Introduction

Chapter 1. Simon Azaryin - scribe and writer

1.1 The significance of the hagiographic genre in ancient Russian literature

2 Characteristics of the life and work of Simon Azaryin

Chapter 2. Literary analysis of “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by Simon Azaryin

2. Features of the text “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by Simon Azaryin

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Relevance of the topic. The Trinity-Sergius Lavra, from the moment of its foundation by St. Sergius of Radonezh until the present time, has been the main spiritual center of the Orthodox Russian state. The name and deeds of St. Sergius even today force researchers to turn to the study of his spiritual heritage.

In 2014, Russia celebrated the 700th anniversary of Sergius of Radonezh. Not only at the church, but also at the state level, work was actively carried out to prepare for the celebration of the anniversary of the holy ascetic and prayer book, abbot of the Russian Land. The main source of information about the life and exploits of the saint is his “Life,” compiled in 1406-1419. Epiphanius the Wise, and revised by Pachomius the Serb in the second quarter of the 15th century. In the 17th century “The Life” was supplemented and revised in accordance with the trends and requirements of the time by Simon Azaryin, whose name, unfortunately, is rarely mentioned.

Simon Azaryin left a noticeable mark on the history and culture of Russia in the 17th century. The servant of Princess Mstislavskaya, Savva Azaryin came to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to recover from his illness, and was healed by Archimandrite Dionysius. After this, in 1624, Savva was tonsured a monk with the name Simon. He remained in the monastery and was the cell attendant of St. Dionysius for six years.

By the will of fate, Simon Azaryin from 1630 to 1634. was a Builder in the Alatyr Monastery attached to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In 1764, our monastery became independent again, but the connection with the Trinity-Sergius Lavra still leaves its mark in the deep veneration of the Holy Trinity and St. Sergius of Radonezh.

After returning from Alatyr, in 1634 Simon Azaryin became Treasurer, and twelve years later he became a Cellarer until 1654 at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. A clergyman and a major figure in the Orthodox Church, he was directly related to the acquisition of the sacristy collection and library of the monastery. Through personal contributions to the monastery, the artistic interests and activities of Simon Azaryin, aimed at increasing and preserving the monastery’s collection of artistic values, can be traced. They are perceived as a continuation of the activities of the Archimandrite of this monastery, Dionysius, whose image was an ideal for Simon.

Around 1640, he began collecting and copying manuscripts relating to the posthumous miracles of St. Sergius of Radonezh, the number of which was quite significant. Then, on the instructions of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, he prepared for publication “The Life of St. Sergius,” originally compiled by Epiphanius the Wise, a famous scribe of the early 15th century, a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and a disciple of St. Sergius. The “Life” was also supplemented by Pachomius Logothetes, an Athonite monk who lived in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery from 1440 to 1459. and created a new edition of the Life shortly after the canonization of St. Sergius, which took place in 1452. Simon Azaryin created his own edition of the Life of St. Sergius, updating its style and adding 35 chapters with stories about miracles performed in the 15th-17th centuries. The Life was published in 1647, but the printers did not include all of Simon Azaryin’s additions. In 1653, he restored the original form of his “Tale of Miracles” and added to it an extensive “Preface”, in which he outlined his thoughts on the significance of the Sergius Monastery and made several interesting comments regarding the history of the “Life” and its founder.

In addition to the Life of St. Sergius, Simon created the Life of St. Dionysius and a canon for him, finishing the work in 1654. He also wrote “The Tale of the Ruin of the Moscow State and All Russian Lands” and “canons” for Metropolitans Peter, Alexy and Jonah.

Researchers note that Simon Azaryin, as a biographer, stands significantly higher than his contemporary writers; very well read, he was critical of sources and included some documents in appendices; his presentation is distinguished by correctness and clarity, although not free from the ornateness of that time.

Novelty of the research. Despite a fairly wide range of works compiled by Simon Azaryin and with his participation, the questions of studying the written heritage of the scribe and the writer, studying the principles of his work with the author’s text have not yet been raised in historiography.

Degree of knowledge of the topic. The problem of the methods of work of the Old Russian author is one of the leading ones in literary studies (M.I. Sukhomlinov, V.V. Vinogradov, D.S. Likhachev, V.M. Zhivov, etc.), which is posed and examined using the example of the work of specific writers and scribes of Ancient Rus' (I.P. Eremin, N.V. Ponyrko, E.L. Konyavskaya, etc.); when studying the creativity of writers and scribes of the “transitional” 17th century. (N.S. Demkova, A.M. Panchenko, E.K. Romodanovskaya, N.M. Gerasimova, L.I. Sazonova, L.V. Titova, M.A. Fedotova, O.S. Sapozhnikova, T .V. Panich, A.V. Shunkov, etc.). Many of Simon Azaryin's contemporaries, scribes and writers of the 17th century, have long attracted the attention of literary scholars. The literary and book activities of the ideologists of the early Old Believers - Archpriest Avvakum, Deacon Fyodor - have been sufficiently fully studied; monastery scribes and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich; Patriarchs Joseph and Joachim, bishops Afanasy Kholmogorsky, Demetrius of Rostov, Siberian - Nektary and Simeon, Grecophiles - writers of the patriarchal circle and their ideological opponents - “Westerners”. Against this background, the historical figure of Simon Azaryin is a “blank spot.” That is why the problem of his creativity, which worked in conditions of interaction between tradition and novelty, during the period of the emergence of a new cultural model within traditional culture, must be studied using the example of literary and journalistic work.

In historiography, few works have been written about Simon Azaryin. They are represented by book sections and single articles. In 1975 N.M. Uvarova defended her Ph.D. thesis “Simon Azaryin as a writer of the mid-17th century.”

Source base of the study. The research materials are a handwritten source: “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh.”

The analysis also involved the handwritten works of scribes of the 17th-18th centuries, who compiled their works based on the original texts of Simon Azaryin.

In addition, to identify the literary similarities and samples that Simon Azaryin was guided by, the features of his literary activity against the backdrop of the conflict of traditional and innovative trends in the literature of the “transitional” period, the works of Russian publicists, writers and scribes of the 16th-17th centuries (Joseph Volotsky, Patriarchs Joseph and Joachim), Byzantine writers (Gregory Sinaite, Abba Dorotheus, Bishop Simeon of Thessaloniki) and Church Fathers (Basily the Great, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian).

Conflicting assessments of Simon Azaryin's work by specialists in different fields of humanities are an important argument in favor of the need not only for a comprehensive study of his works by philologists using the experience of other researchers, as shown in the thesis, but also for Simon Azaryin himself as an author who had his own style and writing technique .

During the transition from the culture of the Middle Ages to the culture of the New Age - the 17th century - the literary system was transformed. However, Russian culture of the 17th century remained medieval in type, and this circumstance contributed to the intensification of the conflict between tradition and novelty. Traditional texts, as before, determined literary and cultural norms and served as the main literary model. Russian scribes and writers continued to work in line with the “substantial” approach to the text (as opposed to the “relativistic”), when the goal was the pursuit of an archetype through maximum reproduction of the source and proof of similarity (R. Picchio, V.V. Kalugin). But a new attitude to the text, the book, authorship, education and enlightenment arose, as is known, within traditionalism; having clearly manifested itself in the practice of the reference workers of the Moscow Printing House (A.S. Demin), it could not but influence the literary and journalistic activities of Simon Azaryin.

Relevancetopic is due to the lack of knowledge of the literary heritage of Simon Azaryin, which includes a large number of works of different content and genres. Simon Azaryin's literary and book activities were largely determined by life circumstances, his status and responsibilities.

SubjectThe research is to identify ways of mastering the ancient Russian literary tradition by Simon Azaryin, the author of the mid-second half of the 17th century, and to determine the features of his work in the context of the “transitional” period.

Objectresearch is “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh.”

PurposeThe research is to determine the principles of the literary activity of Simon Azaryin, as the creator of “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh”. Achieving this goal is based on setting and solving the following specific tasks:

1.The place of Simon Azaryin’s literary activity in the Byzantine-Russian tradition of the genre is determined:

2.The spiritual and edifying components of the work as a literary monument of the mid-second half of the 17th century have been studied:

3.After studying the activities of Simon Azaryin in the context of the literary process of the 17th century, an assessment of his literary activity is given.

Methodological basisstudying the history of Simon Azaryin's texts, sources, the principles of the author's work became existing studies of source studies, bookishness and Russian medieval literature, concepts on the poetics of Old Russian literature, problems of the text.

Research methods. The study of the written heritage of Simon Azaryin is based on a systematic approach, which involves the study of his works as an organic whole. The methodological basis of the systematic approach is the semantic connection of the classical methods of studying handwritten monuments of ancient Russian literature: archaeographic, comparative historical, textual, structural analysis, historical-typological, historical-literary. The use of a systematic approach in the study gives an idea of ​​the work of Simon Azaryin.

Practical significancedue to the importance of studying the history of the Russian state and the need to study the peculiarities of the development of the traditions of Russian literature in the 17th century. The materials of the final qualifying work can be used in preparation for lessons on the history of Russia in a secondary school, in the work of history clubs, and school electives.

Approbation of research results.The main provisions of the final qualifying work were tested at the pre-defense of final qualifying works held at the Department of History of Russia.

Work structure.The final qualifying work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a list of sources and literature.

Chapter 1. Simon Azaryin - scribe and writer

1.1 The significance of the hagiographic genre in ancient Russian literature

Hagiographic literature occupies a special place in the spiritual culture of the Russian people, and explains much in the highest achievements of secular forms of Russian culture, marked by exceptional intensity of spiritual quest and aspiration towards the moral ideal of man. At one time, D. Rostovsky wrote this in a book about the saints of Ancient Rus': “In Russian saints we honor not only the heavenly patrons of holy and sinful Russia: in them we look for revelations of our own path. We believe that every nation has its own religious vocation, and, of course, it is more fully realized by its religious geniuses. Here is a path for all, marked by milestones of the heroic asceticism of a few. Their ideal has nourished the life of the people for centuries; all Rus' lit their lamps at their fire.” These words most clearly define the role of saints in the spiritual life of Rus'.

Russian hagiography has hundreds and thousands of lives. This is a huge literature about the best people, enlightened by faith and who chose the life of Christ as a role model, about their feat in life, about their holiness, about the ideal world that they taught and which existed for the compilers of their lives and for their readers and listeners, and , therefore, about the spiritual aspirations of these people themselves. The lives of Russian saints are an encyclopedia of holiness.

The doctrine of holiness demonstrates overcoming the opposition between the material and the spiritual, the created and the uncreated, the mortal and the immortal in the ascetic feat of the saint. Saints are at the same time created beings, like all earthly people, and connected through Grace to the uncreated Divinity. Grace is realized through the penetration of Divine energies into human nature. As a result of this penetration, holiness arises. (The flesh of saints is also permeated with divine energies; they are saved physically, therefore veneration of relics is possible. Images of saints are also permeated with divine energies, hence the veneration of icons of saints). The main category of Orthodox theology is deification. Moreover, this is both a fundamental theological concept and a practical subject, the desired result of all ascetic deeds.

Lives, as the most widespread genre in medieval literature, have long attracted the attention of researchers. Also V.O. Klyuchevsky in the 19th century, in his work “Ancient Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source,” on the one hand, formulated an approach to hagiographic texts as a unique reflection of real events of Russian history, which gave rise to a significant research tradition, and on the other hand, as a result of his research, the outstanding historian came to paradoxical conclusion: there are almost no historical facts in the lives. Lives differ from modern biographies as an icon differs from a portrait. At the same time, the researcher emphasized that the lives of Russian saints provide us with unique information about “the participation of “moral force” in clearing space for the history of the Russian people.” Thus, the task of a different approach to the study of hagiographic texts as texts testifying to the “moral strength” of the Russian people was formulated for the first time.

Literary scholars have spent a lot of time studying the lives of Russian saints. The classic work examining the structure of the hagiographic genre canon is still the study of Chr. Lopareva. A special period in the study of the hagiographic genre is associated with the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House). It was here that the main approaches and principles in the study of the “hagiographical” style of Ancient Rus' were determined. Let us note how in 1974 V.P. Adrianova-Peretz formulated the tasks of studying works of religious literature: “Among the urgent tasks facing literary criticism, the analysis of ways of depicting reality in various genres of religious literature should occupy a very significant place.” An outstanding medievalist, under ideological pressure, wrote: “Our very idea of ​​the outlook of the ancient Russian writer (and reader) will remain one-sided if we do not take into account the ideological and artistic impressions that he received from genres clothed in religious form.” And further agreeing with I.P. Eremin in defining literature itself as the art of “poetry of the ideal transformation of life”, V.P. Adrianova-Peretz notes the need to reflect the “truth of life”, which appears in a schematic depiction of a generalized ideal image, to accumulate observations “on those elements of religious genres that contributed to the growth of literary mastery itself, fostered interest in penetrating into the inner world of a person, in depicting his behavior not only in moments of performing heroic deeds, but also in the conditions of everyday, everyday life.” In this regard, the study of hagiography is of particular importance. V.P. Adianova-Peretz in this article, in a certain sense, summed up what had already been done by that time by the “ancients” and formulated a task for future generations of researchers of ancient Russian literature. Thus, she highlighted the works of I.P. Eremina and D.S. Likhacheva, V.V. Vinogradova.

In the 1949 article “The Kiev Chronicle as a Literary Monument” I.P. Eremin presented the chronicle description of the prince in the hagiographic style of the 12th century: “... a new hagiographically enlightened image of an ideal prince, shining with all possible Christian, even specifically monastic, virtues.” According to the researcher, the author of the chronicle story sought to “eliminate all the features of his (the prince’s) individual character: only freed from everything “temporary,” everything “private” and “accidental,” a person could become the hero of a hagiographic narrative - a generalized embodiment of good or evil, “ villainy" or "holiness". In this, the scientist sees the chronicler’s desire to reduce all the diversity of reality to a certain “abstract ideal,” which was the Christian ideal in Soviet times. But it is important that in these works the hagiographic style was already endowed with an ideal nature, a “norm” was formed here, certain techniques were developed for presenting this norm of life of a devout Christian - “touching sensitivity”, “florid, pathetic phraseology”, panegyricism and lyricism. This hagiographic ideal, according to V.P. Adrianova-Peretz, was transferred to Russian soil in a ready-made form through translated religious and didactic literature, hagiographic images of Byzantine ascetics.

D.S. Likhachev, in his 1958 monograph “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus',” made an attempt to “consider the artistic vision of man in ancient Russian literature and the artistic methods of his depiction.” This emphasis on the artistry of Old Russian literature is not accidental.

We find a clear explanation for this in the article by the editorial board for the anniversary volume of Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Academician D.S. Likhacheva. When the new government “seriously launched an attack on old cultural traditions, on Christianity and other beliefs, and with them on independent science, as if it served as a support for “religious ignorance”, Academician A.S. Orlov pointed out a saving path that gave legal cover to historical and philological research. This was the path of aesthetic criticism." This is how the idea of ​​a method of literary analysis of ancient Russian texts arose, which is widespread to this day in medieval studies.

In those same years, the linguistic features of hagiography, which was based on the Church Slavonic language, were also noted. V.V. Vinogradov wrote:

“This style is entirely based on the system of the Church Slavonic language and at the same time is associated with strictly defined book-Slavonic formulas for depicting the actions and experiences of a person, with church-book techniques for depicting the inner essence of a representative of one or another religious and moral category of a person, his external appearance and everything the way of his behavior. The label - hagiographic - is too general, but mostly appropriate. It is only important to study the variations and variations of this style in the historical movement.” Thus, the path to studying the language of hagiographic works was indicated, but only recent decades have been marked by research interest in the functioning of language in hagiographic texts. Relatively recently, a new approach to the linguistic-anthropological analysis of images of saints was announced. The appearance of such works as the dissertation of V.P. Zavalnikova The linguistic image of a saint in ancient Russian hagiography (Problems of the mutual conditionality of the linguistic and extralinguistic content of a person’s linguistic image in a certain sociocultural situation), in which the goal was to describe the linguistic image of a person based on the material of ancient Russian texts about saints and present it as a cognitive-semantic linguistic-anthropological model taking into account the originality of the content and purpose of hagiographic texts. The main functional concept in the work was the concept of “linguistic axiological dominant” and the following linguistic dominants were identified: “faith in God and fear of him, asceticism, wisdom, spiritual improvement, responsibility before God”, etc. All this is associated with a special “mental- axiological picture of the world”, which appears before the reader and listener in hagiographic texts. This picture of the world is characterized by contrasting value characteristics: earthly - heavenly, sinful - righteous, material - spiritual, true - false, etc., which determines the originality of the description of the life and asceticism of saints in ancient Russian hagiography.

The work of N.S. is of a similar plan. Kovalev “Ancient Russian literary text: problems of studying semantic structure and evolution in the aspect of the category of evaluation”, where the author proves the “conjugation of ethical norms and evaluation” in the creation of canonical texts of Old Russian literature, hence it is axiological concepts that come to the fore in the process of text formation in the literature of Ancient Rus' . For the ancient Russian scribe there was a system of normative book texts (the Holy Scripture and the writings of the church fathers), which were a model and which were based on the universal concepts of “good” - “evil”. All subsequent texts of the Christian verbal tradition were modeled on the same principle; they had a “given meaning” and had a certain set of concepts. And the researcher’s task is to find a way to adequately determine the conceptualization of reality, for example, in such works of ancient Russian literature as hagiographies. There is no doubt that, coming from the Byzantine tradition, the authors of such texts affirmed the idea of ​​​​the “perfection of God” and the “imperfection of man.” God was identified with the concepts of Good, Love, Word, Reason, Truth, etc. God was opposed by the Devil, with whom the concept of Evil, dark forces, opposition to God, etc. is associated. The author of the text emphasizes his imperfection in comparison with the perfection of the holy ascetic, who also embodies Truth, Will, Reason, Perfection. It is these parameters that are the meaning-forming factors of the texts of Christian literature. The recipient of the life must follow the precepts of the Gospel and, through faith, strive for spiritual perfection as the only means of saving a living soul. The Old Russian text, in our case the life of a saint, has a number of settings that bring it closer to normative book texts, but at the same time it also contains elements of a communicative situation, that is, it is aimed at solving the problems of educating society in a certain culture. That is, the author of the life must embody the Truth, through a series of clear evidence presented in sample tests, which are supporting in modeling the given meaning, and in the facts of the reality of life itself, which can be interpreted accordingly. It is the concepts of practical reason that make it possible for new texts to appear. In the Old Russian text, including the Lives, there are the most important blocks of meaning, in which, first of all, the main ideas of Christian teaching are formulated. This is the title, this is the beginning, these are generalizations and conclusions of the main part, this is the ending. These new linguistic approaches allow us to understand in a new way the structure of hagiographic texts, as texts of a different verbal culture, dating back to the Christian tradition.

Nevertheless, even today the view of life as a historical source is preserved. As V. Lepakhin rightly writes about this, lives are studied to collect historical, everyday data on the “history of colonization” of certain Russian territories, for example, the Russian North or Siberia, to obtain biographical information about the life of a saint, reverend or noble prince, to “reconstruct the medieval worldview." Lives are also studied from a historical and literary perspective. “At the same time, those fragments of the hagiographic text that run counter to the hagiographic canon are thoroughly studied, which allows us to interpret the hagiography as the forerunner of an everyday story and even a novel, that is, they see in hagiographies what leads to modern literature or what is acceptable from the standpoint of modern aesthetics, even if this “aesthetic” destroys hagiography as a genre.” Lives as “literary monuments” serve as material for the development of Old Russian aesthetics and poetics of Old Russian literature, but this is often done without taking into account the deep connection of this literature with Christian culture. Literary scholars consider either textual problems of the history of the text, or the plot, composition and principles of creating the image of a saint, or the topoi of hagiographic texts, which is clearly not enough to understand a work of church literature.

From the point of view of Christianity, lives “as literature of salvation” are designed to spiritually transform a person, and such texts clearly require different tools for analysis. This is where the efforts of historical poetics should be directed. Indeed, historical poetics today not only explores the genesis of certain techniques and principles of verbal creativity, but also “deciphers” the works of other eras and not only artistic, but also religious, scientific, etc., that is, it raises the question of a certain cultural code that should be known a researcher who deals with the cultural interpretation of a work from another cultural era.

It is generally accepted that medieval literature is canonical literature. A canon (Greek rule, pattern) in a literary text presupposes the presence of a certain structure for the organization of the narrative. The hagiographic genre canon at one time determined Chr. Loparev based on an analysis of the texts of the lives of Byzantine saints. He notes that already in the 10th century, a strict scheme of life was developed in Byzantine hagiography, which was largely determined by the “model”, namely the biographies of famous men of ancient Greece, written by Xenophon, Tacitus, Plutarch and others. “As a monument of literature, such a biography always consists of three main parts - a preface, a main part and a conclusion.” Further, the researcher identifies other mandatory features of the genre canon. The title of the life, which indicates the month and day of memory of the saint, his name, indicating the type of holiness. In the rhetorical introduction, the author-hagiographer always humiliates himself before the saint, justifying his audacity by the need to write the life of the saint “for the sake of memory.” The main part of the description of the saint’s earthly path also contains obligatory elements: a mention of pious parents, the place of birth of the saint, a story about his teaching, that from childhood the saint avoided games and shows, but visited the temple and prayed fervently. Then a description of the ascetic path to God, a story about death and posthumous miracles. The conclusion contains praise for the saint. Strict adherence to the hagiographic genre canon is due to the church and service purpose of these texts. “The life of the saint itself was part of the divine service on the day of his memory, being necessarily read in church on the 6th canon of the canon after kontakion and ikos, and therefore itself was usually tuned to the sublime laudatory tone of church songs and readings, which required from him not so much living specific features in describing the personality and activity of a saint, how many typical, abstract features are there to make this glorified personality a pure personification of an also abstract ideal.”

Thus, it is obvious that the hagiographic text was modeled according to a certain pattern, which corresponded to the ascetic feat of the saint.

The concept of achievement in Christian asceticism is quite complex. This is both a process of activity and a certain attitude of human consciousness, which gives rise to ascetic feat. Man is directed towards God, for the sake of this he overcomes nature. The initial elements of his attitude: Salvation, Prayer, Love help him in this. So, the goal of the ascetic feat is deification, the transformation of the earthly, sinful nature of man into the divine. “Anyone who actually goes through the path of the Ascetic achievement is, by definition, an ascetic. This path involves the rejection of the “worldly elements”, the usual and generally accepted way of life, rules, goals and values, the entire way of thinking and the structure of consciousness. The path of an ascetic, even if he is not a monk, is still an exception, something radically different from the path of everyone.”

Today, following the fathers of the church, Christian anthropology sees in man a continuous, dynamic unity, a multi-level hierarchical system with many connections and connections between levels. All this must be subordinated to a single knowledge, a single goal. This subordination occurs through self-organization, because in man himself there is an organizing and controlling principle, which leads through deification to union with God. “Deification is a true union of two horizons of being, which is realized only in energy, and not in essence and not in hypostasis.” In general, the entire path of the Feat is deification. P. Florensky defines deified being as a “ray-like” being, having a beginning but no end. Holiness for ascetics and ascetics is good completion, the fulfillment of the main desire, the salvation of the soul for eternal life. Thus, the achievement of holiness is the fulfillment of human destiny in its highest calling. Holiness certifies the completeness and completion of the earthly destiny of the ascetic and his union with God. In general, according to Christian teaching, the entire created world awaits Transfiguration and Salvation.

The task of philological analysis of such texts is to isolate in this material the experience described in the appropriate language, and the genre canon, which facilitates the perception of the most complex meanings of hagiographic and ascetic works.

1.2 Characteristics of the life and work of Simon Azaryin

First of all, you need to dwell on biographical information, which can mainly be extracted from the monastery's Inset Book. The chapters of the book “Trinity Cellars” and “Trinity Sergius Monastery Brothers” contain well-known data about the contribution on March 1, 1624 to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery by the servant of Princess Elder Irina Ivanovna Mstislavskaya Savva Leontyev’s son Azaryin, nicknamed Bulat, 50 rubles and about his tonsure for his contribution to the monastery under the monastic name Simon (fol. 146 vol., 266 vol.). However, the records of the monastery's Load Book reveal even more significant biographical information about Simon Azaryin. Who did Savva Leontyevich Azaryin serve? The Mstislavsky princes were descendants of Gediminas, who left for Moscow in 1526 and received the Yukht volost, the former inheritance of the Yaroslavl princes Yukhotsky, as their patrimony and inheritance. The Princes of Mstislav were closely associated with the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, their contributions to the monastery were received in the 16th and 17th centuries, the first contribution was recorded in 1551. The contributions of the Elder Princess Irina Ivanovna were recorded in 1605, 1607, 1624, 1635. In 1605, she gave a contribution to Tsarina Princess Alexandra, apparently to Tsarina Irina, the wife of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, a nun of the Novodevichy Convent. It can be assumed that Irina Ivanovna Mstislavskaya was a nun of the same monastery. In 1641, Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky made a contribution to the princess herself (fol. 476 volume-479)18.

