Shalyapin S.O. Petr Chelishev on the Religious Life in the Northern Governorates during the Reign of Catherine the Great

Abstract: The article's research subject is the traditional form of the religious life in the Northern governorates in European Russia during the 18th century, which formed under the conditions of a secular policy of Catherine's reign and which is characterized by multi-confessionalism and relative religious tolerance. The research’s object is the regional particularities of the religious life there, as noted in the travel Diary of P. I. Chelishev in 1791: the spread of Old Believers' faith, the collapse in authority of the traditional Orthodox faith by fault of the local clergy, and the desolation of local monasteries. The author analyzes in detail the passages in the manuscript of P. I. Chelishev which indicated the visible causes for the spiritual decline in the Northern region to the imprudent and inconsistent policy of the government's religious tolerance that did not have clearly positive effects and to the lack of the necessary education of the Northern borderlands. Particular attention is given to the circumstance that P. I. Chelishev, despite being a person who thought in the concepts of the Renaissance period which supported the policies of Catherine II, quite critically assessed the condition of the Russian provinces’ religious life at the end of the 18th century, resulting from Catherine's transformations. His Diary is a rare case of criticism of the government's secularism, stemming not from highest members of clergy, but from the secular side of educated society. The article's main methodology is the combination of narrative (descriptive) and comparative methods. Using the manuscript text of Chelishev's Diary for 1791, containing general information on the religious life on the visited by him governorates, as well as a series of the traveler's original commentaries and conclusions concerning what he saw, the author compares them with the information from other sources (statistical, legislative and others) in an attempt to reveal the degree of representativeness of the information recorded by Chelishev and the particularities of the observer's worldview, who had a unique perspective on the political and religious processes of his time. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the following: the secular epoch of the 18th century brought into the life of the Russian province, beside religious tolerance and withdrawal of the church's property, definite traces of the decline of official Orthodoxy as testified by the degradation of many monasteries, the lowering of the church's authority, the lack of educated clergy; the spread of the Old Believers' faith in the Northern governorates was a consequence not only of the government's liberal position but also the lack of the necessary education of the public, the domination of superstitions and customs; the critical point of view of P. I. Chelished, an educated aristocrat from the close circle of Radishev, in relation to the government policy of religious tolerance, testifies the presence in Russian society at the end of 18th century of a moderate-conservative positions on the issue of the position of religion and the church in society's life. In the weakening of the church's role in the traditional mode of society's life they saw a danger to the state's very foundation, in which they were supported by the majority of the highest members of clergy.

Keywords: