of the community, family ties play an important role.

5. Community leaders and activists play an active and very significant role in the formation and reproduction of group religious consciousness. 6. The stable existence of a religious community largely depends on the presence of religious "activists" in it.

7. The influence of a religious community on its members is carried out through many channels: 1 cult actions (worship services). Worship through a system of socio-psychological mechanisms (suggestion, imitation, emotional infection), intensifies religious feelings, provides emotional relaxation, resumes and strengthens the existing he has religious stereotypes and social attitudes.2. sermon. 3. religious manuscripts circulating in religious communities.

8. The tendency of "alienation" of believers from the reality around them, from problems, aspirations and interests that are alien to the group religious consciousness, is characteristic of many religious communities.

Community functions: 1. illusory-compensatory, which is practically implemented primarily through the administration of religious worship.2. worldview, 3.regulatory, 4.communicative, 5.integrating.

The religious community has a daily - and often very strong - influence on the behavior of its members, approving and sanctioning some forms of behavior and condemning, rejecting others. Group pressure on members of the community, not always taking the form of explicit prohibitions - or even more so sanctions - as a rule, is felt by each of its members, especially when it comes to communities with a firmly fixed membership. Regulatory influence on members of the community is carried out through group opinion, which often affects not only the behavior of the believers themselves, but also their relatives, neighbors, etc.

The cohesion of the members of a religious community is facilitated by their daily communication (primarily during worship) and mutual support and assistance, both moral and material.

Thus, the influence of the community is realized through the satisfaction not only of the religious needs of believers, but also of many others: the need for communication, consolation, moral and material support, and so on.

The Greeks have a common name for priests - ίερεύς. This word denoted a circle of people who were directly related to the ιερός (saint): they performed sacred rites - ιερουργία - and were involved in the acts of the appearance of the saint. The word ιεροφάντης denoted the category of priests-hierophants (literally, those who manifest the sacred); ίεροποιός - a priest of another category (in charge of the sacred action, sacrifice).

priesthood, a very important group in the religious hierarchy, was not a separate class in Greek society until the Hellenistic era. In ancient texts, there are extremely rare references to the priesthood as a separate part of society, equivalent to artisans, farmers and warriors. The absence of traces of priestly social isolation casts doubt on the universality of J. Dumézil's concept of the triple division of Indo-European society. The religious distinction of those individuals and groups that were directly involved in the sacred did not have a clearly defined social status.

In fact, every full-fledged citizen could perform ritual manipulations with sacred objects (for example, with a sacrificial animal), by his own decision or by a public institution. The head of the family assumed the functions of a priest within his home community. Polis, as a religious community, by the procedure of elections and appointments determined the circle of officials who performed priestly duties and represented citizens before the gods. There was also an institution of inheritance of priestly positions, which were occupied from generation to generation by members of respected clans. These people owned an honorable hereditary right to perform certain rituals. So, in the Eleusinian mysteries, the leading role belonged to the Eumolpides family, leading their genealogy from the legendary son of Poseidon Eumolnus, who established the mysteries in Eleusis. In the tsarist era, the position of the basilei obliged the ruler to perform especially important state ceremonies, in these cases he acted as the high priest.

A marked impetus to specialization in religious practice was provided by the development of temple cults. Serving a specific god in the temple of this god required special knowledge, a special way of life, and sometimes even a special mental makeup. At Delphi, where the formation of the priesthood as a special corporation for the first time in Greece begins to take its most distinct forms, the service of Apollo required from the priestesses-soothsayers a special predisposition to entering ecstatic states.

Not only the family with its deified ancestors and the policy with the patron gods determined the composition of the religious community. Families and clans formed phratries - brotherhood not by blood, but by agreement to lead their genealogy from a common ancestor, whose cult became the unifying principle of the members of the phratry. The phratry could also be based on the veneration of common gods bequeathed by the ancestors. The phratries united in fila, which also formed special religious communities with their own cult, mythology, sanctuaries and priests. professional groups, for example, potters, merchants, sailors, had their own patron gods, ritual dates and rites that linked them into special religious communities.

In Greece in the VI-V centuries. BC. a type of religious community is formed, based on the veneration charismatic leader, who approved a new doctrine, a special cult and way of life. It is primarily about Pythagoreans followers of Pythagoras (570-490 BC), who developed the mystical-ethical teaching and created a community tightly bound by personal devotion to the teacher, asceticism, strict prescriptions and community of property. Intervention in political life brought on the Pythagoreans a wave of

persecution and by the end of the 5th c. BC. the Pythagean community actually ceased to exist. In the teachings of the Pythagoreans, earlier ideas of the Orphics found a response, creating their own type of religious community - with a special mythology, religious doctrine, initiation rites, hierarchy and moral standards.

The veneration of common gods by the Greek states created the prerequisites for the emergence cult federations – amphiktyonium (Greek άμφικτυονία). Amphictyons, unions of several states, were created for the administration of a common cult and the protection of cult centers. So, the sanctuary in Delphi served as the unifying beginning of the Pilean Union, the temple of Apollo on the island of Delos pulled together several states into the Delian Union.

The Greeks, who gathered from all Hellenic states for the games in Olympia for a common Greek holiday - panegyrea (Greek πανήγυρις), realized themselves as members of a huge community that worshiped the common god, Zeus, in a sacred place. Among the great eulogies, in addition to the Olympic Games, were the Pythian - in honor of Apollo, the Nemean - in honor of Zeus and the Isthmian - in honor of Poseidon.

Returning to the theme of the structural organization of religious communities, let us pay attention to a characteristic trend that marks the era of Hellenism from the very beginning - the growing role of the priesthood. The number of the priesthood is growing, and it is increasingly acquiring corporate features. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the spread of Middle Eastern cults, where priestly corporations specializing in the veneration of one or another deity had a long tradition. The priesthood of the Near Eastern school found itself in demand by Greek religiosity, in which the craving for privacy and even the intimacy of the cult became more and more strong. In the cult of Isis, "with the numerous priestly staff, a much more intimate, personal the relation of the priest to the initiate than in the ancient Greek cults with their few priests and priestesses..."