The insert book contains a list of contributions of the Azaryin family, recorded in the chapter “People of the Sovereign's Court of High Ranks” under 1640-1642. They reveal the sovereign's groom Ivan Leontyev's son Azaryin, the servant of the boyar Ivan Nikitich Romanov Mikhailo Leontyev's son Azaryin, Mikhaila's wife Stepanida, who took monastic vows at the Khotkovo monastery under the name of Solomonia, as well as the sovereign's grooms Katlaman and Yumran Olferyev, the latter is called the brother of Simon Azaryin (l . 371-372 vol.). Among the contributions of Ivan and Stepanida Azaryin, according to Mikhail Azaryin, the Altar Gospel is written down. Two inset entries on it are noteworthy:

) “Remember, Lord, monk Hilarion, Mavra, Mikhail, Lukyan. According to them, this Gospel was given as a contribution to the middle church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, to the border of Ivan the Baptist" (reverse of the top cover of the binding),

) “This book, the verb Gospel, was given to the house of the life-giving Trinity and the great miracle workers Sergius and Nikon according to Mikhail Leontyev’s son Azaryin on the 148th year of March on the 25th day” (on fol. 1-21). It appears that both of these records are related. And doesn’t the first entry name the names of Simon Azaryin’s parents and brothers?

So, the service family of the Azaryins emerges clearly. Their service in the most noble princely and boyar families and at the tsar's court undoubtedly provided influential patronage. Doesn't this explain quite

the rapid advancement of Simon Azaryin up the career ladder: he was tonsured in 1624, and in 1634 he was already the treasurer of the largest monastery.

The information in the monastery's deposit book gives grounds for another assumption. It is known that Simon Azaryin fell into disgrace and in February 1655 was sent to the Kirillov Monastery to sow flour in the monastery bread. The reasons for the persecution of him have been studied quite deeply. But when could Simon Azaryin return to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery? Most likely it was 1657. It was from June of this year to November 1658, after a long break, that a number of large and valuable contributions by Simon Azaryin to the Trinity-Sergius, Khotkovsky and Makhrishchi monasteries followed (l. 147-148).

The deposit book of the monastery of 1639 and the inventory of 1641 were compiled during the period of the treasury of Simon Azaryin, and in them one can find the most complete and specific data on his activities.

The inventory of 1641 was the result of an audit of the monastery by the “sovereign” commission, headed by the okolnichy Fyodor Vasilyevich Volynsky. It gives a description of all the property of the monastery in the sequence of its management by individual monastic services and contains enormous factual material on the organization of the monastic economy. The audit of the monastery was a major government event, the result of which was not only an inventory, but also copy books of the monastery with copies of public legal acts and charters for the monastery's possessions, received from private individuals. Copy books are sealed by the clerks of the Volynsky commission. The activities of the commission were reflected in Simon Azaryin’s story “On the Newly Revealed Miracles of Sergius of Radonezh”; the 24th miracle “About the okolnik, who did not straighten his heart towards the wonderworker Sergius, came to count the monastery”, is dedicated to it. And just as in a miracle the okolnichy Volynsky came from non-recognition of the monastic authorities and pride to repentance and humility, so, apparently, in reality a compromise was reached and the monastic authorities were able to express their attitude towards the policy of the tsarist government aimed at limiting monastic land ownership. In the copy book of public legal acts, which retained in its composition the copy book of the monastery of 1614-1615, compiled under Archimandrite Dionysius, a preface from it was placed, which contains the text of part I of the 75th chapter of Stoglav of 1551, motivating the inalienability of rights churches for land ownership. The same chapter is included in the preface of the monastery's Contribution Book of 1639 - a document that contains information about the monastery's wealth, confirming and defending the monastery's rights to these wealth. Such was the position of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and such were the socio-political views of Simon Azaryin, who belonged to the monastic authorities and was the third person in the monastery after the abbot and cellarer.

There is no doubt that, along with traditionalism, the understanding of the tasks of recruitment by the person who headed the monastic treasury was of no small importance in its solution. Simon Azaryin’s aesthetic positions can be traced through specific material in the inventory. Under him, the Trinity Cathedral and the sacristy were systematically replenished with new utensils.

In the inventory of the treasury we find the following entries about things received under Simon Azaryin: about the icon “Appearance of Our Lady Sergius” - “...according to the tale of the treasurer Simon, it is overlaid with government gold” (fol. 335 vol.), about the reliquary cross of Alexander Bulatnikov - “...that cross was made by the former cellarer Elder Alexander in his gold, and stone and pearls from the monastery treasury” (fol. 334), “the goblet of chased silver is gilded, with a roof, on the roof there is a man with a shield, on the roof and on the belly of the larva, winged, ... purchased from the monastery treasury" (l. 350 vol.), "Indian walnut cup... the dacha of the cellarer of Elder Alexander, and silver and gold from the monastery treasury" (l. 351), "grip on worm-shaped damask embroidered with gold and silver, with the image of the Most Pure Mother of God of the Annunciation sewn on them, purchased from the monastery treasury” (fol. 356). No less interesting is information about items removed from the treasury during these years. Thus, the cup was “put in silver” for the frame of Nikon’s shrine, the yacht of Alexander Bulatnikov’s dacha was given “into the vestment that was remade by Eldress Dominica Volkova” (fol. 463 vol.), pearls and gold from the treasury were “used” for making frames and crosses .

The deposit book of the monastery complements the inventory data; it records the contributions of Simon Azaryin 1649, 1650 and mainly 1657 and 1658. in the Trinity-Sergiev, Khotkovsky and Makhrishchi monasteries (fol. 147-148). These are highly artistic values; when creating or acquiring them, the knowledge of Russian art and the attitude of the investor himself undoubtedly affected it. Among them: a silver cup, embossed with herbs, with a roof; a jasper goblet in a silver frame with a chased roof and stand, foreign work, with the inscription on the goblet: “The cellarer, Elder Simon, contributed to the house the life-giving Trinity and the great miracle worker Sergius and Nikon”; icon “Sergius of Radonezh in action” in a silver frame, gold crosses, icons in precious frames.

So, the artistic interests and activities of Simon Azaryin, aimed at increasing and preserving the monastery’s collection of artistic values, are clearly visible. They are perceived as a continuation of the activities of Archimandrite Dionysius of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, whose image Simon Azaryin created in his Life of Archimandrite Dionysius of Radonezh. It is Dionysius who gathers skilled craftsmen, icon painters, book writers, silver cutters, and Swedish workers in the monastery, and takes care of creating new and updating old works of art. The image of Dionysius is an ideal and role model for Simon Azaryin.

The inventories and loose books of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery are sources of primary importance for studying the issues of the formation and composition of the library of Simon Azaryin. They significantly add to the information known from recent research.

The data from the Inset Book convincingly indicate that book interest was inherent in the entire Azaryin family. In the already mentioned contributions of the Azaryins to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, 17 printed and 8 handwritten books were recorded, deposited on March 25, 1640 by Ivan and Stepanida Azaryin for their brother and husband Mikhail Azaryin (l. 371-372). It is likely that Simon Azaryin also had books by the time he was tonsured into the monastery. Simon Azaryin’s activities as treasurer gave him a huge book fund at his disposal. This is evidenced by the materials of the inventory of 1641. Basically, all book receipts to the monastery passed through the treasury: purchased, donated, left “after the brethren.” From the treasury they went to the monastery church, the sacristy, and the book depository; most of the proceeds remained in the treasury and were intended for sale or distribution to assigned monasteries and parish churches. To confirm these provisions, we provide inventory data. In 1634, when Simon Azaryin took office as treasurer, he accepted 47 books; by 1641, another 269 handwritten and printed books had entered the treasury (fol. 335 vol. - 344) and 183 had left (fol. 460-462 vol.). It is noteworthy that over a slightly longer period, the monastery’s book depository received only 105 books (fol. 307-311). Among the almost 500 books that passed through the treasury, there were 55 books from the library of the Archimandrite Dionysius Monastery (38 in stock and 19 sold, but 2 of them are listed in both groups), 36 books left “after the brethren”, loose-leaf books by Trinity servant Alexei Tikhanov. It should be noted that the composition of the treasury books is very diverse in content, with a fairly large number of secular books.

So, Simon Azaryin was in charge and at his disposal of a huge book collection, left in the treasury for sale and distribution; there is no doubt that it was one of the sources for completing his personal library.

The books of Simon Azaryin can be divided into two groups: those he put into the monastery and those taken into the monastery after his death.

From the Contribution Book of the monastery, two books are known that arrived at the monastery as contributions from the former cellarer, Elder Simon Azaryin in 1658:

“The Psalter with hymns and with selected psalms, printed on large paper, in the Psalter and in songs in the fields opposite the speeches it is marked in the lyceum... and the book of Services and the lives of the miracle workers Sergius and Nikon on large paper, printed, in the same book new miracles are attributed book writing, from the beginning of this book in small and large services in stichera on three sheets in the margins opposite the speeches, it was written in the lyceum” (fol. 148). The Psalter has survived to this day; it has two loose entries:

) “In the summer of 7167, this book of Psalms was given as a contribution to the house of the life-giving Trinity by the former cellarer, Elder Simon Azaryin” (on the back of the upper cover of the binding);

) “In the summer of 7167, Elder Simon Azaryin gave this book of Psalms as a contribution to the house of the life-giving Trinity and the Trinity and Sergius Monastery of the former cellarer for himself and for his parents as an inheritance of eternal blessings and a future for the sake of peace” (according to the sheets).

The inventory of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery of 1701 attributes to the contribution of Simon Azaryin 6 more printed books, allegedly deposited by him in 1640 (item 27, sheets 265-265 vol.). This entry is an obvious error, which is easily clarified when comparing it with the Lobby Book of the monastery (fol. 371-372) and the inventory of the bookkeeper of 1641 (fol. 308 vol.). At the same time, it is established that Simon Azaryin is responsible for part of the books deposited in 1640 by Ivan and Stepanida Azaryin according to Mikhail Azaryin. This mistake was made all the more easily since the deposit entries on the books given for Mikhail Azaryin do not mention the names of the depositors. The inventory of 1701 also names the psalter with the restoration as the contribution of Simon Azaryin; it is also recorded among the newly arrived books of the inventory of the bookkeeper of 1641, but without any indication of the names. The data from the 1701 inventory seem doubtful. Consequently, it is unmistakable to speak of only two lifetime contributions of books by Simon Azaryin to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.

The books taken to the monastery after the death of Simon Azaryin can be judged from the materials of the inventory of 1701. In it, in the inventory of the book guardian (item 27, l. 238-287) there is a list of books left after the death of Simon Azaryin (l. 272 vol.-276 vol.). The list is preceded by the title: “Yes, the deposit books that were left behind by the former cellarer, Elder Simon Azaryin. And the characters are written between the chapters.” The list contains the most complete information about the cell library of Simon Azaryin. The following path of its movement seems to be: in 1665, after the death of the owner, it entered the treasury, and in 1674-1676. together with other books of the treasury - to the book guardian of the monastery.

The list includes 97 books recorded in 95 chapters (a chapter is a description article, two chapters contain two books each, the rest - one each), including 67 handwritten, 26 printed and 4 that are not clearly defined.

Part of Simon Azaryin's library has survived to this day. Taking it as a basis and comparing it with the description of 1701, we can establish the general characteristics of books from the library of Simon Azaryin.

All of them have insert notes of the same content: “In the summer of 7173 this book was given to the house of the life-giving Trinity in the Sergius Monastery (the title is not on all books - E.K.) cellarer Elder Simon Azaryin is forever inseparable to anyone”; the entries are located on the lower margin of the sheets, written across the sheet, in cursive and, apparently, are the autograph of Simon Azaryin. (Their presence allows us to give the following interpretation to the title of the list of books in the inventory of 1701: the books are loose-leaf, but at the same time they remained “after Simon Azaryin”; doesn’t this wording mean that the library was prepared for the deposit, but the owner did not transfer it to the monastery succeeded, and the books entered the treasury as escheat property).

The title of the list of books in the inventory of 1701 indicates that the books of Simon Azaryin were “written by individuals between the chapters,” i.e. they were not included in the general ordinal count and had their own numbering. And indeed, on the reverse side of the upper cover of the binding there are chapter numbers written in letters corresponding to the order in which Simon Azaryin’s books were recorded in the inventory of 1701. It is most likely that the books were numbered when they entered the monastery treasury in the 60s. XVII century The same group of books by Simon Azaryin is also identified in the inventory of the bookkeeper of the monastery in 1723 (the closest to the inventory of 1701 that has survived to this day), in it they are recorded in the same sequence behind chapters 769-856, these chapter numbers are also marked on the books Simon Azaryin on the back of the top cover of the binding or on the first endpaper.

The inventory of 1701 also indicates a number of other mandatory elements for describing the books of Simon Azaryin: content, method of creation (handwritten or printed), format, language.

All of the above-mentioned features make it possible to accurately link the books of Simon Azaryin, which have survived to our time, to the inventory of 1701 and note the following significant points.

By 1701, at least 4 books with the following registration numbers of the 60s had left Simon Azaryin's library. XVII century: one of 2 - 21st or 22nd, one of 5 - 37th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, one of 10 - 72nd, 73rd, 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st, one of 9 - 89th, 90th, 91st, 92nd, 93rd, 94th, 95th, 96th, 97th.

Monastery records from the 60s. XVII century and 1723 are missing from 9 currently existing manuscripts that have lost their original bindings and protective leaves. All of them are compared with the inventory of 1701 according to other characteristics noted above.

Special mention must be made of two manuscripts.

One of them is a well-known collection, which includes “The Tale of the Ruin of the Moscow State and All Russian Lands...”, an extract from the work of the Polish historian Alexander Guagnini, etc. (GBL, f. 173, no. 201). The collection was re-bound in the 18th century, its leaves were trimmed, so that there is no loose-leaf entry or numbers of the 17th century on it. and 1723. However, a comparison of the contents of the collection with the description articles of 1701 and 1723. speaks of its indisputable belonging to the library of Simon Azaryin. (Contents of the collection for the first three works: List of abbots of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Tale of the Cross Monastery, Tale of the Ruin of the Moscow State and all Russian Lands, in 4°; article description 1701: “Book of the Cathedral, at the beginning by the sedate abbot of the Trinity Sergius monastery", the alleged chapter of the 60s of the 17th century -47; article of description 1723: "The book of the Sobornik written, at midday, at the beginning of the sedate abbot of the Trinity Sergius Monastery, and about the Kresny Monastery, and the Tale of the ruin of the Moscow State and all Russian lands”, chapter 810).

The second manuscript is Saints, at 8° (GPB, 0.1.52; from the library of F.A. Tolstoy); it was also apparently re-bound in the 18th century. and at the same time lost the monastery registration numbers of the 17th century. and 1723, but retained Simon Azaryin’s contribution note. However, in the list of books of 1701 there are no calendars corresponding to the present ones in content or size. There is no doubt that they belong to the library of Simon Azaryin, so the following two assumptions are possible: the indicated Saints may be one of the 4 manuscripts that were removed from the library of Simon Azaryin by 1701, or they are named among the 7 books recorded after the list books left after Simon Azaryin, and in this case they were all part of his library. There is also a second entry on the Saints, an owner’s note, indicating that they belonged before or after Simon Azaryin to Ivan Alekseevich Vorotynsky (died in 1679, and his contribution to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in 1670 is listed in the Contribution Book of the monastery).

A comparison of existing manuscripts with descriptive articles of 1701 allows us to accurately define the Book on the structure of the military and on any green gunpowder regulations and cannonballs on horseback (the alleged chapter of the 60s of the 17th century - 44, chapter 1723 - 807) as “Military charter of Tsar Vasily Ioannovich Shuisky of 1607" (Kazan, Scientific Library named after N.I. Lobachevsky, No. 4550; the indicated numbers are affixed to the manuscript and there is an insert entry by Simon Azaryin in the established form).

And about one more manuscript - the Book of Hours (RSL, f. 304, No. 354). It is not on the list of books left by Simon Azaryin, but it undoubtedly belonged to him. There are two owner's notes on it: “This book is the Book of the Life-Giving Trinity of the Sergius Monastery of the cellarer of the Elder Simon Azarin” and “The Book of the Life-Giving Trinity of the Sergius Monastery of the cellarer of the Elder Simon Ozarin.” The cursive handwriting of the first entry is close to the handwriting of Simon Azaryin's loose-leaf notes.

So, we can talk about the cell library of Simon Azaryin, which included at least 102 or even 109 books. The library is relatively well preserved; 51 books from it are currently known.

The thematic composition of Simon Azaryin's library is very diverse: historical and literary works, a large number of educational books, anti-heretical works, liturgical books, books in Greek, Polish and German. The selection of library books to a certain extent reveals the personality of Simon Azaryin himself.

The chronicler “with many exquisite notes” (chapter 10), apparently, could reveal the writer’s unique creative laboratory, his desire to study and comprehend Russian history, the same is evidenced by the presence of Cosmography in the library (chapter 94 or 95), the book “History of Hellenic Writers” (chapter 66), the works of Alexander Guagnini (chapter 47), George Pisis (chapter 37 or 38).

The library contained one Psalter in Russian, Greek and Polish, another in Russian and Greek (chap. 1.11), Canon, Book of Hours, Octoechos and liturgy in Greek (chap. 52, 72, or 73, 76, or 77, 75, or 76), “Stone” and “Cosmography” in Polish (chapters 20, 94 or 95), Lexicons in German and Polish, Polish ABC (chapters 95 or 96, 92 or 93). Probably, Simon Azaryin both knew and studied Greek, Polish and, possibly, German. The presence of Russian grammars, alphabets, and lexicons in the library (chapters 34, 35, 67, 68, 86) characterizes him as a person who is constantly improving his knowledge of the Russian language. Of exceptional interest is also the presence in the library of Simon Azaryin of a collection of linguistic nature, which includes one of the lists of “The Interpretation of the Polovtsian Language” (chapter 49).

The library presents a large group of anti-heretical works directed against Catholicism, Lutheranism, Uniateism, the teachings of Theodosius Kosy and Russian heresy - independent manuscripts and as part of collections. Among them are “A Brief Tale of the Latins, How They Apostasized from the Orthodox Patriarchs and were expelled from the Primacy of the Saint” (chap. 90 or 91), The Tale of the Council of Florence in 1439, which adopted a union on the unification of the Eastern and Western churches, and the deposition of Metropolitan Isidore, signatory of the union (chapter 90 or 91, 80 or 81), script protest of a group of Orthodox members of the Berestia Council against the adoption of the union of 1596 (chapter 36), works by Konstantin Ostrozhsky, a fighter against the union (chapter 71), works of a Uniate preacher Cassian and the Catechism of Simon Budny, a supporter of the Reformation of Martin Luther, with “accusatory words” on their heresy (chap. 51), Ivan Nasedka’s treatise against Protestantism (chap. 26, 37 or 38), the works of Joseph Volotsky and Zinovy ​​​​of Otensky (chap. 8 , 23). Purposeful selection of anti-heretical works and systematic replenishment of the library with works and translations of the 17th century. they talk about the great importance Simon Azaryin attaches to the polemical struggle with various kinds of religious concepts and his deep knowledge of this issue.

From the library of Simon Azaryin one can judge the strengthening of cultural ties with Ukraine and Lithuania; it is actively replenished with publications or handwritten books from Kyiv, Vilnius, and Lvov. Indicative in this light is the fact that the Patericon of the Kiev-Pechersk edition of Joseph Trizna is in the library of Simon Azaryin; the article describing it in the inventory of 1701 emphasizes that it was “newly exported from Kyiv” (chapter 5). Simon Azaryin, apparently, organized the translation and rewriting of books received from the West. So, in his library there was the Mirror of Theology of Cyril Tranquillion, printed in Pochaev, and the “Mirror of the World... and another Mirror of blessing, copied from printed Lithuanian ones” (chap. 60, 27), “Stone” in Polish and the same handwritten in Russian (chapter 20, 4).

The library also contains Simon Azaryin’s own works, although the absence of the Life of Dionysius in it is puzzling. Was it one of the 4 manuscripts that had left the library by 1701? However, it should be noted that among the known lists there is no Life of Simon Azaryin that belonged to the library.

In general, Simon Azaryin’s library was collected by the owner in a purely purposeful manner and meets his literary interests and needs as a spiritual figure and major figure in the Orthodox Church.

So, the study of office documents of the 17th - early 18th centuries made it possible to more deeply reveal the life and work of Simon Azaryin, a remarkable personality of his time, to raise the question of the successive dependence of his basic socio-political and aesthetic views on the Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Dionysius Zobninovsky and, finally, , to establish the most complete composition of Simon Azaryin’s personal library.

Old Russian spiritual Azaryin of Radonezh

Chapter 2. Literary analysis of “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by Simon Azaryin

The task of a truly philological analysis is to be able to distinguish in this material a true layer of experience (database), a layer of language or an authentic transmission of internal reality and a layer of poetics, that is, stable elements of the genre.

The hesychast experience, starting from the 4th century, is described in the works of Macarius of Egypt, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas from the 14th century. The Russian revival of hesychasm began in the 18th century. These are the works of Paisius Velichkovsky, Seraphim of Sarov, Tikhon of Zadonsk and others. In our time, these are the works of Sophrony of Athos. But this is ascetic literature with an appropriate style and genre system. As for hagiographies, despite its closeness to the ascetic tradition (the hagiography text is also designed to have a life impact, to establish a living connection between the reader and the hero of the text), this is a different genre. And if an ascetic story is a living, personal story about the experience gained, the author and the hero are one person and the ascetic reader enters into dialogue with him, then in the lives of the hagiographer the author shows the reader a completed example, the figure of a saint, who by the time of the story is already deceased and separated from the reader three times: by holiness, by his death, by the mediation of the author of the life. Nevertheless, the holy ascetic contains the same ascetic experience, but does not convey it himself, but indirectly, through a hagiographer, although in the lives there are fragments of text from the “first person”, in which the mystical experience of the ascetic is directly recorded.

One of the most interesting monuments of Russian hagiography, the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, is dedicated to the outstanding socio-political figure of Rus' in the second half of the 14th century and the great Russian saint, founder and abbot of the Trinity Monastery near Moscow (later the Trinity-Sergius Lavra).

There is quite a large research literature on the Life of Sergius of Radonezh. At one time, the foreign works about him by B. Zaitsev and G. Fedotov became a discovery. A striking example of the modern reading of this text is the section in the study by V.N. Toporova

"Holiness and saints in Russian spiritual culture." In Chapter 10 “Some Results” V.N. Toporov emphasizes that his theme is saints and holiness. “Sergius of Radonezh interests us here precisely as the bearer of that special spiritual power called holiness,” he writes. But this power can only manifest itself in a person’s earthly life. Therefore, the researcher considers, first of all, such topics as Sergius and the church, Sergius and the state, Sergius and worldly power, Sergius and Russian history. It is in these “projective spaces” that holiness finds itself, albeit on a limited scale. Among Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh occupies a special place. In the thousand-year history of Christian holiness in Rus', this place is central. The Church defined the Sergius type of holiness as reverence. The venerables included saints whose feat consisted of monastic asceticism, asceticism, which presupposed the renunciation of worldly attachments and aspirations, and the following of Christ, to whom this type of holiness was foreshadowed in the words addressed to the Apostle Peter - “And everyone who leaves houses or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land for my name’s sake, he will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). Receiving a new birth for life in Christ during tonsure, a monk with his holy life reveals, reveals the likeness of God and becomes a venerable saint of God. Such a definition of the type of Sergius’s holiness testifies to a deeply correct conscious choice (we must remember that for almost a century the Church in Rus' did not know any saints for this purpose) and sensitive intuition. At this time, only princes and less often saints became saints, “the category of saints from the episcopal rank, revered by the church as heads of church communities, who, with their holy lives and righteous shepherding, carried out God’s providence for the Church in its movement towards the Kingdom of Heaven.

Sergius of Radonezh was undoubtedly the most prominent figure of the 14th century in Rus'. Moreover, the 14th century is the century of Sergius, “coming to one’s senses after a long darkening, this is the beginning of a new desert-dwelling asceticism... this is a breakthrough of spiritual life in Rus' to a new height.” The new asceticism, which we see from the second quarter of the 14th century, differs in significant ways from the Russian asceticism of an older period. This is the asceticism of the desert dwellers. All the monasteries of Kievan Rus known to us were urban or suburban. Most of them survived the Batu pogrom or were later restored (Kievo-Pechersk Monastery). But the cessation of holiness indicates their inner decline. City monasteries continued to be built during Mongol times (for example, in Moscow). But most of the saints of this era leave the cities for the forest desert. What were the motives for the new direction of the monastic path, we can only guess. On the one hand, the difficult and troubled life of the cities, still ravaged from time to time by Tatar invasions, on the other, the very decline of the city monasteries could push (p. 141) zealots to search for new paths. But, having taken upon themselves the most difficult feat, and, moreover, necessarily associated with contemplative prayer, they raise spiritual life to a new height, not yet reached in Rus'.

The founder of the new monastic path, St. Sergius does not change the basic type of Russian monasticism, as it developed in Kyiv in the 11th century.

This monument of hagiography is dedicated to the famous church and socio-political figure of Rus', the creator and abbot of the Trinity Monastery near Moscow (later the Trinity-Sergius Lavra). He supported the policy of centralization of the Moscow princes, was an associate of Prince Dmitry Donskoy in his preparation for the battle on the Kulikovo field in 1380, was associated with the circle of figures of Metropolitan Alexei and the Patriarch of Constantinople Philotheus, etc., and in spiritual practice he was a hesychast.

The oldest edition of the Life of Sergius was created by Sergius's contemporary Epiphanius the Wise 26 years after the death of the saint, that is, in 1417-1418. Epiphanius wrote the text based on documentary data he collected over 20 years, his memories and eyewitness accounts. In addition, he was well aware of patristic literature, Byzantine and Russian hagiographic works, such as the Life of Anthony the Great, Nicholas of Myra, etc. According to researchers, the Epiphanian edition of the Life of Sergius ended with a description of the death of Sergius. N.F. Droblenkova, the author of a dictionary entry on this monument, notes that this is a valuable historical source, but at the same time it must be used with caution, because the text “organically merges historical and legendary information.” The oldest Epiphanius edition has not survived in its entirety; in the second half of the 15th century it was revised by another outstanding scribe of the era, Pachomius Logothetes (Serb). He probably carried out an official task in connection with the discovery of the relics of Sergius and the canonization of the saint to adapt the Life to the church service. Pachomius created the service to Sergius, the Canon with an akathist and the Eulogy. The literary history of different editions of the Life of Sergius of Radonezh is very complex and has not yet been fully studied. For analysis, we will use the authoritative edition of Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus', which reproduces the edition of Archimandrite Leonid on the Trinity Lists of the 16th century (RSL, f. 304, collection of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, No. 698, No. 663), in which the text of Epiphanius has been largely preserved.

The oldest Epiphanius edition (although it has not reached us in its original form) has repeatedly attracted the research attention of historians, art critics, and literary critics, but above all as a valuable historical source. As a result of textual criticism, medievalists mainly present the history of the text, the appearance of certain editions of the monument, the number of copies, the composition of collections, etc., although the literary history of the work is complex and contradictory.

In general, the period of the late XIV - early XV centuries, called the period of the second South Slavic influence, is characterized by a special spiritual upsurge, which is associated with the spread of hesychasm in Rus'. The main ideas of hesychast teaching were unceasing prayer, silence and deification. S.V. Avlasovich conducted a comparative analysis of Byzantine and Russian hesychast lives and came to the conclusion that, along with traditional features, Russian lives of this period have a number of unique features. This concerns, first of all, the work of Epiphanius the Wise and especially his “Life of the Venerable and God-bearing Father Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh.” Thus, Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian hagiography of this time are full of indications of the practice of hesychasm. They contain teachings on unceasing prayer, guidelines for those who want to learn the Jesus Prayer. As an example, the researcher names the lives of Savva the Serbian, Gregory the Sinaite, Gregory Palamas, John of Rylsky and others. Epiphanius the Wise, on the contrary, does not use the word hesychasm even once, although, as is known, he visited Mount Athos and, knowing the Greek language well, undoubtedly , read theological and ascetic hesychast works. Nevertheless, Epiphanius repeatedly mentions the unceasing prayer of Sergius: “and constant prayer, always offered to God...”, “unceasing prayers, standing not far away...”, “when the blessed one in his hut holds his all-night vigil, he prays alone without ceasing.” Moreover, Epiphanius likens the text of his life to prayer.

The life of Sergius of Radonezh begins with almost the same words with which the church service begins. “Glory to the Holy, and Consubstantial, and Life-Giving, and Indivisible Trinity always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Wed. The first words of the Life of Sergius: “Glory to God for everyone’s sake, for the sake of them the great and Trisagion Name is always glorified, which is ever glorified! Glory to the Most High God, Who is glorified in the Trinity, Who is our hope and our life, in Him we believe and are baptized, in Him we live and move!..”

Obviously, this is a kind of interpretation of a priestly exclamation. The result is a “reverent intonation.” Thus, Epiphanius, as a true hesychast, himself had to pray when writing the text of the Life and prayed, judging by the initial words, and thereby forced the reader of the Life to pray.

In addition, the beginning of the text represents the glorification of God in the tradition of the "weaving words" style. “Glory to God for everyone’s sake, for the sake of them the great and thrice-holy name is always glorified, which is ever glorified! Glory to God on High, who is glorified in the Trinity. Glory to him who showed us the life of a holy husband and spiritual elder! The message is that the Lord glorifies him, glorifies him and blesses him, and his saints always glorify him, glorifying him with a pure and godly and virtuous life” (p. 256). It is the word “glory” that becomes the main one, the attention of the reader and listener is fixed on this word, which is repeated several times, creating a special emotional mood. The following phrase represents thanksgiving to God. “We thank God for the great goodness he has given us, such is the holy elder, I say the lord of the Venerable Sergius in our land of Russia...” (p. 256)

The main feature of the hesychast text in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh Epiphanius the Wise is the motif of light or divine fire, which is directly related to the hesychast idea of ​​communion with God and deification. Indeed, in the Epiphanian text we find numerous examples of detailed descriptions of divine insights, which corresponded to the theological question about the nature of the uncreated, Favorian light. (For example, not only the vision of birds, the vision of the Mother of God, but also the definition of Sergius as “saint”, “star”; a fragment of the text about the memory of the saint is especially indicative: “For now it is bright, and sweet, and enlightening us to our all-honorable father, this memory, holy for she dawns and shines with glory, and shines upon us. For she is truly holy, and enlightened, and worthy of all honor from God and joy")

Thus, we can conclude that if the Lives of the Greek hesychasts are akin to theology and teaching, then the Life of Sergius, written by Epiphanius, is “close to doxology” (S.V. Avlasovich), in which he involves the reader himself.

The second feature of the hesychast text is the perception of the letter as divinely inspired, which is expressed in the motive of the letter “against one’s will”, under compulsion from above, or rather, through inspiration from above, that is, these are divinely inspired texts. This motif is heard by many Greek hesychasts, and it is also found in the traditional hagiographic introduction of the Epiphanius text:

“I wanted to silence his (Sergius’s) virtues, as if before the rivers, but inward desire forces me to speak, and my unworthiness spoils me to remain silent. A sick thought commands me to speak, but the poverty of my mind blocks my lips, commanding me to be silent. But otherwise, it is better for me to speak, I will accept a little weakness and rest from many thoughts.”

The hagiographer trusts his spiritual experience to a greater extent. It is no coincidence that in his letter “To a Certain Friend Cyril” Epiphanius especially highlights the gift of Theophanes the Greek, who during his work did not look at the samples, talked with those who came, but saw something with “intelligent eyes”, “with sensitive eyes and intelligent eyes, seeing the kindness of this.” That is, for Epiphanius, as a hesychast, this moment of insight, of spiritual vision, is of particular value. In the works of the church fathers, which Epiphanius the Wise was guided by in his work, the idea was affirmed that it was possible to write about God only what was revealed to the author in insight, and insight could be achieved as a result of unceasing prayer. Therefore, in hagiography, and in homiletics, and in the theology of the hesychasts, prayer appeals, penitential motives, and likening the text to various prayers are necessarily present.

The third feature of the hesychast text is the “weaving of words.” The ability to speak and write beautifully, the subordination of speech to a certain rhythm, and lyrical insight testified to the author’s holy gift. In verbal mastery, hesychasts saw participation in the highest harmony, eternal perfection. This testified to the inspiration of the texts. A real hymn, according to the teachings of the church fathers, was supposed to serve as a long prayer, and was not so much food for the mind as for the soul and heart, it was supposed to contribute to a person’s detachment from everything earthly, immersion in himself. The purpose of the hesychast teaching was to immerse a person in the very essence of the universe, and through this approach to God, to the highest and accepting Him into oneself. That is why the sounds of words, verbal images, symbols, rhythm, rhymes, wordplay, bizarre syntactic constructions, etc. are so important for hesychast works. This is how the “verbal lace” arose. In these texts we observe a special attitude towards the word as Logos. In the insights of the authors, contemplation of God the Word occurs. Only well-decorated speech, long lyrical digressions, and subtle shades of meaning made it possible to get closer to the saint and God. It is no coincidence, G.M. Prokhorov, reflecting on the work of Epiphanius, called his style “panegyric meditation.” As a result of the special construction of the phrase (chain of syntagmas), a “touching reading” arose, promoting fervent heartfelt prayer and the complete abandonment of all bodily and everyday worries.

In addition, in hesychast texts there is also a hidden plan of the work, which is intended to record the mystical experience of the saint’s personal prayerful feat. For example, a modern researcher of the legacy of Simeon the New Theologian notes: “Simeon gives his own interpretation of the hagiographical plot; every saint, in his opinion, saw God, even if this is not mentioned in his life.” Epiphanius does not write anything about Sergius’s illumination and communion with fire as a specific event, but his text contains constant indications of the permeation of everything connected with Sergius with light. “The memory of our all-honorable fathers is now bright, and sweet, and enlightened by the most holy dawn and glory, and they illuminate us. She is truly holy and enlightened, and worthy of all honor from God and joy...” There is no doubt that for Epiphanius, as a hesychast, this served as a certain sign of the saint’s involvement in the higher, “non-evening light.” One can give a number of examples of hidden references to the mystical experience of a saint. “...from now on the Church has been cleansed from her youth by the existence of the Holy Spirit and has prepared for herself a holy and chosen destiny, so that God may dwell in her.”

Hesychast teaching constantly emphasized the fact of the descent of the grace of the Holy Spirit into the heart of the person praying and the indwelling of God into him. Thus, the words of Epiphanius that Sergius was a vessel into which God moved also testify that this text belongs to the hesychast tradition. But only a person who knew the doctrine of unceasing prayer could understand this. Thus, the hesychast lives became hidden texts, texts for initiates. Simeon the New Theologian also reflected on this, emphasizing that the true content of hagiographic texts is not revealed to every reader, but to those who try to imitate the saints and have some of their own ascetic experience.

The next most striking feature of Epiphanius’s style of “weaving words” is a synonymous series of names for the saint. In this, Epiphanius comes from the tradition of the church fathers Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory the Theologian, Simeon the New Theologian, etc. For example, the designation of the teaching of Sergius: “milk fertilizer, priestly beauty, priestly splendor, real leader and unfalse teacher, good shepherd, right teacher, unflattering mentor “, an intelligent ruler, an all-good punisher, a true kramnik.” As we see, the author searches and does not find words to accurately define the divine essence of the saint. This is the most important way of theology in ischasm, coming from antiquity. At the same time, theology is combined with insights and hymns. “In the Life there is something from the akathist - rhythm, anaphorism, digital symbolism - something from the Areopagitik and something from the Monk Simeon. Npyfaniy echoes all three of these sources, but does not copy any of them. He creates his own series of titles, distinguished by that special metaphor, reverence, tenderness, and many allusions to the Psalter, which in many ways provide the Life of Sergius of Radonezh with its unique sound,” writes a modern researcher.

Having clarified the main features of the Life of Sergius as a text of a hesychast plan, let us move on to characterize the main elements of the genre hagiographic canon. Epiphanius's work is constructed in strict accordance with the canon. It contains an introduction from the author, a main part telling about the saint’s earthly journey, and a conclusion, although it is possible that the story of posthumous miracles arose later. This part tends to continue, as new stories about the intercession of the saint appear and thus new editions of the text arise.

Sergius' earthly path begins with a miraculous birth. In his first words, Epiphanius talks about the pious parents of Sergius. “Our venerable father Sergius was born of a noble and honorable parent: from a father called Cyril, and from a mother named Maria, who was God’s servant, truthful before God and before people, and with all kinds of virtues, fulfillment and adornment, as God loves.” (p. 262). These words directly correlate with the genre canon, but then the author-hagiographer reports on a miracle that happened even before the birth of Sergius. Mary, being pregnant, came to church on Sunday and during the holy liturgy, when they were about to begin reading the Gospel, a baby suddenly cried out. Further, Epiphanius describes in detail, captivating the reader, how the women looked for the child in the corners and in Mary’s bosom. She cried out of fear and finally admitted that she had a child, but in the womb. The men also stood silently in horror, and only the priest understood this sign. Mary carried the baby in her womb before giving birth. Like “a certain treasure of many values.”

Another example may be of interest to us. This is the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, one of the most revered saints in Rus', a bearer of special spiritual power. (Toporov, p.539) Sergius could have remained a hermit monk all his life and not set up a cenobitic monastery, not carried out the orders of Metropolitan Alexy, behind whom stood the Grand Duke, not blessed Dmitry before the Battle of Kulikovo, and remained a saint. But completely immersed in the spiritual, living in God, Sergius did a lot for the “world” and in this regard his experience deserves more attention. Reflecting on Sergius, on his human being, people understand that there is a secret to his main strength, it is covered by some barrier and this barrier is providential in nature. Epiphanius the Wise, compiler of the Life of Sergius, writes about the impossibility of fully understanding Sergius. “It is impossible to comprehend to the final confession, as if anyone could have fully confessed about this venerable and great elder father, who was in our days, and times, and years, in our countries and in our languages, having lived on earth in the life of the angels.. ." He writes about a “bad mind”, a “corrupt mind” that is unable to reveal the truth. And modern researcher Bibikhin notes that our method (meaning the scientific method of cognition) will never rise or fall to the level where we have a chance to meet the truth, because truth always has “its own” method, not ours” ( Bibikhin, 1993, 76.).

So, it is only possible to get closer to understanding the human type that was embodied in Sergius. Little can be learned about his appearance from the text of the Life. “To see him walking and being likened by his angelic hair is honorable, adorned with fasting, self-control and brotherly love, humble, meek in gaze, quiet in his walk, tender in sight, humble in heart, highly virtuous in life, honored by God’s grace.” This is more of a moral and panegyric portrait. The only thing we can learn from his life about his appearance is that he was very physically healthy. “And even when I was young and strong in flesh, I was strong in body, able to take two men...”

It is known that Sergius’ asceticism was far from extremes. He did not wear chains or other tortures of the flesh. From his adolescence, Sergius possessed amazing sobriety of mind, a subtle understanding of the boundary between what is possible and what should be, and a sense of reality. He was a supporter of the “middle Way,” which ultimately turned out to be the best, true to the spirit of harmony and openness, the breadth, completeness and depth of intensity of the religious spirit and creativity. G. Fedotov, in his thoughts about Sergius, wrote that demonic temptations and visions of dark forces began very early and were especially frequent and painful in adulthood. It is surprising that little space is given to this in the text of the life. Youth, strength, health are most often careless, self-sufficient, at this time vigilance is weakened and dark forces challenge him. But Sergius knew this, he understood that the path of evil power to him passes through his body and learned to control his “physical”. Then the devil himself came out against him, writes the compiler of the Life. “The devil wants to wound him with lustful arrows.” Having given a direct answer to this question, the author of the life no longer returns to him.

“The venerable one, having fought against the enemy, restrained the body and enslavement, curbing it with fasting; and so by the grace of God I was quickly delivered. For fear, teach me to arm myself in the battle of demons: as if I were to shoot someone with a sinful arrow, the venerable one shoots against them with pure arrows, who shoot at the darkness of the right in heart.” Thus, the strength of the spirit turned out to be greater than the strength of the body, and the body submitted to the spirit, or rather, the spirit did not allow the physical to realize itself in accordance with the requirements of both the body and life: this cost the body suffering, life - offspringlessness. But the choice was made, the price of this victory apparently was great, life is silent about this, but this testifies to the height of his spirit, the scale of his personality. This was a new level of holiness, which remains the pinnacle of Russian holiness even now, six centuries later. Klyuchevsky wrote that quiet, meek, humble Sergius, silently, imperceptibly, non-violently - neither in relation to people, nor in relation to life itself, with quiet and meek speech, elusive, silent moral means, about which you don’t know what to tell, changed the whole situation incomparably larger in scale and more fundamental than any revolution. He did a great job, gathering the spirit of the people for liberation from the Tatar-Mongol yoke. The light emanating from Sergius fell on his spiritual children, and all of Rus' was his. And Sergius himself was flesh and blood of this people, having collected their best qualities and, above all, humility.

The same D. Rostovsky wrote that “in the person of St. Sergius we have the first Russian saint, whom, in the Orthodox sense of the word, we can call mystics, that is, the bearer of a special, mysterious spiritual life, not exhausted by the feat of love, asceticism and persistence of prayer. At the end of his life, Sergius began to have visions of heavenly powers. In the episode of the Mother of God’s visit to Sergius, it is reported that first there was Sergius’ prayer and the singing of an akathist. At the end of the akathist, Sergius, who had already foreseen what had happened, said to his student: “Child! Be sober and vigilant, because it is a wonder that we desire to be and it is fateful at this hour.” And then a voice rang out: “Behold, the Most Pure One is coming!” The set was illuminated with unbearable brightness by the Mother of God, who appeared accompanied by the apostles Peter and John. Sergius “fell prostrate, unable to endure that unbearable dawn.” When it was all over, Sergius saw Micah lying on the ground “as if dead,” raised him and asked him to call Isaac and Simon to him in order to tell them about everything, too, “in order.” At the same time, Sergius asked not to tell any of the brethren about the miracle until the Lord took him Sergius from this life.

The episode with the resurrection of a dead child is also indicative.

Sergius, and probably also Andrei Rublev. “There are moments of silent depth when the world order reveals itself to man as the fullness of the Present. Then you can hear the music of its very flow... These moments are immortal, and they are also the most transient of all content, but their power also flows into human creativity.

Father Sergius Bulgakov wrote “It is already recognized that Rev. Sergius was and remains the educator of the Russian people, their mentor and spiritual leader. But we also need to know him as a gracious leader of Russian theology. He concluded his knowledge of God not in books, but in the events of his life. Not in words, but in deeds and these events, he silently teaches us the knowledge of God. For silence is the speech of the future age, and now it is the word of those who, while still in this age, have entered the future. The silent word, the hidden, must be collected into words and translated into our human language.

The lives of the saints are a special reading, not educational and entertaining, but soul-saving. That is, this reading presupposes the mental passage of the saint’s feat, as a result of which the spiritual cleansing of the reader occurs and, ultimately, his Transfiguration. But today the mass reader has largely lost the skill of reading lives and it is necessary to promote its restoration at all levels in order to restore the spiritual health of the nation.

2.2 Features of the text of “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by Simon Azaryin

“The Life of Sergius” by Simon Azaryin was written and published in 1646.

This edition contains the lives of Sergius, Nikon of Radonezh and Savva Storozhevsky. “The Life of Sergius” has 99 chapters: the first fifty-three chapters were published according to the editorship of Pachomius Logothet, the remaining forty-six chapters were written by Simon Azaryin. The fact that the first fifty-three chapters belong to the pen of Epiphanius the Wise and Pachomius Logothetes is confirmed by the ending of chapter 53: “This is the humble hieromonk Pachomipis, who came to the monastery of the saint and saw miracles from the shrine of the God-bearing father. Having learned from the blessed disciple himself, who lived for many years, and even from the very age of his youth lived with the saint, I say Epiphanius, it is known that the leader of the blessed one, who in a series of things said and wrote little about his birth and his age and about miracles, about life and about the repose of those who testify to me... This is written, so that they will not be given over to oblivion due to our negligence in these last times.”

In addition, the authorship of Simon Azaryin of the following chapters has been convincingly proven by S. Smirnov and S.F. Platonov. The personality of Simon Azaryin and the work that interests us in general terms are quite fully characterized by V. Klyuchevsky. Azaryin came from the servants of Princess Mstislavskaya and became a monk. “He probably acquired a book education and literary skill in the monastery. He left many handwritten manuscripts and several works that give him a place among the good writers of ancient Russia. His presentation, not always correct, but always simple and clear, is easy and pleasant to read, even in those necessarily florid places where the ancient Russian writer could not deny himself the pleasure of being unintelligible. By the will of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Simon prepared the life of St. Sergius, written by Epiphanius and supplemented by Pachomius, updating his style and adding to it a number of miracles described by himself, which took place after Pachomius in the 15th-17th centuries. This new edition, together with the life of Abbot Nikon, a word of praise to Sergius and services to both saints, was published in Moscow in 1646. But the masters of printing were distrustful of Simon’s story about new miracles, and printed 35 stories from it, some reluctantly and with amendments.” .

In total, when compiling the “Life of Sergius,” Simon Azaryin added 46 chapters, of which 30 are Azaryin’s original texts and 16 chapters are extracts from various sources. These chapters include the most interesting subjects related to the icon of the Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve. These are chapters about the birth of Vasily III, the siege of the city of Opochka, the annexation of the mountain Cheremis and the founding of the city of Sviyazhsk, the conquest of the Kazan Khanate, the siege of the Trinity Lavra and Moscow, i.e. These are the very chapters that, according to Azaryin, he borrowed from ancient writings:

“...selected from the chronicle books and from the book of the siege of that very Sergius monastery” Abraham Palitsyn. While maintaining the integrity of Pachomius's edition of the Life, Azaryin does not add to the meager information that connected the activities of Sergius with the history of the Battle of Kulikovo. This is probably the reason why the artist who painted the icon we are interested in misses such an important historical subject as the Battle of Kulikovo. This oversight was discovered several years later by some history buff and written on a board attached to the bottom of the main work.

We will try to reveal the sources that Simon Azaryin used to compile the chapters that interest us, following the author’s accepted order of their depiction on the icon.

Chapter 54 - “The miracle of the miraculous conception and birth of the Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich of All Rus', the autocrat” - was all copied from chapters 16 and 5 of the fifteenth degree of the “Degree Book” almost without changes. Simon Azaryin made minor paraphrases in certain expressions and changed the transcription of some words, in accordance with the grammatical rules and literary style of his time, and also rearranged one phrase to another place, which may have resulted from an omission during correspondence.

Several lines at the end of the 54th chapter, giving a brief genealogy of Sophia Paleologus, were taken by Azaryin from the 5th chapter of the same fifteenth degree. Only one phrase of the genealogy of Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, brought by Azaryin to his great-grandfather, “the praiseworthy Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, who showed a glorious and blessed victory beyond the Don against the godless and evil Tsar Mamai,” with which the 54th chapter begins, was probably written Azaryin himself. The very legend of the “miraculous” birth of Grand Duke Vasily as an oral tradition arose, probably, in the period between 1490 and 1505, at the height of the struggle for succession to the throne, in order to justify the claims to the great reign of the second son of the Moscow prince, born from a marriage with Sophia Paleologus . It flared up especially after the death (in 1490) of the first son Ivan, born of Princess Maria, daughter of Tver Prince Boris Alekseevich, when the majority of the boyars were in favor of appointing as heir not Vasily’s son from Sofia Palaeologus, but his grandson Dmitry, the son of the deceased Prince Ivan. This struggle in 1498 led to the defeat of the party of Sofia Paleologus, and the grandson of the Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich was recognized as the legal heir, but already in 1499 the son of Sofia Paleologus Vasily Ivanovich was granted the Grand Duke of Novgorod and Pskov. In 1502, Dmitry Ivanovich was removed from power and Vasily Ivanovich remained the only Grand Duke. As you know, in Russia it was customary to commemorate all great events with contributions to revered monasteries. The sacristy of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra currently houses a precious embroidered shroud donated by Sophia Paleologus in 1499, probably in memory of the events mentioned above, which to some extent secured the position of the party of Sophia Paleologus. To enhance the prestige of the candidate for the Moscow grand-ducal table, his Byzantine genealogy was supplemented by the “divine conception”, embodied by the ghost of Sergius, who allegedly appeared to Sophia Palaeologus. At the same time, the doctrine “Moscow is the third Rome” was created. It was popularized not only through literary legends such as “The Tale of the Miraculous Conception and Birth of Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich of All Russia, Autocrat.” The means of fine art - painting - were also involved. This idea determined the content of a number of monumental paintings of the first half and mid-16th century. It was imbued with the paintings of the Golden Chamber of the Kremlin Palace (1547-1552) and the existing paintings of the walls of the Smolensk Cathedral of the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow (1526-1530), as well as the icons of the “Church Militant”.

The author of the legend about the miraculous conception and birth is probably Metropolitan Joseph, former abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In the Nikon Chronicle, followed by the “Book of Degrees” and “The Life of Sergius” by Simon Azaryin, it is said that “this story was revealed by Metropolitan Joseph of All Russia, who he heard from the lips of the Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich himself, the Autocrat of All Russia.” Vasily III died in 1533, when Josaph was still abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra; the recording and literary treatment of the palace legend he reported was probably made before 1542.

The artist dedicated the upper left corner of the middle of the icon of interest to us specifically to this addition to the “Life of Sergius” made by Simon Azaryin. Above the composition there are the following inscriptions:

"Wonderful miracle" the conception and birth of Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich // autocrat of all Rus' // chapter 54" and next to it, line by line on the continuation of the same lines (in order not to confuse the texts, crosses are placed between them) the following text: "+ about the vision of an angel serving with the blessed // Sergius, chapter 51; + and about the vision // of divine // fire, chapter 31.” Under these names of the three chapters is depicted at the top right, against the backdrop of a green wooded hill, a group of women in white apostles, accompanying Sophia Palaeologus, dressed in ceremonial women's clothing with a golden mantle, on her head, over a white scarf, a golden crown. St. Sergius stands in front of her, holding a baby wrapped in white robes in his hands directed toward Sophia. To the right of this group, behind the red fortress wall and gates, there is a white five-domed cathedral, inside of which, above the throne, in front of the icon of “Our Lady of Tenderness,” stands Sergius in priestly vestments and holds a chalice in his hands, above which there is a fire. Behind Sergius stands an angel and a priest. There are halos above the heads of Sergius and the angel. Behind this group are two monks. To the right, above the gate of the monastery with a single-domed gate church, Sergius is depicted in monastic robes, talking with two monks. Below, under the monastery wall, against the green background of the hill, sits Sophia Palaeologus, with her left hand tucked into the bosom of her robe, as if looking for a baby placed in her womb. The women of her retinue huddled around her in confusion. By grouping the plot of the miracle of conceptions with the appearance of divine fire to Sergius during the service of the liturgy, the artist or customer enhances the miraculousness and extraordinaryness of the birth of the Moscow Tsar Vasily Ivanovich.

Let us dwell on the next, 55th chapter of the “Life of Sergius” by Simon Azaryin, “The Miracle-Venerable Sergius the Wonderworker about the glorious victory over Lithuania near the city of Opochka.” A comparison of the text of this chapter with the text of the 11th chapter of the sixteenth degree of the “Degree Book” showed that in the 55th chapter there are strange abbreviations, unlikely to have been made by Simon Azaryin himself. Two passages directly related to the name of Sergius were excluded, and everything connected to the name of the governor, Prince Alexander Vladimirovich of Rostov, who actually ensured victory over the enemy who was besieging the city. This is understandable: Simon Azaryin excludes the actual organizer of the victory in order to glorify the miracle of Sergius and his name. But the exclusion of fragments of legends associated with the miracles of Sergius can only be explained by the fact that this was done by printers, who, as is known, excluded many chapters and printed the rest with abbreviations. The content of the chapter is connected with the heroic defense of the city of Opochka in 1517, which is an episode of the war started by Vasily III in 1513. The result of this war, which was waged by the Moscow state with the aim of strengthening its western borders by reconquering Russian territories that were part of the composition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there was the return of the city of Smolensk in 1514 and other western regions. The period from 1516 to the middle of the 16th century, when Metropolitan Macarius completed the “Book of Degrees”, can be considered the time when the legend arose and its literary treatment, because this legend was not included in other chronicles.

From the above it follows that Simon Azaryin used the list of the “Degree Book” as a primary source, from which he selected legends connecting the name of Sergius of Radonezh with some historical events. On the icon that interests us, in the middle of the middle, under the scene of the “miraculous conception of Vasily Ivanovich,” against the background of a yellow (ocher) hill, there is an eight-line inscription: “The miracle of St. Sergius is more glorious // to the victory in Lithuania near the city of Opochka // then in a dream vision // appeared to a certain wife // Saint Sergius and the tale // there are stones // a lot in the land near the church // chapter 55.”

The artist depicted a stone wall of a besieged fortress and a white single-domed cathedral. Above the cathedral, the interior of the house is depicted on the side. On white beds, under a red blanket, a woman lies with her head on her hand. In front of her is a half-figure of Sergius in a monastic robe with the hand gesture of a talking man. To the right of the cathedral, the same female figure in a white apostle stands behind a pile of stones and seems to be talking to a man standing near her. There is a crowd to the left of the cathedral. In front of her are four figures of young men throwing large stones from the walls. Under the wall are warriors climbing siege ladders and falling from them under the blows of stones. In the foreground on the right is a warrior shooting an arrow into the city.

Following further through the text of the “Life of Sergius”, written by Simon Azaryin, we will dwell on the 56th chapter, which is entitled “The Legend of the Sviyazhsk City”. As a comparison of the texts showed, for this chapter Azaryin no longer used the “Degree Book,” the text of which is completely at odds with the presentation of this chapter, but the Kazan Chronicler. The closest of the published texts to the lists of the Kazan chronicler to the version used by Azaryin are the so-called “Solovetsky list” and the list belonging to V.N. Peretz. But both of these lists are closer to each other than each of them is to the presentation of the 56th chapter. Both lists contain praise for Sergius’s love for Sviyazhsk, which he supposedly showed in various miracles. This fragment, for example, in the “Solovetsky List”, occupies almost the entire page of the 59th sheet. If Azaryin had a list with such an inclusion, then he, as the hagiographer of Sergius, would certainly have used it, but the actual data available in both lists in some places are similar to the data mentioned by Azaryin, and also have some discrepancies. For example, in the 56th chapter it is reported about the construction in the city of Sviyazhsk during its founding of a wooden cathedral church; this corresponds to the list of V.N. Perets k does not correspond to the “Solovetsky list”, which talks about the construction of a stone cathedral; Azaryin has the number of archers in the Cheremis uluses, as well as in the Solovetsky List, forty thousand, and in V.N.’s list. Pepper twelve thousand, etc.

In the classification of lists by editions proposed by G.N. Moiseeva, this chapter in the Kazan history (30th) is available in both editions (first and second), since the second edition is not a revision of the entire Kazan history, but was written anew only from the 50th chapter, all the first 49 chapters are identical. Thus, we can assume that in this case, through Azaryin’s presentation, we are faced with a revision of the first edition of the Kazan History, written in 1564-1565. Its simultaneous closeness and the difference between the lists that have survived to this day indicates that the list that Azaryin used either has not survived or is still unknown to modern researchers of ancient Russian literature. This chapter tells about the founding and extremely rapid construction of the city of Sviyazhsk in 1341: “Not in many days did you build a great and richly decorated city.” This unusually rapid construction of the city in thirty-eight or forty-six days was carried out due to the fact that ready-made logs were brought on boats from the Belozersky forests along the Volga, from which one part of the city was built, while the other part was built from timber cut down on the spot foundations of the city. This is briefly and intelligibly stated in the “Royal Book”: “The city... was brought from above, half of it became a mountain, and the other half the governor and the boyar’s children immediately created with their people, a great place, and built the city in four weeks.” .

In the 56th chapter of the Life, following the description of the founding of the city, the topographical features of the area are described in great detail.

Of great historical interest is the message about the voluntary annexation of the mountain Cheremis, who represented a good half of the Kazan Khanate, to Russia. At the end of the chapter, the author of the Kazan History, and after him Simon Azaryin, report that all this was foreshadowed by the miracle of Sergius of Radonezh, whose shadow allegedly appeared in these parts for six years and marked the site of the founding of the city.

In the upper right corner of the center of the icon there is an inscription in three lines on a gold background: “A legend about the Sviyazhsk city VMayan summer 7059 day 16 on Saturday the 7th of Easter // governors were sent from the Tsar and Grand Duke Yaoann Vasilievich // with Shikhaal by Tsar Kasimov, chapter 56.” The artist depicted the topography of the area, according to the description taken by Simon Azaryin from the Kazan Chronicler, which says: “The place is like this, where the city is located: lying close to it, far from it are high mountains, and its tops are covered with forest, and deep rapids, and wilds, and connections; and near the city there is a small lake in one country, containing sweet water and a lot of small fish of all kinds, enough for human food, and from it, around the city, flows the Pike River, and, flowing slowly, flows into the Sviyaga River. The artist painted mountains with trees using ocher and green paint. The 30th chapter of the Kazan Chronicler speaks of the appearance on the walls of the city of Kazan before its capture of a monk sprinkling them. In Azaryin's chapter 57 this monk is named after Sergius. It is interesting to note that in all the known texts about the capture of Kazan, the name Sergius is not found anywhere in this episode. We don’t know where Azaryin got it from. A comparison of Azaryin’s texts with published materials testifies to their mutual proximity and at the same time that Azaryin did not use either the Book of Degrees, or the lists of Kazan History, or the Kazan Chronicler, the so-called second edition, which appeared in the 90s XVI century All this allows us to conclude that Simon Azaryin used, when compiling the 56th and 57th chapters, a list of the so-called first edition that has not reached our time or is still unknown to researchers of ancient Russian literature. The artist depicted the moment the city was captured. There is a battle going on behind the wall inside the city. There is a white flag above the besieged crowd. A crowd of warriors enters the gate of the fortress wall; a young man stands at the gate on the right and beats a drum. In the foreground, a warrior blows a trumpet. Behind him rises on a black horse with golden harness the figure of a warrior, dressed, like everyone else, in golden armor and a helmet, but unlike the others, he has a red cloak thrown over his armor. In his left hand he holds the reins, in his right hand, raised to the shoulder, he holds something like a spear or scepter. The face is young, with a short thick beard and mustache. Probably, the artist had in mind the image of the young John IV, who turned 22 years old in the year of the capture of Kazan. This feature, as well as the completeness of Sophia Paleologus noted by the artist in illustrating chapter 54, indicate that, in addition to the text of the “Life of Sergius” written by Simon Azaryin, the artist used other historical sources, most likely Lists of chronicles, knew the events and the persons he portrayed.

Azaryin himself, finishing the extracts he made from Palitsyn’s “Tale”, writes: “These are the many other miracles of this great miracle worker Sergius, but I was under siege in his monastery, but I have stopped speaking about this, since the story about this has no particular meaning.” There are great legends about this, about the former battle against the house of the life-giving Trinity, and the miracle worker Sergius, and how, through prayers and the appearance of many people who were saved, what happened during the siege of people in the monastery of the saint. And if anyone wants to learn something great, let him go and read, there about the past appearances of the saint and about his miracles, which are kept and taught multiple times, a history book. And here, in part, there is little to offer, hearing mercy from the saints who were found then. And here only the essence of the holy miracle was revealed, and not the customs of war, and this is why we should return here.”

Chapter 58 of the “Life of Sergius” is written based on the contents of chapter 19 of Palitsyn’s “Tale” and tells about the first battle that took place on the night of September 23. Azaryin, in this and all eleven chapters following it, extracts from the “Tale” only the miracles of Sergius, and not the essence of the feats of arms and other events described by Palitsyn. Using in this case the text of the 19th chapter of the “Tale”, Azaryin greatly shortens it, even excludes from the description the place of the main attack of the interventionists - the Beer Tower, and only one phrase - about the shadow of Sergius walking along the walls and services of the monastery and sprinkling them with holy water - he preserves inviolably. The next, 59th chapter of the “Life” is written based on the 24th chapter of the “Tale”. From this chapter, Azaryin borrows only a paragraph that tells about the appearance of Sergius of the Trinity to Archimandrite Joseph and the encouragement of the brethren and defenders of the monastery with his intercession from above. For chapters 60 and 61, chapters 25 and 26 “Tales” were used in the same way, respectively. Chapter 61 does not even include the miracle of the appearance of the Archangel Michael to Archimandrite Joseph, since it is not related to the hagiography of Sergius.

Chapter 62 of the “Life” “On the appearance of St. Sergius the Wonderworker by a Lithuanian howl” was written on the basis of the 30th chapter of the “Tale”. Azaryin in this case makes a brief summary of the entire chapter with a tendency to glorify Sergius. At the same time, he releases the fact, very important for the history of the siege, of the connection of Lisovsky’s army with Sapega and immediately proceeds to describe the attack on the fortress itself, completely preserving the place in which Palitsyn describes the stubborn resistance of the defenders: “give them such insolence against their fellow soldiers, like both non-warriors and ignoramuses about bravely girding yourself with a gigantic fortress and coming down victorious against the opposing adversaries, as history testifies to this.” Azaryin also preserves the description of the defeat of the intervention troops in this decisive battle.

Following further through the text of the “Tale”, we discover that in the “Life” there are no three miraculous appearances of Sergius. Two of them are in the 34th chapter of the “Tale” and one is in the 37th chapter, the title of which “On the consolation of the miracle worker by the appearance of Ilinarhu” directly contains an indication of the miracle of Sergius. In this chapter, Palitsyn narrates the appearance of Sergius to the sexton Irinarch during his stay in Moscow to organize the defense of the fortress of the Trinity Lavra. Probably, this miracle was excluded by the book printers, and not by Simon Azaryin himself. The exclusion from the “Life” of two joint appearances of Sergius and Nikon (from chapter 34 of the “Tale”) may have been deliberately made by Azaryin himself, since both of these miracles are associated with a call to order for the excessively riotous brethren and warriors who are in siege They obtained wine from the enemy camp using silver obtained from the illegal sale of bread and other products.

Most likely, Azaryin did not want to reduce the high style of the miracles of the “Life” by depicting the unseemly behavior of monks and warriors.

The next, 63rd chapter of the “Life” - “The Tale of the Appearance of Sergius the Wonderworker to Andrei Voldyr, How Through His Prayers God Granted Victory to His Adversaries,” is written in the same way as Chapter 62, i.e., it is a tendentious summary of the corresponding chapter “ Tales." But by shortening the description of the essence of the attack in the 46th chapter, Azaryin releases the peculiarity of this operation undertaken by the interventionist army. Palitsyn in the first half of Chapter 46 writes that Zobrovsky, having arrived at the army that was besieging the Lavra fortress, reproached the governor Lisovsky and Sapega for the fact that they had been waging an ineffective siege for such a long time (more than ten months) and could not “ take the basket and crush the crows.” He schedules the third, and according to his calculations, decisive, attack on the fortress on July 31. On the night before the attack, writes Palitsyn, the army received a heavenly sign: the moon in the sky, “like fire to a galloping horse,” and the stars emitted such a great light that “I fell over the monastery and around the monastery.” All this, as well as the beginning of the chapter on the preparation of the decisive assault on the fortress, was released by Azaryin, apparently because it is not directly connected with the name of Sergius. And he begins the chapter of the “Life” with an abbreviated retelling of the paragraph immediately preceding the tale of Andrei Voldyr, without understanding that this paragraph is the connecting link between the legend of the rain of stars and the story conveyed on behalf of Voldyr. Immediately after this introduction, the miracle of Sergius is narrated, the essence of which boils down to the following: when the entire army under the leadership of Zobrovsky was preparing for a decisive assault on the walls of the fortress, a miraculous phenomenon occurred to the unit commanded by Andrei Voldyr. Allegedly, a stormy river flowed between them and the wall, carrying uprooted trees and stones. Two elders appeared on the wall, threatening all those who dared to attack that they would have to swim along this stormy stream: “... the sevidokhom is clearly, like a river, flowing fast between us and the monastery. In the waves there is a broken great log, and the forest carries a lot; and with the rooting of great trees, and stone and sand from the bottom, like great mountains rising. I present God as a witness to this, as I saw two old men adorned with gray hairs, and the city calling out to all of us with a great voice, to all of you damned ones, so sail.” This legend, composed by Voldyr and decorated by Palitsyn, was needed to justify the transfer of a military unit led by Andrei Voldyr to the side of the besieged in the Lavra fortress after an unsuccessful assault. Next, Azaryin again releases the final part of the 46th chapter, which is insignificant from the point of view of “tity,” where Palitsyn narrates that the brutal attack of the interventionists choked in blood. Their army suffered very heavy losses to no avail.

This episode - one of the decisive attacks of the fortress - was illustrated in detail by the artist. There was a four-line inscription above this plot, but it has not survived. In the lower left corner of the center of the icon, under the siege of the city of Opochka, against the backdrop of green hills, a battle between two armies is depicted. Below it is the fortification of the Trinity Lavra with towers and loopholes on the walls. Behind the wall there is a white belfry and a single-domed cathedral, various monastery buildings, monks and warriors, but not in military action, but talking. Above the wall are two elders with crowns on their heads: Sergius and Nikon. Under the walls of the fortress there is a river, on the banks of which there is an army, not fighting, but commanders and warriors conferring with each other, all in armor. The first two are on horses, black and white. There are two white flags above the army. Here the artist clearly represents the moment when Andrei Voldyr made the decision to surrender his army after the battle he lost.

The next two chapters (64th and 65th) were written by Azaryin based on the 48th chapter of “The Legend” without significant cuts or revisions. Next, Azaryin released five chapters of the “Tale”, because these chapters are not associated with the name of Sergius, and two chapters (52nd and 53rd), which are praise for Sergius and Nikon, do not tell about specific miracles performed by them. The next (54th) chapter of the “Tale”, “About the great famine that was in the siege of Moscow, and about life sellers, and about the increase in needs at the Trinity Compound in the Epiphany Monastery through the prayers of the Venerable Fathers Sergius and Nikon” should be placed in the “Life of Sergius” before Chapter 66 “On the appearance of the miracle worker Sergius in Moscow with bread.” It should also be (as in “The Tale”) a logical continuation of the fight against the grain famine in besieged Moscow. In chapter 66, starting with the title, the text of the 55th chapter of “The Legend” is fully reproduced with some minor editorial changes made by Azaryin. It tells how twelve carts with baked bread were brought to the besieged Moscow Kremlin, allegedly from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, through the eastern (possibly Frolovsky, now Spassky) gates.

The next, 67th chapter of the “Life” is “On the appearance of the miracle worker Sergius to Archbishop Arseny of Glasun”, written on the basis of the 69th chapter

"Tales" is given with some abbreviations. According to Azaryin’s plan, this chapter should complete the miracles he borrowed from various outside sources, for it ends with the words: “If anyone wants to take away the great one, let him also read there about the past appearances of the saint and about his miracles, which are multiple storage and teaching, a history book, but there’s not much to offer here.” If this chapter was not supposed to be the last, then there was no need to give such an ending. But after this completion, made by Azaryin, two more chapters were published based on the “Tale” of Abraham Palitsyn. One of these two chapters (the 69th) was accidentally moved by the printers during typesetting. The other, 68th chapter - “The Miracle-Reverend God-Bearing Father Sergius the Wonderworker of the Mute” - was written on the basis of the 77th chapter of the “Tale” and is not directly related to the time of troubles. It is possible that Azaryin himself placed it after all the miracles associated with the history of this time, but it is possible that it was supplemented at the printing house instead of the chapters excluded from the “sewing”, reflecting the historical events of that time, but apparently written down by Simon himself Azaryin. The category of such chapters of the “Life” includes the chapters excluded by the printers “About the boyar Ivan Nikitich Romanov, how he was saved on the way from embitterment and otyuz”; “About the appearance of the miracle worker Sergius to Kozma Minin and about the meeting of military men to cleanse the Moscow state” and “About the ambassadors who were saved from the sea. About Colonel Lisovsky, how he died, boasting about the monastery of the miracle worker Sergius.” These chapters were preserved in the manuscript of Simon Azaryin with a preface in 1653 under numbers 8, 9 and 12. All these chapters in their content should be combined with the chapters written on the basis

“Tales” by Abraham Palitsyn, but were excluded by the press, apparently because they did not have authoritative historical sources like the “Degree Book”, “Kazan Chronicler”, “Tales” of Abraham Palitsyn, but were written by Simon Azaryin himself based on collected them to oral legends about Sergius, which include all subsequent chapters, starting from the 70th to the 99th chapter of the “Life”.

If, when compiling a new edition of the “Life of Sergius”, Simon Azaryin selected from various sources the “miracles” of Sergius associated with historical events, and wrote thirty chapters himself based on monastic legends, then the artist, having received an order for the icon “Sergius with the marks of his life”, from new “miracles” supplemented by Simon Azaryin, he chose only those that Azaryin borrowed from historical sources, and mainly those that helped the Russian army win victory over enemies and invaders. Not only the name of the artist remains unknown, but also the church for which this icon was commissioned. In terms of its size and compositional features, it could only be an icon of the “local” tier of the iconostasis and be a temple shrine.

In the Rostov-Yaroslavl and Kostroma dioceses there was not a single church dedicated to St. Sergius, from where the icon could go to the Yaroslavl Museum, but there were several churches and altars in the chapels dedicated to the Trinity. Judging by the years of construction, the icon could have been painted either for the Trinity Church near Vlasiy, built in Yaroslavl in 1648, or for the Trinity Church in the village of Kolyasniki in the former Kostroma district, near the city of Danilov. The second assumption is more likely. The stone Trinity Church in the village of Kolyasniki belonged to the previously abolished men's hermitage and was built in 1683 at the expense of the cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Prokhor, had two chapels - the Trinity and the Mother of God of Kazan. A. Krylov provides more detailed information about this desert. He reports that it was founded in 1634, when a wooden Trinity Church could have been built in it. In 1682, the cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Elder Prokhor, turned to Patriarch Joachim with a request for permission to dismantle the wooden Trinity Church with a chapel and build a stone one in its place. Two separate churches were built - Trinity and Kazan. The description of the structure of the church in Kolyasniki notes that it was built according to the type of the Trinity Cathedral of the Sergius Lavra. It is one-headed, four-pillared. The iconostasis is placed in front of the eastern pillars and is six-tiered, as in the Trinity Cathedral. The size of the icon that interests us is close to the size of the icons of “Sergius of Radonezh in the Life” located in the Trinity Cathedral, and to other similar icons from the Trinity Lavra. But in terms of the number and choice of subjects, it is the most extensive of all the “Sergius with the Stamps of Life” known to date. In addition, its origin from the Trinity Church is confirmed by the presence in the center of the top row of marks, directly above the head of Sergius, a mark with the image of the “Old Testament Trinity”.

Conclusion

It is difficult to overestimate the enormous contribution of Sergius to the spiritual revival of Rus', in particular to the development of Russian monasticism and the construction of monasteries. So, during 1240-1340. Three dozen monasteries were built, while in the next century, especially after the Battle of Kulikovo, up to 150 monasteries were founded. At the same time, as noted by V.O. Klyuchevsky, “Old Russian monasticism was an accurate indicator of the moral state of its secular society: the desire to leave the world intensified not because disasters accumulated in the world, but as moral forces rose in it. This means that Russian monasticism was a renunciation of the world in the name of ideals beyond its strength, and not a denial of the world in the name of principles hostile to it.”

This huge network of Orthodox monasteries in Rus' was not only a kind of Protection from a variety of internal and external threats and disasters, but also a network of spiritual centers where the highest spirituality of the people, their high morality, their consciousness and self-awareness were developed. One cannot but agree with the words of V.O. Klyuchevsky: “So the spiritual influence of St. Sergius survived his earthly existence and poured into his name, which from historical memory became an ever-active moral engine and became part of the spiritual wealth of the people. This name retained the power of the immediate personal impression that the monk made on his contemporaries. This power lasted even when the historical memory began to fade, being replaced by church memory, which turned this impression into a familiar, uplifting mood. This is how warmth is felt long after its source has gone out. The people lived with this mood for centuries. It helped him organize his inner life, unite and strengthen the state order. With the name of St. Sergius, the people remember their moral revival, which made their political revival possible, and confirm the rule that a political fortress is strong only when it rests on moral strength. This revival and this rule are the most precious contributions of St. Sergius, not archival or theoretical, but placed in the living soul of the people, in their moral content. The moral wealth of the people is clearly measured by monuments of deeds for the common good, by the memories of figures who contributed the greatest amount of good to their society.

The moral feeling of the people grows with these monuments and memories. They are his nutritious soil. They are his roots. Tear it away from them - it will wither like mown grass. They do not nourish popular conceit, but the idea of ​​the responsibility of descendants to their great ancestors, for a moral sense is a sense of duty. By creating the memory of St. Sergius, we examine ourselves, review our moral stock, bequeathed to us by the great builders of our moral order, we renew it, replenishing the expenses made in it. The gates of the Lavra of St. Sergius will be closed and the lamps will go out over his tomb - only when we spend this reserve completely, without replenishing it.”

In this sense, the very name of Sergius of Radonezh is the greatest monument to the Russian people, their powerful mind, capable of comprehending the most complex problems. His highest spirituality and morality, which nurtured the courageous, unbending and at the same time kind and generous character of the Russian people; a monument to Russian Orthodoxy, leading the people along the righteous path, along the path of the sacred Christian commandments. The name of Sergius of Radonezh is holy and sacred for every Russian person precisely because the highest human qualities and virtues were combined in his image. This is written very truly and heartfeltly in the Eulogy to Sergius. It seems that not one of the great people in human history - neither emperors, nor generals, nor literary and artistic figures - deserved the greatest praise that many generations of Russian people gave and continue to give to Sergius of Radonezh. Perhaps there is not a single virtue that he does not possess and which he would not apply in his life to all those who turned to him for advice, help, healing, and blessing. He emerged from the depths of the people, carrying in himself their basic qualities, their extraordinary intelligence, meekness and patience, humility, a penchant for simplicity, innate modesty and unpretentiousness bordering on asceticism, generosity and love for all people without exception.

The personality of St. Sergius has always been, is and will be the source of the extraordinary spirituality of the Russian people, their unbending will, courage, patience, kindness and love, which earned him world fame and world recognition. The name of Sergius of Radonezh radiates and pours on the Russian people, on all of Holy Rus', the light of Divine Grace, which will protect them and help them in all future endeavors and achievements. This year we celebrate the 700th anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Throughout its history, Russia has more than once found itself on the brink of destruction, and each time the Russian people turned with prayers to their great abbot, representative and defender, St. Sergius of Radonezh.

In a speech delivered on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius, V.O. Klyuchevsky expressed regret that in the Sergius Monastery there was no chronicler who would constantly keep records of everything that happened, as if it were an eternal, one and the same person. B.M. Kloss, as if polemicizing with Klyuchevsky, writes that in the light of recent research, the image of a “permanent and undying” chronicler can be revealed, whose role was played by the Trinity literary tradition that had developed over many generations, unique in the length of its creative life - from the end of the 14th century centuries to the present day.

It must be added that not only a tradition has developed, but also the text itself, united by a common theme - the glorification of the life and spiritual feat of St. Sergius, whose very life is woven into the motley and complex context of Russian history.

The beginning of the Trinity “Sergius” text is traditionally associated with the name of Epiphanius the Wise, an outstanding writer of the Russian Middle Ages, the creator of the style of weaving words and remarkable hagiographic works. Pachomius Logofet (Serb), in the afterword to the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, wrote that Epiphanius the Wise “for many years, especially from the very age of his youth,” lived with the Trinity abbot (for 16-17 years). Epiphanius began writing the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, in his own words, “one by one in the summer, or two by two after the death of the elders...”. The creation of the Life of St. Sergius, his teacher, was the main work of Epiphanius’s life. He worked on it for more than a quarter of a century, “having had 20 years of scrolls prepared to write them off.” He began this work after the death of the Monk in 1392 (probably in 1393 or 1394) and completed it, according to many researchers, in 1417-1418, 26 years after his death. He determined the purpose of his work himself: so that they would not forget the spiritual feat of the Wonderful Elder - the abbot of the entire Russian land - “Even if I don’t write, and no one else writes, I’m afraid of the condemnation of the parable of that lazy slave, who hid his talent and became lazy.”

“The Life of Sergius” exists in several literary versions - editions. Lists of its short editions date back to the 15th century, and the earliest list of a lengthy edition, stored in the Russian State Library, dates back only to the mid-20s of the 16th century. Judging by the title, it was this hagiographic version that was created by Epiphanius the Wise by 1418-1419. However, unfortunately, the author's original has not been preserved in its entirety. Nevertheless, according to many scholars, it is the lengthy edition of the “Life of Sergius” that contains the largest volume of fragments that directly reproduce the Epiphanian text.

As already noted, “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh” has been preserved in several literary versions: they number from 7 to 12. In the 15th century, the text of the Life was revised by Pachomius Logofet (it was published by Academician N.S. Tikhonravov in the book “Ancients” Lives Sergius of Radonezh"). It is believed that Pachomius owns the twenty-word part of the Life, which is a reworking of the text based on the lost records of Epiphanius. Thus, in general, it still to some extent reflects the original author's intention. It can be assumed that Epiphanius the Wise did not have time to finish his work and asked Pachomius, who arrived at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery ca. 1443, to continue it. Probably, the Pachomievskaya edition was created in connection with the discovery of the relics of the Venerable One in 1422.

The most famous continuer and reworker of the Epiphanius text of the Life of the Venerable in the 17th century. was Simon Azaryin. The monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (1624) later Simon Azaryin held responsible positions in the monastery, and in 1646-1653. was a Trinity cellarer. Simon used one of the lists of the Long Edition of the Life of Sergius and added to it a description of the miracles that took place in the 16th-17th centuries. The first version was prepared by the writer in 1646 and was published at the same time, but the edition of the Moscow Printing House included only 35 chapters, and even those were abbreviated, since many miracles were considered unconfirmed. Therefore, in 1654, Simon Azaryin wrote the second edition of “The Newly Revealed Miracles of St. Sergius,” which contained a preface and 76 chapters, and in 1656 he prepared a new, edited and expanded version of the “Book of the Newly Revealed Miracles of St. Sergius.”

The life and deeds of Sergius of Radonezh were not forgotten in the 18th century. It was even believed that Catherine II was involved in the composition of his Life, but, as it was established, her papers contained extracts about St. Sergius from the Nikon Chronicle.

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Similar works to - Simon Azaryin - author of "The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh"

Work theme:

“The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Literature and Painting”

Municipal educational institution "Secondary school No. 50

them. 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution" Kaluga

Scientific supervisor: Denisova Tatyana Vasilievna

Teacher of Russian language and literature, Municipal Educational Institution “Secondary School No. 50”

Kaluga, 2010

1. Introduction 3 pages

2. Writers and artists about Sergius of Radonezh 3 pages.

2.1 “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh,” written by Epiphanius the Wise. 4 pages

2.2 “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” by B. Zaitsev 7 pp.

2.3 Differences in the description of the image of the great saint 9 p.

2.4 “Works of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by M. V. Nesterov 10 pp.

2.5 The life of St. Sergius in the icons of Sergei Kharlamov. 12 pages

3. The significance of Sergius of Radonezh for Russian history and the state. V. O. Klyuchevsky about the Reverend. 12 pages

4. References 14 pages.

5. Appendix 15 pages.

1. Introduction.

More than 600 years have passed since the great saint Sergius of Radonezh lived on Russian soil, and people of the 21st century still turn to him in their prayers and revere him as the great defender of Rus'. His work was embodied in literature, iconography, and modern painting. He is glorified in Orthodox churches, philosophers talk about his wisdom. Who is he - the Wise Sergius of Radonezh? Let's try to answer this question by getting acquainted with literary sources and paintings.

The purpose of the study is a comparative analysis of the biography of Sergius of Radonezh in the “Life”, written by a contemporary of St. Sergius Epiphanius the Wise, and in the story of the 20th century writer Boris Zaitsev.

The peculiarity of the depiction of the life of St. Sergius in the paintings of the 19th century artist Mikhail Nesterov and in the modern icon painting and engraving of the artist Sergius Kharlamov is also considered in this study.

2. Writers and artists about Sergius of Radonezh

The story of Sergius of Radonezh is the embodiment of the ideal of a righteous, pure and ascetic life. At the same time, this is a person who played a big role in the spiritual formation and unity of the Russian people.

The first biographer of Sergius of Radonezh (1314-1392) was Epiphanius the Wise (year of birth unknown - 1420) - the author of the most ancient life of Sergius, written based on personal impressions and stories of the Venerable and those close to him, the main source of our information about the saint. It was written (“Life”) no later than 25-30 years after the death of Sergius. Epiphanius the Wise creates a kind of “verbal icon”, presents a moral lesson, glorifying the activities of the great ascetic. He wrote for more than a quarter of a century: “And having had for 20 years, scrolls prepared for such decommissioning...”. This work has come to us in the processing of the Serb Pachomius. Pachomius shortened some things in his life and added some things. The main significance of his work is that he helped us understand the work, since he translated the life from the language of Epiphanius into modern.

It is love, patience, and faith that become the subject of a new deep philosophical study using the example of the life of Sergius of Radonezh, the Russian saint who blessed Dmitry Donskoy at the head of the Russian army for a great feat - victory on the Kulikovo field. The sublime, selfless love for one's neighbor, the boundless patience of the forest hermit and the very life-deed of the holy elder are close and understandable to Boris Zaitsev (1881-1972). This work continues and deepens his quest in the field of spirituality and Christian morality. The entire year of 1924 was spent in work, and in 1925 the story “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” was published as a separate book. Why did Zaitsev translate the life of the great saint into secular language? The fact is that the very structure of hagiographical (a type of church literature, biographies (lives of saints) literature seems partly alien to the secular consciousness. On the whole, the “translation" was a success for the writer. He was able to clearly explain not quite simple concepts, making them easier to assimilate. In addition, provided them with his comments and reasoning.

The beginning of M. V. Nesterov’s (1862 -1942) passion for the religious direction of creativity is associated with the painting “Christ’s Bride” (1887), after which appeared: “The Hermit” (1889), “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew” (1889-1890), etc. In 1891 the painting “The Boyhood of Sergius” appeared; in 1892-1897. – “The Youth of St. Sergius”, in 1895 – “Under the Good News”, etc. Works from the series “Works of St. Sergius” date back to 1896-1897.

“There is no more dear name in our Holy Fatherland, to which the heart of every Orthodox, that is, Russian, person would respond with such joy, like St. Sergius,” writes our contemporary, icon painter S. Kharlamov. “We are joyful because we know that he exists, that he is present in our lives invisibly and constantly, we feel his presence every day, every hour when we turn to him for help.” All Orthodox people resort to St. Sergius and his high patronage with prayers and hope, and he comes to our aid and leads us onto the only correct path in life. So it was, so it is and so it will be.

Let us also get acquainted with the life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, reflected in Russian literature and painting.

2.1. “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh,” written by Epiphanius the Wise.

Let us analyze the features of constructing such a genre as hagiography. Compiling lives required great knowledge and adherence to a certain style and composition. The Orthodox Life was characterized by a leisurely narration in the third person. The composition consisted of three parts: introduction, the life itself and conclusion. The authors often quoted Scripture.

In the introduction, the author turned to God with a request to forgive him for his attempt to talk about the saint, about his divine wisdom in simple human language, to forgive the sin of pride. This part contained praise and a prayer for help addressed to God.

In the second part - the life itself - the author talked about the birth and righteous life of the saint, about his death and the miracles that he performed. The saint is always positive, the embodiment of all Christian virtues. The Lord protects him. The negative hero, the “villain,” personifies the devil. The confrontation between the saint and the “villain” is the confrontation between God and the devil, victory over evil forces.

In conclusion, praise to the saint sounds. Composing such praise required great skill and a good knowledge of rhetoric.

Lives were extremely popular in Rus' and often influenced oral folk art - this is how legends and spiritual poems arose. The peculiarity of the “Life of Sergius of Radonezh” is as follows:

1. We know that Sergius was canonized (1452)

2. The life was compiled after the death of the saint. St. Sergius died in 1392, so work on his hagiography began in 1393 or 1394.

3. The narration is told from the 3rd person, characterized by leisurely presentation and calm intonation. Epiphanius writes: “Reverend Sergius was born of noble and faithful parents: from a father named Cyril and a mother named Maria, who were adorned with all sorts of virtues.”

4. The composition of the life is built according to a strict scheme. In accordance with the hagiographic canon, Epiphanius begins his story with a description of the childhood of the youth Bartholomew, who was marked by God in the womb. Throughout the entire work, we see that many miracles happen in Sergius’ life, as well as obstacles that he overcomes.

Apparently, death prevented the hagiographer from completely finishing his planned “Life”. However, his work was not lost. In any case, in one of the lists of the “Life of Sergius” there is an indication that it “was copied from the holy monk Epiphanius, a disciple of the former abbot Sergius and the confessor of his monastery; and it was transferred from the holy monk Pachomius to the holy mountains.”

5. The plot of the life is the spiritual feat of the saint, or rather, many spiritual feats of Sergius. “At that time, Bartholomew wanted to take monastic vows. And he called a priest, an abbot, to his hermitage. The abbot tonsured him on the seventh day of October, in memory of the holy martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. And the name was given to him in monasticism, Sergius. He was the first monk to be tonsured in that church and in that desert. Sometimes he was embarrassed by the demonic machinations and horrors, and sometimes by the attacks of animals - after all, many animals lived in this desert then. Some of them howled in flocks and roared past, while others not together, but in twos or threes, or one after another, passed by; some of them stood in the distance, while others came close to the blessed one and surrounded him, and even sniffed him.” Sergius overcomes temptation and fears, does not give in to the devil thanks to prayers, faith and the strength of his soul. He had to endure many hardships. He helped people. For all this, during his lifetime, St. Sergius was awarded the gift of miracles.

6. The method of depicting the hero is idealization. The biographer created the image of a man who was always ready to help, who was also not afraid of any work, and was a bearer of great spiritual strength. “I always performed good deeds without laziness and was never lazy.”

7. The hero’s inner world is not depicted in development; he is a chosen one from the moment of birth. “And a certain miracle happened before he was born. When the child was still in the womb, one Sunday his mother entered the church while the Holy Liturgy was being sung. And she stood with other women in the vestibule when they were about to begin reading the Holy Gospel, and everyone stood silently; the baby began to scream in the womb. Before they began to sing the Cherubic Song, the baby began to scream a second time. When the priest exclaimed: “Let us take in, Holy of Holies!” - the baby cried for the third time,” which speaks of God’s election of the child. The hero's inner world is almost not described. Only in childhood do we see sadness due to the inability to read and long prayers before bed.

8. Space and time are depicted conventionally. The description of the time can only be judged by the following lines of the life: “The Servant of God Kirill (father of the Rev.) formerly owned a large estate in the Rostov region, he was a boyar, owned great wealth, but by the end of his life he fell into poverty.” Let’s also talk about why he became poor: “Because of frequent trips with the prince to the Horde, because of Tatar raids, because of the heavy tributes of the Horde. But worse than all these troubles was the great invasion of the Tatars, and after it violence continued, because the great reign went to Prince Ivan Danilovich, and the reign of Rostov went to Moscow. And many of the Rostovites reluctantly gave their property to Muscovites. Because of this, Kirill moved to Radonezh.” The exact years are not named, but we see that the description of life falls on the reign of Prince Ivan Kalita. Events also take place during the reign of Prince Dmitry Donskoy. The Russian warriors and the ruler of Rus' at the Battle of Kulikovo were blessed by the Reverend.

9. In the depiction of the saint, whenever possible, all individual character traits, in particular, accidents, were eliminated. Sergius in this work is a manifestation of the Russian worker. All the qualities that are present in a Saint show what a person should be.

10. The tone of the story is solemn and serious. “Then the great prince Dmitry and his entire army, filled with great determination from this message, went against the filthy ones, and the prince said: “Great God, who created heaven and earth! Be my helper in the battle against the opponents of your holy name."

11. The language of life is bookish, with an abundance of Church Slavonicisms. The entire work is presented in book language. Epiphanius was a monk, and this was one of the reasons for the use of many church words: “blessed”, “priest”, “compline”, “common life”, “hospitality”, etc.

12. The text is designed for a literate, prepared person. To understand the work, you need to be interested in spiritual literature, since you can come across many words unfamiliar to a secular person.

Thus, we see that all the norms for compiling hagiography are observed here. This work is a life in which Sergius of Radonezh is not just a clergyman canonized, but a man whose life and deeds had a decisive influence on the entire subsequent life of the Russian people, and his hagiographic portrayal on Russian literature and culture as a whole.

2.2 “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” by Boris Zaitsev

The main task that Boris Zaitsev set for himself was to show Sergius’s step-by-step ascent to holiness. The writer probably decided not to resort to comparisons, metaphors, and hyperboles. The image created by the author is more vivid than in life, and more understandable for the modern reader: “Sergius set an example in everything. He cut down the cells himself, carried water in two waterpots up the mountain, cooked food, cut and sewed clothes. In summer and winter he wore the same clothes, neither the frost nor the heat bothered him. Physically, despite the meager food (water and bread), he was very strong and had strength against two people.” This is the original appearance of Sergius in Zaitsev’s depiction.

It is interesting that Zaitsev did not describe pictures of living nature. The writer pays more attention, first of all, to the description of the actions of the Saint and the events in which Sergius participates. And he not only describes, but also analyzes: “God supports, inspires and intercedes for a person the more, the more a person is directed towards him, loves, honors and ardently, the higher his spiritual conductivity. A simple believer, not a saint, can feel the effect of this providence. A miracle, a violation of the “natural order”, a miracle “is not given to a mere mortal.” The attentive reader sees before him not only St. Sergius of Radonezh, but also the deeply religious writer Boris Zaitsev.

At the beginning of the story, Bartholomew is shown not yet fully realizing why and what he decides to give up in life. A modest boy, immersed in prayer, appears before the reader. The father, as best he could, kept his son from the important but difficult life of a monk: “We have become old and weak; there is no one to serve us; Your brothers have a lot to worry about about their families. We rejoice that you are trying to please the Lord. But your good part will not be taken away, just serve us a little until God takes us from here; Behold, lead us to the grave, and then no one will stop you.” The young man was obedient, so he did not go against his parents; only when he complied with the order, he was able to calmly leave. Zaitsev expresses his objective opinion in this situation: “What would he do if this situation dragged on for a long time? I probably wouldn't have stayed. But, undoubtedly, he would somehow settle his parents with dignity and leave without a riot. His type is different. And, answering the type, fate took shape...”

Like any hermit, St. Sergius went through melancholy, despair, loss of feelings, fatigue, seduction of an easier life, and emerged victorious from this struggle, subordinating his spirit to the will of God. Reading the biography of the great Russian Saint, you notice one special trait in his character, which is apparently very close to Zaitsev. This modesty of asceticism is its everlasting quality. And Zaitsev gives one story related to the poverty of the monastery, but through the strength of faith, patience, and restraint of Sergius himself (along with the great weakness of some of the brethren) he continues to live.

The feat of St. Sergius and his role in the victory of the Russian troops on the Kulikovo field is known to everyone, but Boris Konstantinovich focused his attention on the moments that led to the feat. Neither St. Sergius nor Dmitry Donskoy lived to see the final liberation of Rus' from its enslavers, but they laid a strong spiritual foundation on which Russia still relies. The author ends his biography with a very interesting conclusion, which is undoubtedly worth considering: “Having left no writings behind, Sergius supposedly teaches nothing. But he teaches precisely with his whole appearance: to some he is consolation and refreshment, to others - a silent reproach. Silently, Sergius teaches the simplest things: truth, integrity, masculinity, work, reverence and faith.”

[quotes – liter 2]

2.3 Differences in the description of the image of Sergius of Radonezh.

Two great writers: Epiphanius the Wise and Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev, describe the life of the great Saint of the Russian Land. Everyone brings to this description their own vision of the life feat of St. Sergius of Radonezh. There are also certain differences that I would like to highlight.

God gave St. Cyril and Mary a son, who was named Bartholomew. In the literature there are several different dates for his birth. The date of May 3, 1319 appeared in the writings of the 19th century. The diversity of opinions gave reason to the famous writer Valentin Rasputin to bitterly assert that “the year of birth of the youth Bartholomew has been lost.” And Boris Zaitsev, in his translation into the worldly language of life, said this: “There are fluctuations in the year of birth of the saint: 1314-1322,” but at the same time the number was determined: “Be that as it may, it is known that on May 3 Mary had a son.” . Although Epiphanius the Wise does not indicate the date, the Russian Church traditionally considers the birthday of St. Sergius to be May 3, 1314.

Even before his birth, Sergius was chosen by God. Epiphanius said that the parents only had guesses: “The father and mother told the priest how their son, while still in the womb, shouted three times in church: “We don’t know what this means,” he says. The priest said: “Rejoice, for the child will be a chosen vessel of God, an abode and servant of the Holy Trinity.” Boris Zaitsev also mentions this, but already at Bartholomew’s meeting with the elder monk: “The Youth will once be the abode of the Most Holy One. Trinity; he will lead many with him to the understanding of the Divine commandments"

When Sergius, together with his brother Stefan, retired to the forest to live in the desert, Epiphanius simply points out that “a deserted place was found, deep in the forest, where there was water.” Boris Zaitsev writes: “Bartholomew and Stefan chose a place ten miles from Khotkov. A small square, rising like a poppy, later called Poppy. (The monk says about himself: “I am Sergius Makovsky.”) Makovitsa is surrounded on all sides by forest, centuries-old pines and spruces. A place that amazed you with its grandeur and beauty.” The chronicle claims that in general this is a special hillock: “the ancients say, I saw light in that place, and I heard fire, and I heard a fragrance.” And we, following the writer, even visually see this place: “Probably here, on Makovitsa, they invited a carpenter from the outside and learned to cut huts “in the paw.” In the pine forests, Bartholomew grew up, learned a craft, and through the centuries retained the appearance of a carpenter-saint, a tireless builder of canopies, churches, cells, and in the fragrance of his holiness the aroma of pine shavings is so clear. Truly, St. Sergius could be considered the patron of this Great Russian craft.” These are again Zaitsev’s remarks, and Epifaniy does not focus on this.

There were rumors about desert life. People began to appear who at first the Reverend did not accept and even forbade them to stay, claimed Epiphanius the Wise, speaking about the difficulty of life in such a place. But they didn't back down. And Boris Zaitsev analyzes why this is so. And he says that “the Trinity led the saint.”

Biographers finish their works after the death of Sergius. The description of miracles after death no longer happened. Here Epiphanius the Wise interrupted with these words: “Sergius, seeing that he was already going to God in order to repay his debt to nature and transfer his spirit to Jesus, calls for brotherhood and led an appropriate conversation, and, having completed the prayer, gave up his soul to the Lord in the year 6900 (1392) of the month of September on the 25th day." Boris Zaitsev did the same, but with a more precise description: “Even at the last minute, he was the old Sergius: he bequeathed to be buried not in a church, but in a common cemetery, among the common people. But this will was not fulfilled. Metropolitan Cyprian allowed, at the request of the brethren, to place the remains of the Reverend in the church.” Further, he only writes a few words about what miracles happened after the death of the saint: healings, help in battles through prayers to Saint Sergius.

[quotes - liters 1 and 2]

2.4 “Works of St. Sergius of Radonezh” by M. V. Nesterov

The artist showed us the first miracle in the boy’s life in his first painting from the series – “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew” (1889-1890) . The critic Dedlov wrote: “The painting was an icon, it depicted a vision, and even with a radiance around the head - the general opinion rejected the painting for its “unnaturalness.” Of course, veils do not walk the streets, but this does not mean that no one has ever seen them. The whole question is whether the boy in the picture can see him.” This picture amazingly conveys Bartholomew’s tender, prayerful mood. Against the background of forests and fields in the foreground of the picture there are two figures - a boy and a saint who appeared to him under a tree in the clothes of a schema-monk. The young boy froze in trembling delight, his wide-open eyes staring at the vision. “The enchanting horror of the supernatural,” wrote A. Benois, “has rarely been conveyed in painting with such simplicity and convincingness. There is something very subtly guessed, very correctly found in the figure of the monk, as if in fatigue, leaning against a tree and completely hidden in his gloomy schema. But the most wonderful thing in this picture is the landscape, extremely simple, gray, even dull and yet solemnly festive. It seems as if the air is clouded with thick Sunday gospel, as if marvelous Easter singing is flowing over this valley.” Of course, this is not an illustration, but the artist’s own vision of an important episode from the life of Sergius of Radonezh.

During his time in the desert, Sergius was not left alone. One day a large bear appeared in front of the hut, which was not so much fierce as hungry. The saint took pity on the beast and brought him a piece of bread. After this, the animal began to often come to Sergius’s house. Sometimes Sergius gave all his bread to the guest, but he himself was left without food. About the painting “The Youth of St. Sergius” (1892-1897), Nesterov himself said in his letters: “Now, many years later, many consider “Sergius with the Bear” the best of my works.”

Several paintings were included in a series called “The Works of St. Sergius” (1896-1897). These are moments in life when the Saint lived with his brethren. The dominant role is played by the landscape, and of different seasons. Sergius, with his peasant, common people nature, prevented the monks from doing nothing, and he himself was the first to set an example of humble hard work. Here Nesterov came closer to realizing his constant dream - to create the image of a perfect person, close to his native land, philanthropic, kind. There is not only nothing assertive in Sergius, but also nothing pompous, ostentatious, or deliberate. He does not pose, but simply lives among his equals and his own kind, without standing out in any way. When you look at these pictures, the words of B. Zaitsev come to mind: “Sergius set an example in everything. He himself chopped down cells, carried logs, carried water in two waterpots up the mountain, ground with hand millstones, baked bread, cooked food, cut and sewed clothes and shoes, and was, according to Epiphanius, “like a bought slave” for everyone. And he was probably an excellent carpenter now. In summer and winter he wore the same clothes, neither the frost nor the heat bothered him. Physically, despite the meager food (bread and water), he was very strong, “he had strength against two people.”

Nesterov had thoughts of creating a canvas entitled “Farewell of St. Sergius to Prince Dmitry Donskoy” (sketches, 1898-1899), but, unfortunately, the idea was not brought to life.

I would like to point out Mikhail Vasilyevich’s painting “The Hermit” (1889). His old monk is a simpleton, with a naive faith in God, not experienced in religious and philosophical speculations, but pure in heart, sinless, close to the earth - this is what makes him so happy. But Nesterov found this human type in life. He based his hermit on Father Gordey, a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, attracted by his childish smile and eyes shining with infinite kindness. (All paintings – see Appendix I)

2.5 The life of St. Sergius in the icons of Sergei Kharlamov.

Literature and painting have come a long way through the centuries. And they changed along the way. Even now new directions are emerging. But the most important thing is that modern literature came from ancient Russian literature, and painting came from icon painting.

Sergei Mikhailovich Kharlamov is an icon painter, member of the Union of Artists of Russia, People's Artist of Russia, laureate of the St. Andrew the First-Called Prize. From 1972 to 1979, the artist’s attention was drawn to the theme of the Battle of Kulikovo. His works are devoid of grandeur. He rarely shows the action itself; it is important for him to convey the internal dramatic movement, the readiness for heroism. Therefore, a significant place is occupied by plots depicting the moment preceding the battle (“Dmitry Donskoy”, “Prayer before the battle”).

Engravings by People's Artist of Russia Sergei Kharlamov (born in 1942) “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” were created in 1991 and published in 1992 by the Russian Spiritual Center (Moscow). In each of the engravings, St. Sergius is depicted at important moments of his ascetic life: here is a conversation with the Mother of God, who visited him in his cell, here is hard and at the same time joyful work in the monastery; The engravings for the holidays are interesting: The monk with a willow branch meets Christ, and here Saint Sergius releases the birds into the wild on the feast of the Annunciation.

“Reverend Sergius came to us from another world, a world about which we can only guess. The world of holy people and ascetics, which was Ancient Rus'. And we, realizing this, with all humility turn to those bright images, finding in them moral and spiritual support,” says icon painter S. Kharlamov. – St. Sergius is the guardian angel of Russia, a lamp of the faith of Christ, an ascetic of piety and peacemaking. His bright name, his path, his exploits inspire us and ignite our hearts with faith in the Lord and love for the Motherland...”

(All engravings - see Appendix I)

3. The significance of Sergius of Radonezh for Russian history and the state. V. O. Klyuchevsky about the Reverend.

The illustrious monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity was founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh in 1337. For centuries, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra has been one of the most revered all-Russian shrines, the largest center of spiritual enlightenment and culture. Thousands of pilgrims flock to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra from all over Russia, from near and far abroad. The oldest building on the territory of the Lavra is the Trinity Cathedral (1422-1425), in which the holy relics of the Abbot of the Russian Land, St. Sergius of Radonezh, rest.

We got acquainted with the biography of the great Saint Sergius of Radonezh. Each artist of word and brush saw it differently and showed it to us the way he imagined it. The general conclusions about the life of the saint of the Russian land are also indisputable: He is the enemy of all haters of Christ, all who assert themselves and forget about the Truth. There are a lot of them in our time, when the “tearing” of the world has gone so far.

V. O. Klyuchevsky speaks about the significance of St. Sergius for the Russian people and state: “Even during the life of the St. Sergius, as his contemporary life writer tells us, many people came to him from various countries and cities, and among those who came were monks and princes, and nobles, and ordinary people “living in the countryside.” And my contemporaries come to the tomb of the Reverend with their thoughts, prayers and hopes...

By the example of his life, the height of his spirit, kindness and love, humility and patience, courage and perseverance, St. Sergius is dear to people in the 21st century. “Reverend Sergius, interlocutor of Angels, most luminous lamp for our Fatherland, pray to God for us.”

4.List of references used.

1. Reader on the history of Russia. Book 1. From ancient times to the 17th century. – M.: International relations, 1994.

2. Boris Zaitsev. “People of God” - M.: “Soviet Russia”, 1991.

3. G. K. Wagner. "In search of truth". M: Publishing house "Art" - 1993

4. M.V. Nesterov. Letters.

5. Word. VII'91

6. http://www.tanais.info/art/nesterov1more.html

7. http://art-nesterov.ru/nesterov/nesterov7.php

Appendix I

Paintings by M. V. Nesterov

Icon and engravings by S. Kharlamov

Review

for the work of 8th grade student Irina Khatuntseva.

Irina Khatuntseva’s study “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Literature and Painting” is important primarily because in the modern, often unspiritual world, an attempt is made to talk about spirituality, patience, mercy and compassion, sacrifice and humility. Using the example of the life of the great saint of the Russian land, the path of Love for people and God is shown.

The literary sources presented in the scientific work and telling about Saint Sergius are different: this is the “Life” written by Epiphanius the Wise, this is also the fictional story of Boris Zaitsev, written in exile.

The analysis of “Life” as a genre of literature is fully reflected in the research work of Irina Khatuntseva. The student dwells in detail on the features of the work of Epiphanius the Wise.

The story by B. Zaitsev examines the biography of St. Sergius from the point of view of the formation of a hero, analyzes the character, actions, and activities of the saint.

Elements of the synthesis of arts - literature and painting - are also reflected in the student’s work. The image of Sergius of Radonezh is presented in the paintings of artists of different eras: M. Nesterov (XIX century) and S. Kharlamov (XX century-XXI century)

The work of Irina Khatuntseva is distinguished by the consistency of the presentation of the material, the harmony of the composition, the logic and completeness of the conclusions.

The work is written in a light, emotional language and is provided with vivid illustrated material.

Scientific supervisor: Denisova T.V.

According to ancient legend, the estate of the parents of Sergius of Radonezh, the boyars of Rostov, was located in the vicinity of Rostov the Great, on the road to Yaroslavl. The parents, “noble boyars,” apparently lived simply; they were quiet, calm people, with a strong and serious way of life.

St. Kirill and Maria. Painting of the Ascension Church on Grodka (Pavlov Posad) Parents of Sergius of Radonezh

Although Cyril more than once accompanied the princes of Rostov to the Horde, as a trusted, close person, he himself did not live richly. One cannot even talk about any luxury or licentiousness of the later landowner. Rather, on the contrary, one might think that home life is closer to that of a peasant: as a boy, Sergius (and then Bartholomew) was sent to the field to fetch horses. This means that he knew how to confuse them and turn them around. And leading him to some stump, grabbing him by the bangs, jumping up and trotting home in triumph. Perhaps he chased them at night too. And, of course, he was not a barchuk.

One can imagine parents as respectable and fair people, religious to a high degree. They helped the poor and willingly welcomed strangers.

On May 3, Maria had a son. The priest gave him the name Bartholomew, after the feast day of this saint. The special shade that distinguishes it lies on the child from early childhood.

At the age of seven, Bartholomew was sent to study literacy in a church school together with his brother Stefan. Stefan studied well. Bartholomew was not good at science. Like Sergius later, little Bartholomew is very stubborn and tries, but there is no success. He's upset. The teacher sometimes punishes him. Comrades laugh and parents reassure. Bartholomew cries alone, but does not move forward.

And here is a village picture, so close and so understandable six hundred years later! The foals wandered somewhere and disappeared. His father sent Bartholomew to look for them; the boy had probably wandered like this more than once, through the fields, in the forest, perhaps near the shores of Lake Rostov, and called to them, patted them with a whip, and dragged their halters. With all Bartholomew’s love for solitude, nature and with all his dreaminess, he, of course, carried out every task most conscientiously - this trait marked his entire life.

Sergius of Radonezh. Miracle

Now he - very depressed by his failures - found not what he was looking for. Under the oak tree I met “an elder of the monk, with the rank of presbyter.” Obviously, the elder understood him.

What do you want, boy?

Bartholomew, through tears, spoke about his sorrows and asked to pray that God would help him overcome the letter.

And under the same oak tree the old man stood to pray. Next to him is Bartholomew - a halter over his shoulder. Having finished, the stranger took out the reliquary from his bosom, took a piece of prosphora, blessed Bartholomew with it and ordered him to eat it.

This is given to you as a sign of grace and for the understanding of the Holy Scriptures. From now on, you will master reading and writing better than your brothers and comrades.

We don’t know what they talked about next. But Bartholomew invited the elder home. His parents received him well, as they usually do with strangers. The elder called the boy to the prayer room and ordered him to read psalms. The child made the excuse of inability. But the visitor himself gave the book, repeating the order.

And they fed the guest, and at dinner they told him about the signs over his son. The elder again confirmed that Bartholomew would now understand the Holy Scripture well and master reading.

[After the death of his parents, Bartholomew himself went to the Khotkovo-Pokrovsky Monastery, where his widowed brother Stefan had already been monasticized. Striving for “the strictest monasticism”, for living in the wilderness, he did not stay here long and, having convinced Stefan, together with him he founded a hermitage on the banks of the Konchura River, on the Makovets hill in the middle of the remote Radonezh forest, where he built (about 1335) a small wooden church in the name of Holy Trinity, on the site of which now stands a cathedral church also in the name of the Holy Trinity.

Unable to withstand the too harsh and ascetic lifestyle, Stefan soon left for the Moscow Epiphany Monastery, where he later became abbot. Bartholomew, left completely alone, called upon a certain abbot Mitrofan and received tonsure from him under the name Sergius, since on that day the memory of the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus was celebrated. He was 23 years old.]

Having performed the rite of tonsure, Mitrofan introduced Sergius of Radonezh to St. Tyne. Sergius spent seven days without leaving his “church”, prayed, did not “eat” anything except the prosphora that Mitrofan gave. And when the time came for Mitrofan to leave, he asked for his blessing for his desert life.

The abbot supported him and calmed him down as much as he could. And the young monk remained alone among his gloomy forests.

Images of animals and vile reptiles appeared before him. They rushed at him with whistling and gnashing of teeth. One night, according to the story of the monk, when in his “church” he was “singing matins,” Satan himself suddenly entered through the wall, with him a whole “demonic regiment.” They drove him away, threatened him, advanced. He prayed. (“May God rise again, and may His enemies be scattered…”) The demons disappeared.

Will he survive in a formidable forest, in a wretched cell? The autumn and winter snowstorms on his Makovitsa must have been terrible! After all, Stefan couldn’t stand it. But Sergius is not like that. He is persistent, patient, and he is “God-loving.”

He lived like this, completely alone, for some time.

Sergius of Radonezh. Tame bear

Sergius once saw a huge bear, weak from hunger, near his cells. And I regretted it. He brought a piece of bread from his cell and served it - since childhood, like his parents, he had been “strangely accepted.” The furry wanderer ate peacefully. Then he began to visit him. Sergius always served. And the bear became tame.

The youth of St. Sergius (Sergius of Radonezh). Nesterov M.V.

But no matter how lonely the monk was at this time, there were rumors about his desert life. And then people began to appear, asking to be taken in and saved together. Sergius dissuaded. He pointed out the difficulty of life, the hardships associated with it. Stefan's example was still alive for him. Still, he gave in. And I accepted several...

Twelve cells were built. They surrounded it with a fence for protection from animals. The cells stood under huge pine and spruce trees. The stumps of freshly cut down trees stuck out. Between them the brothers planted their modest vegetable garden. They lived quietly and harshly.

Sergius of Radonezh set an example in everything. He himself chopped down cells, carried logs, carried water in two water carriers up the mountain, ground with hand millstones, baked bread, cooked food, cut and sewed clothes. And he was probably an excellent carpenter now. In summer and winter he wore the same clothes, neither the frost nor the heat bothered him. Physically, despite the meager food, he was very strong, “he had the strength against two people.”

He was the first to attend the services.

Works of St. Sergius (Sergius of Radonezh). Nesterov M.V.

So the years passed. The community lived undeniably under the leadership of Sergius. The monastery grew, became more complex and had to take shape. The brethren wanted Sergius to become abbot. But he refused.

The desire for abbess, he said, is the beginning and root of the lust for power.

But the brethren insisted. Several times the elders “attacked” him, persuaded him, convinced him. Sergius himself founded the hermitage, he himself built the church; who should be the abbot and perform the liturgy?

The insistence almost turned into threats: the brethren declared that if there was no abbot, everyone would disperse. Then Sergius, exercising his usual sense of proportion, yielded, but also relatively.

I wish, - he said, - it is better to study than to teach; It is better to obey than to command; but I am afraid of God's judgment; I don’t know what pleases God; the holy will of the Lord be done!

And he decided not to argue - to transfer the matter to the discretion of the church authorities.

Father, they brought a lot of bread, bless you to accept it. Here, according to your holy prayers, they are at the gate.

Sergius blessed, and several carts loaded with baked bread, fish and various foodstuffs entered the monastery gates. Sergius rejoiced and said:

Well, you hungry ones, feed our breadwinners, invite them to share a common meal with us.

He ordered everyone to hit the beater, go to church, and serve a thanksgiving prayer service. And only after the prayer service he blessed us to sit down for a meal. The bread turned out to be warm and soft, as if it had just come out of the oven.

Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (Sergius of Radonezh). Lissner E.

The monastery was no longer needed as before. But Sergius was still just as simple - poor, poor and indifferent to benefits, as he remained until his death. Neither power nor various “differences” interested him at all. A quiet voice, quiet movements, a calm face, that of a holy Great Russian carpenter. It contains our rye and cornflowers, birches and mirror-like waters, swallows and crosses and the incomparable fragrance of Russia. Everything is elevated to the utmost lightness and purity.

Many came from afar just to look at the monk. This is the time when the “old man” is heard throughout Russia, when he becomes close to Metropolitan. Alexy, settles disputes, carries out a grandiose mission to spread monasteries.

The monk wanted a stricter order, closer to the early Christian community. Everyone is equal and everyone is equally poor. Nobody has anything. The monastery lives as a community.

The innovation expanded and complicated the activities of Sergius. It was necessary to build new buildings - a refectory, a bakery, storerooms, barns, housekeeping, etc. Previously, his leadership was only spiritual - the monks went to him as a confessor, for confession, for support and guidance.

Everyone capable of work had to work. Private property is strictly prohibited.

To manage the increasingly complex community, Sergius chose assistants and distributed responsibilities among them. The first person after the abbot was considered the cellarer. This position was first established in Russian monasteries by St. Theodosius of Pechersk. The cellarer was in charge of the treasury, deanery and household management - not only inside the monastery. When the estates appeared, he was in charge of their life. Rules and court cases.

Already under Sergius, apparently, there was its own arable farming - there are arable fields around the monastery, partly they are cultivated by monks, partly by hired peasants, partly by those who want to work for the monastery. So the cellarer has a lot of worries.

One of the first cellarers of the Lavra was St. Nikon, later abbot.

The most experienced in spiritual life was appointed as confessor. He is the confessor of the brethren. , founder of the monastery near Zvenigorod, was one of the first confessors. Later this position was given to Epiphanius, the biographer of Sergius.

The ecclesiarch kept order in the church. Lesser positions: para-ecclesiarch - kept the church clean, canonarch - led “choir obedience” and kept liturgical books.

This is how they lived and worked in the monastery of Sergius, now famous, with roads built to it, where they could stop and stay for a while - whether for ordinary people or for the prince.

Two metropolitans, both remarkable, fill the century: Peter and Alexy. Hegumen of the army Peter, a Volynian by birth, was the first Russian metropolitan to be based in the north - first in Vladimir, then in Moscow. Peter was the first to bless Moscow. In fact, he gave his whole life for her. It is he who goes to the Horde, obtains a letter of protection from Uzbek for the clergy, and constantly helps the prince.

Metropolitan Alexy is from the high-ranking, ancient boyars of the city of Chernigov. His fathers and grandfathers shared with the prince the work of governing and defending the state. On the icons they are depicted side by side: Peter, Alexy, in white hoods, faces darkened by time, narrow and long, gray beards... Two tireless creators and workers, two “intercessors” and “patrons” of Moscow.

Etc. Sergius was still a boy under Peter; he lived with Alexy for many years in harmony and friendship. But St. Sergius was a hermit and a “man of prayer”, a lover of the forest, silence - his life path was different. Should he, since childhood, having moved away from the malice of this world, live at court, in Moscow, rule, sometimes lead intrigues, appoint, dismiss, threaten! Metropolitan Alexy often comes to his Lavra - perhaps to relax with a quiet man - from struggle, unrest and politics.

The Monk Sergius came into life when the Tatar system was already breaking down. The times of Batu, the ruins of Vladimir, Kyiv, the Battle of the City - everything is far away. Two processes are underway, the Horde is disintegrating, and the young Russian state is growing stronger. The Horde is splitting up, Rus' is uniting. The Horde has several rivals vying for power. They cut each other, are deposited, leave, weakening the strength of the whole. In Russia, on the contrary, there is an ascension.

Meanwhile, Mamai rose to prominence in the Horde and became khan. He gathered the entire Volga Horde, hired the Khivans, Yases and Burtases, came to an agreement with the Genoese, the Lithuanian prince Jagiello - in the summer he founded his camp at the mouth of the Voronezh River. Jagiello was waiting.

This is a dangerous time for Dimitri.

Until now, Sergius was a quiet hermit, a carpenter, a modest abbot and educator, a saint. Now he faced a difficult task: blessings on the blood. Would Christ bless a war, even a national one?

St. Sergius of Radonezh blesses D. Donskoy. Kivshenko A.D.

Rus' has gathered

On August 18, Dimitri with Prince Vladimir of Serpukhov, princes of other regions and governors arrived at the Lavra. It was probably both solemn and deeply serious: Rus' really came together. Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal, Serpukhov, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, Belozersk, Murom, Pskov with Andrei Olgerdovich - this is the first time such forces have been deployed. It was not in vain that we set off. Everyone understood this.

The prayer service began. During the service, messengers arrived - the war was going on in the Lavra - they reported on the movement of the enemy, and warned them to hurry up. Sergius begged Dimitri to stay for the meal. Here he told him:

The time has not yet come for you to wear the crown of victory with eternal sleep; but many, countless of your collaborators are woven with martyr’s wreaths.

After the meal, the monk blessed the prince and his entire retinue, sprinkled St. water.

Go, don't be afraid. God will help you.

And, leaning down, he whispered in his ear: “You will win.”

There is something majestic, with a tragic connotation, in the fact that Sergius gave two monks-schema monks as assistants to Prince Sergius: Peresvet and Oslyabya. They were warriors in the world and went against the Tatars without helmets or armor - in the image of a schema, with white crosses on monastic clothes. Obviously, this gave Demetrius’s army a sacred crusader appearance.

On the 20th, Dmitry was already in Kolomna. On the 26th-27th, the Russians crossed the Oka and advanced towards the Don through Ryazan land. It was reached on September 6th. And they hesitated. Should we wait for the Tatars or cross over?

The older, experienced governors suggested: we should wait here. Mamai is strong, and Lithuania and Prince Oleg Ryazansky are with him. Dimitri, contrary to advice, crossed the Don. The way back was cut off, which means everything is forward, victory or death.

Sergius was also in the highest spirit these days. And in time he sent a letter after the prince: “Go, sir, go forward, God and the Holy Trinity will help!”

According to legend, Peresvet, who had long been ready for death, jumped out at the call of the Tatar hero, and, having grappled with Chelubey, struck him, he himself fell. A general battle began, on a gigantic front of ten miles at that time. Sergius correctly said: “Many are woven with martyr’s wreaths.” There were a lot of them intertwined.

During these hours the monk prayed with the brethren in his church. He talked about the progress of the battle. He named the fallen and read funeral prayers. And at the end he said: “We won.”

Venerable Sergius of Radonezh. Demise

Sergius of Radonezh came to his Makovitsa as a modest and unknown young man Bartholomew, and left as a most illustrious old man. Before the monk, there was a forest on Makovitsa, a spring nearby, and bears lived in the wilds next door. And when he died, the place stood out sharply from the forests and from Russia. On Makovitsa there was a monastery - the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, one of the four laurels of our homeland. The forests cleared up around, fields appeared, rye, oats, villages. Even under Sergius, a remote hillock in the forests of Radonezh became a bright attraction for thousands. Sergius of Radonezh founded not only his monastery and did not operate from it alone. Countless are the monasteries that arose with his blessing, founded by his disciples - and imbued with his spirit.

So, the young man Bartholomew, having retired to the forests on “Makovitsa”, turned out to be the creator of a monastery, then monasteries, then monasticism in general in a huge country.

Having left no writings behind him, Sergius seems to teach nothing. But he teaches precisely with his whole appearance: to some he is consolation and refreshment, to others - a silent reproach. Silently, Sergius teaches the simplest things: truth, integrity, masculinity, work, reverence and faith.

• educational: to give students an idea of ​​the features of hagiographic literature using the example of “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”, to consider the stages of the spiritual path of the abbot, to find out how the ideal image of a saint is created in literature, to consolidate the skills of revealing the image of a saint;
• developing: develop the culture of oral speech, text analysis skills, expressive reading and retelling skills, attention, logical and creative thinking, develop the ability to compare and draw conclusions;
• educational: the formation of the spiritual world of schoolchildren, moral principles, aesthetic tastes through the power of the influence of the artistic word using the example of the image of Sergius of Radonezh, to educate an inquisitive, aesthetically developed, creative reader, to cultivate interest in literature lessons, to introduce students to the original Russian culture;

Techniques: conversation, independent work, frontal and individual questioning, demonstration of specific objects, observation, expressive reading;

Equipment: multimedia installation, computer, presentation.

Reproductions of paintings:

• M.V. Nesterov “Vision to the youth Bartholomew”,
• Andrey Rublev "Old Testament Trinity"
• A.P. Bubnov “Morning on the Kulikovo Field”,
• M. Avilov “Duel of Peresvet with Chelubey”
• Audio recording of bell ringing
• Multimedia projector with screen

The interactive board presents a plan of life drawn up in the last lesson, words are written with an interpretation of their meaning: composition, life (life), repose (death), youth (teenager), monk (monk), temptation (test), abbot (senior) .

LESSON PROGRESS (2 lessons)

The epigraph of the lesson sounds:

How much faith, how much strength!

The flesh is overcome by the Spirit.

With this faith the darkness of the grave

Man is not afraid!

Blessed Examples –

These lights of the earth...

Oh, just a little bit of faith

Send them to me, Lord!

A. Kruglova.

The bells are ringing, and I. S. Aksakov’s poem “All-Night Vigil in the Village” sounds against their background:

Come, you weak one,

Come, joyful one!

They are ringing for the all-night vigil,

To the blessed prayer...

and the humbling ringing

Everyone's soul asks,

neighborhood calling

spreads across the fields.

Both old and young will enter:

First he will pray,

bows to the ground,

Bow down all around...

And slender clergy

There's singing

And the deacon is peaceful

Repeats the announcement

About gratitude

The work of those who pray,

The royal fence

About all workers

About those who are destined

Suffering is set...

And there was smoke hanging in the church

Thick with incense

And those who come in

strong rays,

And shiny at all times

Pillars of dust,

From the sun God's temple

It burns and glows.

1. Setting lesson goals.

Teacher's word.

The soul of a person glows and burns in the same way during prayer; in the same way, St. Sergius of Radonezh sanctified and attracted hundreds and thousands of people to himself. Today we will talk about the life of this intercessor and prayer book for the Russian land. At the end of the lesson we will have to answer the questions:

How did Sergius of Radonezh deserve the love and veneration of people?

Why, centuries later, do people go to the Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergius to bow to Father Sergius?

Why do we and our contemporaries living in the 21st century need to study the life of a saint?

Today in the lesson we will take you on a journey through time and go to the distant 14th century to meet a man who, for his righteous life, was elevated to the saints of the Russian Land. His name is Sergius of Radonezh. We will get acquainted with his life, which in church language is called life, deeds, miracles. The purpose of our time travel will be to resolve the question:

“Why was Sergius of Radonezh canonized?”

We learned about Sergius of Radonezh from the life written by his disciple Epiphanius the Wise. What kind of genre of literature is this - hagiography? (A genre of literature that artistically tells the biography of a historical figure, canonized by the church. A hagiography is a biography. It tells not only about the facts of the biography, but also the spiritual life of a person).

What life did we study last year? (“The Life of Boris and Gleb”).

Students copy the topic of the lesson from the board into their notebooks:

“The Life of our Venerable Father Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, the New Wonderworker.”

The teacher draws attention to the icons (on the icons is the face of Sergius of Radonezh), pointing out the difference in the image of the saint, emphasizing that the icon is a picturesque image of God or saints. Recalling that among believers (Orthodox) the icon is an object of worship, they turn to it with Prayer.

– Who will remember and read the Prayer aloud? (Everyone in the class knows “Our Father,” troparion to St. Sergius of Radonezh)

– Prayer is not only an appeal to God. She teaches us very important things: modesty, the ability to forgive, be kind and strive only for the good. Orthodox believers, who are not given teaching today, turn to the icon of St. Sergius with the words: “Reverend Father Sergius! Pray to God for me!”

2. Let us turn to the text of the life.

What name was given to the saint at baptism?

What was Bartholomew like as a child?

In the last lesson, we worked with the plan “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh” (it is presented on the interactive board throughout the lesson) and became acquainted with the basic rules (canons) by which this genre of ancient Russian literature is built. Tell us about them. (A story about pious parents, the hero’s childhood, his faith in God, miracles during life and after death, the repose of a saint).

So, we will begin our journey with a story about the childhood of the saint. Tell me.

(Detailed retelling of the passage).

3.Work with the painting by M. Nesterov “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew”

Expressive reading of a poem by heart:

He was adorned with abstinence,

He fasted strictly from an early age.

In prayer and good deeds

The days of his heyday are passing.

He loved poor clothes,

He worked for family needs.

He was meek, quiet, diligent in everything

And children's entertainment is alien.

One thing about him upset his loved ones:

It was difficult to get a diploma,

But that also meant

A special craft about him.

He meets a wonderful old man,

He decides to tell him

What he most desires

Understand book science.

And the monk, having prayed,

He gave the prosphora to the youth,

And he, having tasted it without losing his mind,

I read the Psalter with zeal.

Since then he has studied successfully,

Thus pleasing father and mother

And I prayed more than ever,

Dreaming of becoming a monk himself.

How did the artist depict Bartholomew?

This youth is the future Saint Sergius. Pay attention to the composition of the picture.

What is composition? (Construction of the work).

The youth and the elder stand on a dais. They are in the foreground of the picture, which means they are the main characters, but what is behind them? (Russian land).

How do you explain this arrangement of parts of the picture? (St. Sergius is the future prayer book for Rus', the Russian people, their intercessor).

What episode of life does this picture illustrate? (Detailed retelling of the passage “Meeting of the Youth Bartholomew with the Elder”).

What do we pay attention to first of all when looking at a picture? What is prosphora? Let's look at the dictionary:

Chernorizets is a monk.

Prosphora is bread that is eaten before and after the liturgy.

Fasting is abstinence from food.

A monk is a monk who has achieved holiness.

Liturgy is the main church service held in the first half of the day.

Who do you think this old man was? (Messenger of God, maybe an angel).

(Description of the painting: against the backdrop of forests and fields in the foreground of the picture there are two figures - a boy and a saint who appeared to him under a tree in the clothes of a schema-monk. The young boy froze in trembling delight, his wide open eyes are not looking away from the vision. The artist conveyed a touching prayer the boy's mood. Not only his thin figure and enthusiastically tender eyes fixed on the schema-monk are full of prayer; the entire landscape, transformed by the master's hand into a harmonious harmony of colors, also prays. The painting reveals the deepest recesses of the soul; it did not depict melancholy or thought, but rather joy dream come true. And we hear the words of the saint: “From now on, child, God will grant you the understanding that you ask for, so that you can teach others.”

What is Bartholomew's purpose in life? Why did he go into the desert? (Work for people for the glory of God).

Why did you become a monk? (Monastic tonsure is the most important event in the spiritual life of Sergius of Radonezh; he devoted himself to serving God and people).

What tests did he have to go through? What difficulties to overcome? (He worked a lot, endured the cold in light clothes, drove away demons with prayer).

Why did people come to him? What was expected of him? (They wanted to become better, cleaner, they were waiting for help, advice, a kind word, healing).

What character traits are characteristic of Father Sergius? (Deep faith, modesty, hard work, love for people, for the native land).

Who is a righteous man? Let's look at the dictionary

A righteous person is a godly person who lives in accordance with the Law of God.

How did the Lord help Sergius of Radonezh? What miracles could he do? (Through his prayer, a spring appeared, lepers were cleansed, the blind received their sight, those who came to him gained physical health and spiritual benefit, he raised a dead youth)

What always underlies his activities? (Love for God, for people, for the native land).

Pay attention to the 16th century miniature from the life of Sergius of Radonezh.

4. The teacher's word.

Our version of life does not contain a very important passage. You will listen to him now.

Detailed retelling of the passage. (Individual homework).

“Bartholomew, who was then about 15 years old, also followed his parents to Radonezh. His brothers had already married by that time. When the young man turned 20 years old, he began to ask his parents to bless him to take monastic vows: he had long sought to devote himself to the Lord. Although his parents placed monastic life above all else, they asked their son to wait a while.

Child,” they told him, “you know that we are old; The end of our life is already near, and there is no one except you who would serve us in our old age. Be patient a little longer, give us burial, and then no one will stop you from fulfilling your cherished desire.

Bartholomew, like a dutiful and loving son, obeyed the will of his parents and diligently tried to calm their old age in order to earn their prayers and blessings.

Shortly before their death, Cyril and Maria accepted monasticism in the Intercession Khotkov Monastery, three miles away from Radonezh. Bartholomew's elder brother Stefan, who was widowed around that time, also came here and joined the ranks of the monks. A little later, the parents of the holy youth, one soon after the other, reposed in peace to the Lord and were buried in this monastery. After the death of their parents, the brothers spent forty days here, offering fervent prayers to the Lord for the repose of the newly deceased servants of God. Cyril and Maria left all their property to Bartholomew.

Seeing the death of his parents, the monk thought to himself: “I am mortal and I will also die, like my parents.” Thinking in this way about the shortness of this life, the prudent youth gave away all the property of his parents, leaving nothing for himself, even for food he did not keep anything for himself, for he trusted in God, who gives bread to the needy.”

Think about why this passage is important to us? What new do we learn about St. Sergius from it? (We learn about the obedience of the future saint.)

And so he went into the dense forests of Radonezh and lived alone. How did his other, different, and therefore monastic life begin? (It started with temptations).

Tell us about them.

Vocabulary work.

We have already encountered relatives of the word “temptation” in Russian language lessons. Remember what words the etymological roots of this word go back to? (Art, skillful, bite.) Children write down related words on the interactive board.

Why does God send such trials and temptations to his chosen people, since it is very difficult to overcome them? (God tempers a person for further service, because it cannot be easy. God makes a person skillful.)

Pay attention to the triptych by artist M. Nesterov (triptych is a three-part painting). The life of the monks was spent in constant labor and hardship. Life was not easy for them in the Sergius Monastery. The charter (set of rules) was very strict: “Let monks not leave the monastery to ask the laity for bread, but put their hope in God, who feeds every breath, and with faith ask Him for everything they need.” What difficulties did the monks experience and how did they overcome them?

A detailed retelling of the passage “The Difficulties of Life in a Monastery.”

But there were not only difficulties in the life of Saint Sergius and his brethren. He performed miracles, which, according to church canons, are a prerequisite for canonization. Tell us about these miracles.

Selective retelling of the passage “The Miracles of St. Sergius.”

5. Conversation. Teacher's word:

This life seemed interesting to me also because it reveals the spiritual, personal qualities of St. Sergius. Let's talk about the spiritual beauty of this man. You remember how a villager came to him from afar and wanted to see him, but did not believe those around him that the poor man in torn, thin clothes, digging the earth, was Saint Sergius. He even thought that they were making a joke on him, pointing out this poor man as a saint. In his hearts, this farmer said: “I have done so much work in vain!.. I see some beggar and dishonest old man.” How did Sergius of Radonezh himself react to these offensive words? (Selective reading).

How do these words characterize the saint? (Modest, humble, non-offensive).

And what can you say about him based on his next act - leaving the monastery, he left secretly, without telling anyone. (He wanted to pray and serve only God, he did not seek glory from people).

And when his brothers came to ask him to return, what did he do? (Back).

Did he want to be begged, flattered? (No, he returned out of great love for his brothers, out of obedience, because without him it would have been very difficult for them).

Prove that Sergius of Radonezh was very modest. (He refused the metropolitan cap, which was offered to him by Metropolitan Alexy).

And he was also very kind. And even the animals felt this kindness. When Sergius of Radonezh lived alone in the forest, a wild bear came to his hut; in a hungry winter, this connecting rod came to his house and took bread from his hand. And the bear did not attack him.

6. Let's turn to history.

In the early sixties of the 14th century, the smart, cunning Khan Mamai came to power in the Golden Horde. Moscow Prince Dmitry Ivanovich at this time becomes the supreme defender of the Russian lands. Decisive events are brewing. On the eve of the great battle on the Kulikovo Field, Grand Duke Dmitry goes to Elder Sergius. We know that Sergius of Radonezh received Prince Dmitry Ivanovich (the future Donskoy) in his monastery, who was deciding whether to go to battle with the Tatars, because the latter had countless forces. In our version of the life, this story is given concisely, and we will listen to a detailed retelling.

Checking individual homework. Expressive reading of the passage “Prince Dmitry Ivanovich at St. Sergius” with a slide show.

“The prince came for a blessing on Saturday evening, August 15, along with a small detachment. Until late at night, the ardent prince walked excitedly in the small cell, sat down, jumped up and spoke passionately with Sergius about the upcoming battle. The old abbot listened humbly and attentively and long ago understood what the proud Dmitry had not said. He did not want a simple blessing, but an unusual one, which the Christian world had not yet known.

Long after midnight, Sergius, having seen Dmitry off for a short overnight stay, ordered the most righteous elders to be awakened and gathered for council in the church, and the next morning, without having rested for an hour, he served a long and solemn liturgy.

The broad-shouldered, iron-clad princely squad stood calmly and with dignity in the church. After the service, Father Sergius invited us to dine in the monastery refectory. There was no way to refuse: after all, dinner at the table with the monks cleansed you from sins and introduced you to the sacraments of Christ. And only after a leisurely meal, going out into the courtyard, Father Sergius sprinkled all the soldiers bowing in respect to him with holy water and made the sign of a wooden cross. And then, excitedly, loudly and solemnly, so that many gathered in the monastery could hear, he exclaimed:

Go, sir, to the filthy Polovtsy, calling on God! And God will be your helper and protector!

And at that moment, when everyone, having crossed themselves, bowed low to the ground, the old abbot bent down to the prince and quietly, to him alone, whispered:

You will be able, sir, to defeat your adversaries, as befits you.

Dmitry quickly, fieryly looked into the deep, prophetic eyes of Sergius and felt in his heart: it will be so. The monks parted on two sides, and two tall, courageous monks came out to Dmitry. The first, older one, is boyar Andrei Oslyabya, the second is Alexander Peresvet. On their heads they wore black helmets of salvation - pointed kukuli with embroidered white crosses.

Here are my squires,” the old abbot said simply.

Sergius knew that the Russian army, seeing the soldiers of Christ ahead of them, would perk up in spirit: after all, if God is with them, then who can be against them? And their courage will become like a fearless lion.

“Peace be with you, my beloved,” Father Sergius finally baptized all his children. - Fight hard, like good warriors, for the faith of Christ and for all Orthodox Christianity with the filthy Polovtsians.

The detachment took off and flew swiftly, like a ringing arrow fired by a strong hand.”

How did you see the saint in this episode? (Visible, inspires hope, confidence in victory, loves the Russian land).

Let's look at the dictionary:

Perspicacious - insightful, able to predict, foresee.

Here is a reproduction of A.P. Bubnov’s painting “Morning on the Kulikovo Field”. Russian soldiers clearly appear in the morning fog. The artist conveys the determination to fight to the end, the impatient anticipation of the start of the battle. M. Avilov depicted the duel between Peresvet and Chelubey. Two fighters pierced each other with spears.

What does “Life..” say about the course of the battle and its completion?

How does this episode characterize Sergius of Radonezh? (Prayer book and intercessor for the Russian land).

7. Conversation

Prove, based on the text, that one becomes a saint during one’s lifetime. (He had the gift of clairvoyance; the Most Pure One appeared to him with two apostles).

How is the image of an ideal saint created in “The Life…”? (To create the character of the saint, the author talks about the miracles performed by the saint, about his communication with angels and the Most Pure One, about the ability to heal the sick and raise the dead).

What character traits does the saint have? (Humility, mercy, asceticism, insight, moral beauty. He views life as a public service)

What did he devote his whole life to? (Father Sergius dedicated his life to public service. He helped those in need, healed physical and spiritual ailments. To overcome enmity between people, he called on Divine truth for help. “Be united in your individuality, as unmerged and indivisible in one God - Father, Son and The Holy Spirit!" he called. It is difficult to understand this truth with the human mind; great faith is needed here. And an icon can also help - such an icon was later painted by the Russian artist Andrei Rublev in glorification of Sergius of Radonezh. This icon is the “Old Testament Trinity”).

What does the “Life...” say about the incorruptible relics of the saint?

(His relics are in the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, which he founded. Thousands of people come there to worship. Let’s take a look at the Lavra.

The Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra is a unique monument of fortress architecture of the 16th-17th centuries. On its territory there are several temples, including the Cathedral in honor of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mikheevsky Church, and the Temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh. The bell tower amazes with its grandeur. The Moscow Theological Academy is also located here. The overlying chapel was built at the end of the 17th century over a spring that came out of the ground; a bright tented canopy was built later using private donations. Thousands of pilgrims visit the Lavra to touch the shrines of the Russian people and find peace of mind. And in Kolomna there is a monastery called Starogolutvinsky, which was founded by a disciple of the saint).

Is it necessary to read the lives of saints? What does acquaintance with this genre of spiritual literature give a modern person? (The Life shows the spiritual beauty of a person, gives an idea of ​​​​true values, of the ideal. When creating the image of a saint, idealization is used, as well as a combination of life-likeness and fantasy. Sergius of Radonezh appears as a prayer book and intercessor for the Russian land. Reading the Life means learning the history of your people, their culture. Without the past there is no future).

We talked about the personality of Sergius of Radonezh and came to the end of his earthly journey. At the end of his life, he remembers the brethren and passes on the abbess (i.e. seniority) to whom? (To Young Nikon).

Guys, let's read the passage that talks about the repose (earthly death) of St. Sergius. Let the lines of life sound in our lesson. (The author emphasizes the “brightness and holiness”, the greatness of Sergius, describing his death. “Although the saint did not want glory during his life, the strong power of God glorified him, angels flew before him when he reposed, escorting him to heaven, opening doors for him heavenly and leading into the desired bliss, into righteous chambers, where the light of the angels and the All-Holy Trinity received illumination, as befits a faster. Such was the course of the saint’s life, such was the gift, such was the working of miracles - and not only during life, but also at death..." ).

8. Lesson summary.

So, let’s summarize our journey through time and remember its purpose: “Why was Sergius of Radonezh canonized?” (Saints are people who set an example of Christ’s love, humility, faithfulness to God, people, with their kindness and meekness, with their selfless service to God and their neighbors, with their lives who showed the fruits that Christianity should give. People like Sergius of Radonezh leave behind not only teaching, but also deeds).

Drawing up a spiritual portrait of Sergius of Radonezh

Why should we, people of the 21st century, who are so self-confident and have little faith, read literature of this kind - hagiography? (There are spiritual values ​​that we must know, which all people must follow. The examples of saints teach us to be better. And as long as people remember the simple-minded gray-bearded hermits with clear and pure souls, like children’s, Russia will not perish!)

Remember, guys, that saints help people even after death.

9. Homework. Essay: “Why was Sergius of Radonezh close to me?”

Annex 1.

Literary game “The World of Old Russian Literature”

(The class is divided into 2 teams of 5 people, the rest are fans).

1. “Now, brother, don’t go out anywhere, I’ll go there to fight the snake, I hope that with God’s help this evil snake will be killed...” (Ermolai - Erasmus, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”).
2. “A little time passed, and the devil rose up, not tolerating the insults that he had to endure from the saint. Having turned into a snake, he crawled into his cell, and the cell was filled with snakes...” (Epiphanius, “The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh”).
3. “But still this news confused him. Full of grief for his father, he sought consolation in prayer. It was Saturday...” (Nestor, “Reading about the life and destruction of Boris and Gleb”).
4. “He and Petyusha, whom Bartholomew carefully held by the hand, dressed up and washed, reached the outskirts and wandered through the meadow... It would have worked out, especially since Bartholomew himself never got into a fight... A dozen children surrounded two boyars , mocking their clothes...” (Dmitry Balashov “Praise to Sergius”).
5. “Sergius’s childhood, in his parents’ house, is a fog for us. Nevertheless, a certain general spirit can be discerned from the messages of Epiphanius, a student of Sergius, his first biographer. According to ancient legend, the estate of Sergius’s parents, the Rostov boyars Cyril and Maria, was located in the vicinity of Rostov the Great... The parents were noble boyars...” (Boris Zaitsev “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh”).
6. “The poor man left the rich man, took his firewood, tied it by the tail of the horse, rode into the forest and brought it to his yard and forgot to open the gateway, hit the horse with a whip. The horse rushed with all its might through the gateway with the cart and tore off its tail...” (“Shemyakin court”).

II. Task: recognize the hero in the proposed passages:

1. “Without laziness, he served the brethren, like a bought slave: he chopped wood for everyone, and threshed the grain, ground it on millstones, and baked bread, and cooked the concoction, and arranged for other food that the brethren needed; shoes and ports cut and sewed; and from the source that was there, he carried water on his shoulders up the mountain and brought it to everyone in the cell...” (Sergius of Radonezh).
2. “...Slim, majestic, captivated everyone with his beauty and affectionate manner. His gaze was pleasant and cheerful. He was distinguished by courage in battles and wisdom in advice...” (Prince Boris).

III. Assignment: answer the questions:

1. Name the villain brother who killed his brothers. (Svyatopolk).
2. Explain the meaning of the word "reverend." (Holy Monk).
3. What do researchers usually call hagiographic literature? (Hagiography).
4. On February 14, Valentine's Day is celebrated as the day of lovers. A similar holiday, which has an Orthodox basis, is in the church calendar. How is it marked there, what is the date? (In memory of Orthodox Saints Peter and Fevronia of Murom, July 8).
5. What does the word “life” mean in Church Slavonic? (Life).
6. Which of the ancient Russian writers called their style “weaving words”? (Epiphanius the Wise).
7. Name the monastery that Sergius founded first? (In the name of the Holy Trinity).
8. How is the life structured, name the parts? (Consists of three parts. Introduction - the author explains the reasons for writing; the main one - a story about the life of the saint; praise to the saint).
9. What was the name of St. Sergius before he took monastic vows? (Bartholomew).
10. What is the name of the church bread that the elder gave to Bartholomew? (Prosphora).
11. Which prince did Sergius bless for the battle? (Dmitry Donskoy).
12. Ermolai - Erasmus. Which of the two names was given to the writer as a monk? (Erasmus).
13. What battle did Sergius bless Dmitry Donskoy for? (Battle of Kulikovo).
14. In what year did Sergius bless Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo? (1380).
15. Why did ulcers appear on the body of Prince Peter in “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”? (“...the insidious serpent died” and splashed Peter with blood).
16. Name the village where Fevronya lived before her marriage? (Laskovo village).
17. Where were Boris and Gleb buried? (In Vyshgorod).
18. Name the brothers of Sergius. (Peter and Stephen).
19. Explain the meaning of the epithet “cursed” in relation to Svyatopolk. (From Cain - fratricide).
20. Bartholomew met with the monk. What book did he start reading when he returned home? (Psalms).
21. Why is Sergius called Radonezh? (He built a monastery near Radonezh).
22. What is the current name of the monastery built by Sergius? (Trinity-Sergius Lavra).
23. Remember why the townspeople asked Peter to return? (The boyars cannot cope with control).

IV. Task: mini-auction.

1. Who can name more qualities inherent in a saint, a hero of hagiographic literature (miraculous abilities, faith in God, moral purity, mercy...).
2. Name the distinctive feature of the “weaving words” style. (Abundant use of consonances, verbal repetitions, extended metaphors and comparisons).
3. Explain the meaning of the word “passion-bearer.” (Unlike martyrs, murderers who endured suffering were not forced to renounce their faith).
4. In what works of ancient Russian literature have you come across the word “passion-bearer”? (“The Life of Boris and Gleb”, “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”).
5. In The Tale of Peter and Fevronia, the devil knows that death will befall him. What will he die from? (“...from Peter’s shoulder and from Agrikov’s sword”).
6. In what battles were Boris and Gleb invisible helpers? (Battle of the Ice, Battle of Kulikovo).
7. Who is author? Full title of the painting? (Nesterov M.V. “Vision to the youth Bartholomew”, “Youth of St. Sergius”, “Works of Sergius of Radonezh”).
8. Whoever names more sublime words or those used in spiritual literature is the first to choose the path (Grace, overshadowed, ascension, hope, good, etc.).
9. Name three miracles that happened to Sergius before he became a monk. (Before birth, he screamed loudly in the womb three times, the baby observed fast days, and acquired the gift of understanding book literacy thanks to the miraculous bread).
10. What miracles did Fevronya perform? (She knew how to turn bread crumbs into church incense - incense and incense, and felled trees into large trees.)
11. What three great miracles does St. Sergius, Abbot of the Trinity Monastery, become a contemplator of? (Together with Sergius, a bright angel celebrates the service, the appearance of the Mother of God, the Divine fire during communion).
12. Why are Boris and Gleb revered as saints in Rus'? (The holiness of Boris and Gleb in their faith, kindness, meekness and forgiveness, accepted torture and death like Jesus Christ).
13. Who can name more literary terms necessary for analyzing works of ancient Russian literature? (Hero, life, metaphor, legend, comparison, image, problem, story, character, comparison, epithet, etc.)
14. You know such genres of spiritual literature as prayer, parable, life. Which of them would you classify “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom”? Why? (Life, they proved their holiness. During his life, Peter defeated the serpent, was a wise ruler, the wise Fevronya worked miracles, at the burial site, people received healing from the holy relics).
15. List all the worthy qualities (virtues) of Peter and Fevronia. (Peter - religiosity, courage, kindness, fidelity, meekness. Fevronia - intelligence, ingenuity, miraculous abilities, fidelity, moral purity, the ability to selflessly love).
16. Explain the meaning of Fevronia’s riddle “It’s bad when the house has no ears and the room has no eyes.” “My father and mother went to cry, but my brother went to look death in the eye through the legs.” (The ears are a dog, the eyes are a child, the parents went to a funeral, the tree-climbing brother will look through his legs to the ground so as not to fall from the tree).
17. How many monasteries were founded through the works of St. Sergius, his disciples and associates? (According to the calculations of researchers of Russian history, of the 180 monasteries that appeared during the Mongol-Tatar yoke, 90 were founded by the works of Sergius, his students and associates).

Explanations for the game: If a team player cannot answer the proposed question, the audience is responsible, they receive a token for the correct answer, at the end of the game the tokens will be counted, and the grade for the lesson depends on their number.

Open lesson in 7th grade “The Life of Our Venerable Father Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, the New Wonderworker”

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Ranchin A. M.

The Life of Sergius of Radonezh (1314 or c. 1322 - 1392), one of the most revered Russian saints, was compiled by the monk of the Trinity Monastery founded by Sergius Epiphanius the Wise, apparently in 1417-1418. The style of the Life of Sergius of Radonezh is characterized by the same techniques of “weaving words” as the style of the Life of Stephen of Perm. However, unlike the Life of Stephen, which is predominantly panegyric in nature, the Life of Sergius is dominated by the narrative principle. The text of the original Epifanievsky edition has not reached us in its original form. It was revised in the middle of the 15th century by the scribe of Serbian origin Pachomius Logothetes, who wrote several editions of the Life.

One of the features of the poetics of the Life, characteristic not only of this monument of ancient Russian hagiography, but in it extremely strongly accentuated and consistently carried out, is various kinds of triple repetitions, found both in phrasal (triple rows of synonyms or occasional synonyms, triads formed by similar syntactic constructions , etc.), and at the supra-phrase (thrice repeated events of Sergius’s life, the triads into which the persons narrated in the Life are united) levels.

V.V. Kolesov, who noted that as an individual stylistic device in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, an “increase in the volume of syntagmas” to a “triad” is used, connected this feature of the Life with the focus on expressing the dogma of the Holy Trinity, so significant for Sergius, who dedicated the temple he founded on Makovce is the mountain where the Trinity Monastery was erected (Kolesov V.V. Old Russian literary language. L., 1989. P. 188-215). V.V. Kolesov also drew attention to triple repetitions at the supra-phrase level of the text of the Life - to triads not of words, but of events: “Only from a modern point of view have some sequences become noticeable, invisible or seemingly unimportant in the Middle Ages. All such sequences form triads of actions and events, which in the text of the Life itself are presented fragmentarily and incoherently, in the general flow of the narrative, for which only the hero himself, Sergius, is important.

We see that Bartholomew-Sergius is dedicated to service three times. First, with the appearance of a wonderful old man, who breathed into the boy the “ability to read and write.” Then - tonsure, and, finally, abbess - the highest destiny for Sergius, which he did not immediately accept until he had gone through the necessary paths before that. The sequence of movements of a cultural hero is never disrupted, since this is the path of moral development of the individual and it does not tolerate the severing of connections and skipping the stages of initiation. That is why Sergius renounces the honor of episcopal and even metropolitan rank, because he completed the “steps” assigned to him to the end - all three.

The construction of the temple of the Holy Trinity also occurs in three stages that make up this action, and even the appearance of heavenly forces, predicting the fate and death of the saint, is threefold (sic! - A.R.): first it is an angel, then the Mother of God, and finally fire in prayerful ecstasy Sergius. The face of the saint here, too, is limited by the framework of the Trinity - the trinity of existence, beyond which it is impossible to go without damaging the integrity of... the image? sample? or the face that takes shape in the whirling of these triads measured by fate? (Kolesov V.V. Sergius of Radonezh: artistic image and symbol of culture // Life and Life of Sergius of Radonezh. M., 1991. pp. 328-329) The researcher also noted the distribution of the roles of the three brothers in the Life - Sergius, Stephen and Peter: “ Three brothers are not fairy-tale characters, this is the reality of family relationships. But already behind this distribution of roles are hidden various images of brotherhood. The eldest is domineering, worldly, sober and strong Stefan, like Bartholomew is a monk. The younger one, Peter, is a meek layman, bearing the earthly burden characteristic of a man of his destiny. The middle one, Bartholomew, is both a monk, like the eldest, and meek, like the younger; like both his brothers, Sergius is also connected with the concerns of this world, but with meekness and obedience, and not with authority, he rules the brethren: “to rule without power” - with spiritual authority and personal example in work - this is the attitude of the Russian character towards power and power relations: personal An example is more valuable than any punishment, order or teaching.

A fairy tale will choose the youngest as its hero, a chronicle story will choose the elder, the hero of life rightly becomes the average, even one who does not express any extremes in his character.

The ideal becomes the “average person” as a representative of a type without extremes and deviations from the norm. This is also the ideological principle of Sergius, which in general, according to G. Fedotov, was characterized by a “bright dimension” of life” (Ibid. p. 333).

In fact, Epiphanius the Wise, who compiled the Life of Sergius, and Pachomius Logothetes, who revised this life, should have been well aware of the meaning of triple repetitions. The thoughtfulness in the construction of texts is especially obvious for Epiphanius, who was very thoughtful about the form of the works he created. F. Wigzell showed, using the example of the Life of Stephen of Perm, also created by Epiphanius and preserved in its original form, how attentive the scribe is to the word, in particular when quoting the Holy Scripture (see: Wigzell F. Quotes from the books of the Holy Scripture in the works of Epiphanius the Wise / / Proceedings of the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), L., 1971, T. XXVI, pp. 242-243). The symbolic meanings of triple repetitions in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh are natural for the “style of the second South Slavic influence” (or the style of “weaving words”), the most remarkable adherent of which was Epiphanius the Wise. D.S. Likhachev noted: “one should pay attention to one extremely important feature that permeates all forms of the high, church style of the Middle Ages, which the new style uniquely developed: the main thing that the authors of works of high style strive for is to find the general, absolute and eternal in the particular, concrete and temporary, immaterial in the material, Christian truths in all phenomena of life" (Likhachev D.S. Some problems of studying the second South Slavic influence in Russia // Likhachev D.S. Studies on Old Russian Literature. L., 1986. P. 26). Undoubtedly, the poetics of the hagiographic narrative as a type of text, the hagiographic code, suggested the reading of triple repetitions in the Life precisely as an expression of the dogma of the Holy Trinity and, already, as evidence of the providential care of the Trinity in the life of Sergius.

V.M. Kirillin noted that “the semantic background of the Trinity symbolism, highlighting the narrative fabric of the Life, is not uniform. It is most saturated in the first three chapters of the analyzed text, which is explained, apparently, by the mystical and foreshadowing significance of the events described here. Thus, the very entry into the life of the main character of the hagiobiography was marked by miracles, testifying to the extraordinary fate destined for him” (Kirillin V.M. Symbolism of numbers in the literature of Ancient Rus' // Old Russian literature: Image of nature and man. M., 1995. P. 257. See also: Kirillin V.M. Symbolism of numbers in the literature of Ancient Rus' (XI - XVI centuries). St. Petersburg, 2000. pp. 174-221). The first miracle is the threefold proclamation of the unborn child, the future Bartholomew-Sergius, from his mother’s womb during a church service; the providential nature of this miracle is revealed in the text of “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”; parallels from the Bible are given to this episode. Back in 1931, historian G.P. Fedotov drew attention to the hidden theological meaning of this episode and its symbolic, predictive role in the text of the Life: “The dogmatic-trinitarian interpretation of this event retains traces on many pages of the Life. This is how Priest Michael understands it, before the birth of the baby he predicted his glorious fate for the parents; the mysterious wanderer blessing the boy and the brother of Saint Stephen speak about the same thing, proposing to consecrate the first forest church in the name of the Most Holy Trinity; Bishop Afanasy, deputy metropolitan, knows this same tradition in Pereyaslavl.<…>. ...Epiphanius himself is powerless to reveal the theological meaning of this name” (Fedotov G.P. Saints of Ancient Rus'. M., 1990. P. 143-144).

Three miracles that have a prototypical meaning in relation to the monastic life of Sergius - the baby’s refusal to eat mother’s milk if the mother had previously eaten meat; not drinking mother's milk on fasting days, on Wednesdays and Fridays; refusal of wet nurses' milk. V.M. Kirillin noted that “Epiphanius the Wise sought to express the most important thing in the content of his work - the trinitarian concept - through form, subordinating the stylistic and compositional plans of presentation to the general idea” (Kirillin V.M. Symbolism of numbers in the literature of Ancient Rus' (XI - XVI century). P. 259). The episode with the proclamation of the child from the mother's womb has a three-part dialogical structure: the women in the church ask her three times where the child is hidden, and she answers them three times. Such triads of questions and answers are also inherent in other key episodes of the Life: the conversation of the youth Bartholomew with the elder who gave him “book understanding”, the conversation with the priest Mitrofan, who tonsured Sergius, the testing of those who would become monks by Sergius the Abbot. V.M. Kirillin also noted a significant mention of the three fingers with which a certain wonderful elder gives Bartholomew a miraculous loaf, and three predictions of the elder about the future of Sergius, the great ascetic (Ibid. pp. 259-265). “In the Epiphaniev edition of the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, the number 3 appears as a diversely designed narrative component: as a biographical detail, an artistic detail, an ideological and artistic image, as well as an abstract constructive model or for constructing rhetorical figures (at the level of phrases, phrases, sentences, period), or to construct an episode or scene. In other words, the number 3 characterizes both the content side of the work and its plot-compositional stylistic structure, so that in its meaning and function it fully reflects the hagiographer’s desire to glorify his hero as the teacher of the Holy Trinity; but at the same time, this number symbolically expresses the knowledge, inexplicable by rational and logical means, about the most complex, incomprehensible mystery of the universe in its eternal and temporal realities, since it - the number 3 - is a formal and meaningful component of the historical reality reproduced in the “Life”, that is, earthly life , which represents, as a creation of God, the image and likeness of heavenly life and therefore contains signs (three-numbered, triadic), which testify to the existence of God in its trinitarian unity, harmony and perfect completeness” (Ibid. pp. 265-266).

Fragments of the Life, in which the trinitarian motif is openly expressed - the threefold proclamation of the child in the womb of the mother and three predictions by the wonderful old man of the future fate of Bartholomew - were also analyzed by V.N. Toporov, who noted the symbolic meaning of this motif (Toporov V.N. Holiness and Saints in Russian spiritual culture. Vol. II. Three centuries of Christianity in Rus' (XII-XIV centuries). M., 1998. pp. 374-376, 384-385, 408-410, 565, 592-595).

V.N. Toporov, like a number of other authors, connects Sergius’s special veneration of the Holy Trinity with the influence on the Trinity abbot, influential in the Orthodox world from the middle of the 14th century. theological movement - hesychasm (this idea was persistently expressed by P.A. Florensky in the article “The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Russia” at the beginning of the twentieth century // Florensky Pavel, priest. Works: In 4 vols. M., 1996. Vol. 2. pp. 356-365). However, the opinion was also expressed that Sergius stood aloof from hesychasm and that the hesychast interpretation of miracles in the Life first appears in Pachomius Logofet (Grikhin V.A. Problems of the style of ancient Russian hagiography of the XIV-XV centuries. M., 1974. See also: Kloss B .M. Selected works. Vol. I. Life of Sergius of Radonezh. M., 1998. pp. 36-37).

The listed examples are not all triple repetitions contained in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, even at the supra-phrase, event level of the text. Moreover, repetition can be not only identical events or actions, such as the triple exclamation of a child from the womb, but also events that are actually different, but identical in their function in the text of the Life.

The triple proclamation of the child from the mother’s womb appears in the Life as a paradigm and prototype for subsequent events in the life of Sergius. Its special meaning is marked by numerous biblical parallels: “He deserves to wonder that for the sake of not proclaiming one or two, but rather the third, as if the Holy Trinity would appear to the disciple, since the three-numbered number is greater than any other number. Everywhere, the three-numbered number is the beginning of all good things and the announcement, as behold, I say: three times the Lord of Samoil called the prophet; Smite Goliad with a sling of three stones; He commanded three times to pour the water of Elijah onto the logs, saying: “Triple,” - triple; Elijah also blew three times on the youth and raised him up: three days and three nights, Jonah the prophet in the whale of three days; Three children in Babylon extinguished the fiery furnace; the three-numbered hearing of Isaiah the prophet seraphim seer: when in heaven he heard the singing of the angels, drinking the trisagion: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” Three years later the most pure Virgin Mary was brought into the Church of the Holy of Holies; Thirty years ago Christ was baptized by John in Jordan; Christ set three disciples on Tabor and was transformed before them; for three days Christ rose from the dead; Three times after his resurrection Christ said: “Peter, do you love me?” What am I announcing in three numbers, and what for the sake of not mentioning something larger and more terrible, which is a three-numbered deity: three shrines, three personalities, in three persons one deity of the Most Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; triune Godhead, one power, one authority, one dominion? It was fitting for this baby to be born three times in his mother’s womb, before he was born, signifying from this that there would once be a trinity disciple, who would come and bring many into understanding and into the knowledge of God, teaching the verbal sheep to believe in the Holy Trinity, one in consubstantiality, in one Godhead.

<…>As before his birth, God foretold it: not just such a sign and wonder that happened before, but a precursor to the future. Behold, I was forced to say, but the man’s life was wonderful and his life was told” (Monuments of the literature of Ancient Rus': XIV - early XV centuries. M., 1981. P. 272, 274).

This fragment of the Life has a prototypical and, as it were, meta-descriptive (that is, describing the very structure of the Life) function in the text. The appearance of a triple question-and-answer series (women ask the mother of Bartholomew-Sergius whether she brought a baby into the church, she answers in the negative) in the Life is indicated by the mention of the Trisagion angelic chant and the triple question of Christ addressed to the Apostle Peter.

The triple proclamation of the child in the mother’s womb symbolically connects the unborn Sergius with the sacred past (with biblical events) and with his own future, thereby indicating the saint’s involvement in the providential plan, eternity. At the same time, in comparison with episodes from Sacred History, the uniqueness of the case of Sergius emerges - he is the only one presented as a confessor of the Holy Trinity.

The abundance of Old Testament and New Testament parallels to the triple proclamation of the child in the mother’s womb makes the reader expect that the trinitarian symbolism will appear in further events in the life of Sergius.

Sergius's life, naturally, is divided into two halves: the years spent in the world, and the life of a monk.

The boundary between these two parts is marked in the Life by the hagiographer’s meta-descriptive reasoning, which precedes the story of the saint’s tonsure: “Don’t behold my rudeness, before I write here and continue the word about his infancy, and about his childhood, and so on about the entire Beletsk life him: and although he was still in the world, he was inflamed with soul and desire for God” (Ibid. p. 298).

The first period of Bartholomew-Sergius’s life consists of two unequal segments: the time from the miracle with a triple exclamation in his mother’s womb to the gift of “book intelligence” to him and the years that passed from this mysterious event to his tonsure. The entire first segment of this period is highlighted in the Long Edition of the Life (which, according to B.M. Kloss, preserved the beginning of the Epiphanian text) in a special chapter - “The Beginning of the Life of Sergius.” The first period is marked by three events that have a providential meaning. This, in addition to the triple proclamation of the child from the mother’s womb, is the baptism of the baby by the priest Michael, who “having foreseen the divine spirit and foreknowledge of the chosen being of the baby” (Ibid. p. 268). And this is the baby’s refusal to eat mother’s milk on fasting days and after the mother has eaten meat, as well as the refusal of wet nurses’ milk. The baby’s refusal of milk is both three independent miracles and three variants of the same act, timed to different fragments of the life of Sergius and the text of the Life: in all three cases, the baby does not eat milk when eating is associated with the violation of one or another prohibition.

Both the triple proclamation of the child from the mother’s womb, and the refusal of milk, and the insight of the priest at baptism testify to Bartholomew-Sergius the same thing: that he will become a monk, the founder of the monastery of the Holy Trinity.

Another triad in the Life, three main events in the life of Sergius - baptism, the gift of “book understanding” and tonsure. The performers of all three events are priests: Priest Michael, who baptized the saint, a certain elder (in his image, as one can understand, an angel appeared to Sergius) and Abbot Mitrofan, who tonsured Sergius as a monk. All three priests announce the great calling of Sergius. All three events mark key moments in his life: joining the church, comprehending religious wisdom and leaving the world and accepting monasticism, complete dedication to God. Acceptance of monasticism is the main, turning point event and act of Sergius. Everything that precedes is a prelude to Sergius’s tonsure as a monk. All three episodes are especially marked in the Life with similar symbolic motifs. And the priest Mikhail, and a certain elder, and Abbot Mitrofan testify to the great destiny of Sergius. Both Michael and the wonderful old man speak of the saint as a servant of the Holy Trinity; Mitrofan tonsured Sergius in the Trinity Church. Both in the episode with the wonderful presbyter and in the episode of the tonsure of Sergius by Mitrofan, liturgical bread, prosphora are mentioned. The elder “will give him something like an anaphora, a vision like a small piece of white wheat bread, a hedgehog from the holy prosphyra<…>"(Ibid. p. 280). After being tonsured by Mitrofan, “the blessed one remained in the church for seven days, eating nothing but prosphyra, which was taken from the hand of the abbot<…>"(Ibid. p. 302).

The figures of Mikhail and Mitrofan form the frame of the first part of the Life, dedicated to the worldly life of Sergius: Mikhail accepts him into the world and into the church, Mitrofan leads him out of the world on a monastic feat. It is no coincidence that in the Life there is a phonetic similarity of their names: both names are three-syllable, the first syllables are identical. These are probably the true names of the two clergy, but it is significant that in the Life these names are preserved and not omitted, as is usually the case in hagiography.

The narrative of the meetings and struggle of Sergius the monk with harmful forces is divided into three main episodes, like other events of his life. This is the arrival of demons with the devil himself in the church before Matins: an attack of demons on Sergius in the saint’s hut, accompanied by threats and compulsion to leave the chosen place; the appearance of a bear, which, “like some kind of evil spirit” (Ibid. p. 312), came to the saint for a piece of bread throughout the year. The machinations of demons and the arrival of beasts are placed in the Life in a single synonymous series, and the number of synonyms in it is three: “Sometimes demonic intrigues and insurance, sometimes bestial aspirations<…>"(Ibid. P. 312). Three meetings of Sergius with priests who recognize him as a great saint are contrasted with three meetings with bearers of evil or danger.

Three times Sergius performs healings and resurrections: he resurrects a dead youth, heals a demon-possessed nobleman and a sick man who lived not far from the Trinity Monastery. Sergius shows insight three times in his Life: when with his mental vision he sees Bishop Stephen of Perm passing several miles from the Trinity Monastery; when he finds out that the servant of Prince Vladimir Andreevich tried the brushes sent by the prince to the monastery; when with his spiritual gaze he sees everything that is happening on the Kulikovo field. Three times, by God’s will, sweet bread was brought to the monastery when the monks lacked food.

The motif of him eating bread is repeated three times in the description of the life of Sergius: the youth Bartholomew-Sergius eats a wonderful loaf of bread that a mysterious priest gives him; Sergius works behind a sieve of rotten bread, which constitutes his daily food; Sergius and other monks eat sweet breads brought to the monastery.

Three miraculous visions of Sergius the Abbot make up separate chapters in the Long Edition of the Life: this is a vision of an angel serving the liturgy in the temple together with Sergius; this is a visit to Sergius by the Mother of God, who promises to take care of the monastery he founded; this is the appearance of fire overshadowing the altar during the liturgy served by Sergius. These miracles are often mentioned in the research literature as an indication of the depth of Sergius’s mystical mood, only partially revealed in the Life. Also often, these “light” miracles are interpreted as evidence of Sergius’s adherence to the hesychast doctrine of the uncreated (divine, non-physical) light. Hesychasts considered this to be the light with which Jesus Christ shone, according to the Gospel legend, on Mount Tabor; contemplation of this light is revealed to saints who have achieved a special mystical state. “Light” miracles in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh go back to the early Byzantine lives (see: Kloss B.M. Selected works. T. I. pp. 36-37).

Throughout the Life, three miraculous manifestations of divine powers are told to Sergius: this is an angel in the form of an old priest, giving the youth Bartholomew “book understanding”; this is an angel serving Sergius at the liturgy; and this is the Mother of God with the apostles John and Peter.

The images of monks in the Life are also combined into triads. First of all, this is the triad “Sergius - his older brother Stefan and Stefan’s nephew Theodore”, as well as the “mystical group” (Fedotov G.P. Saints of Ancient Rus'. P. 148) of Sergius’ disciples - Simon, Isaac and Micah. The Life also mentions the spiritual communication of Sergius with Metropolitan Alexy and Stefan of Perm - Sergius and two bishops also form a triad. IN. Klyuchevsky viewed these three Russian shepherds precisely as a spiritual triad, a trinity: “At this very time, in the early forties of the 14th century, three significant events took place: the modest forty-year-old monk Alexy, who was hiding there, was summoned from the Moscow Epiphany Monastery to the church-administrative field; At the same time, one 20-year-old desert seeker, the future St. Sergius, was in a dense forest<…>He built a small wooden cell with the same church, and in Ustyug a son was born to a poor cathedral cleric, the future enlightener of the Perm land, St. Stephen. None of these names can be pronounced without remembering the other two. This blessed triad shines like a bright constellation in our 14th century, making it the dawn of the political and moral revival of the Russian land. Close friendship and mutual respect bound them together. Metropolitan Alexy visited Sergius in his monastery and consulted with him, wanting to have him as his successor. Let us recall the heartfelt story in the life of St. Sergius about the passage of St. Stephen of Perm past the Sergius Monastery, when both friends at a distance of more than 10 versts exchanged fraternal bows” (Klyuchevsky V.O. The significance of St. Sergius of Radonezh for the Russian people and state // Life and Life of Sergius of Radonezh. P. 263).

Triple (ternary) structures that have a symbolic religious meaning are by no means a distinctive feature of the Life of Sergius of Radonezh. They are characteristic, for example, of the Life of Theodosius of Pechersk - the first Russian monastic (venerable) life. The Life of Stephen of Perm, written by Epiphanius the Wise, ends with three laments—of the Perm people, the Perm church, and the “monk writing off.”

But the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, in comparison with other hagiobiographies, is distinguished by its “oversaturation” of triple repetitions that have a symbolic meaning. In this case, first of all, the events of the saint’s life are arranged into a triad, the number of which actually was such. This, naturally, is baptism, tonsure and acceptance of the abbess by Sergius. However, this “real” triad, defined by life itself and inevitable for the biography of any saint, is marked in the Life with the help of additional common elements found in all three episodes. On the other hand, the plane of expression as such becomes the carrier of semantics in the Life. Thus, from the numerous demonic threats and visits of wild animals to Sergius, only three cases were selected; the same, apparently, can be said about the triads of Sergius’ miracles, and about the identification of triads among the Trinity monks, and - even more so - about the organization of dialogues according to the principle of the triad. Epiphanius acts as a scribe, only recording the mystical presence of the Holy Trinity in the life of Sergius. He is like an icon painter who “does not create an image from himself, but only removes the covers from an already, and, moreover, peacefully existing image: he does not put paint on the canvas, but, as it were, clears his extraneous raids, “records” of spiritual reality” (Florensky P.A. Prayer icons of St. Sergius // Florensky Pavel, priest. Works: In 4 vols. T. 2. pp. 383-384). And at the same time, his role is active: and his text seems to appear as a work of art par excellence. It is characterized by both the “intimate nature of the connection between the referent, the signified and the signifier” and the “coincidence of all structural levels according to the pattern of the structure” - those features that, according to U. Eco, are inherent in the aesthetic message (U. Eco. The Absent Structure: An Introduction to semiology, translated from Italian, St. Petersburg, 1998, pp. 81-84).

Both the phrasal and supra-phrase levels of the text in the Life contain triple repetitions, denoting the presence of the Holy Trinity, its mysterious guidance in the life of Sergius. The same semantics is directly expressed in the explanations of the hagiographer. The Life of Sergius of Radonezh is a complete text. Its unity is indirect evidence in favor of the fact that in ancient Russian culture works could be perceived as self-sufficient works that preserved their identity in different contexts - as part of a divine service, in monastic and home reading. An exposition of the concept, widespread in Western medieval studies, about the absence of works in Old Russian literature and the existence exclusively of texts that lose their self-identity in various ritual and verbal contexts, is contained in the work of N. Ingham (Ingham N. Early East Slavic Literature as Sociocultural Fact // Medieval Russian Culture. Vol. 2. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1994 P. 1-17; the author of the article argues with this concept).

In the Life, the opposition “form – content” is removed, and events and their signs are not distinguished in the text, which is generally characteristic of medieval consciousness. At the same time, it is not the hagiographer who speaks about the mystery of Sergius and the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but, as it were, the text itself and life itself.

The Life of Sergius of Radonezh testifies that something new in a traditionalist text can be created not due to the originality of the message (the content of the work), but due to the peculiarities of the code (the system of techniques, the language through which this content is transmitted). The Life of Sergius of Radonezh is an example when a given, familiar content is conveyed using codes, the interaction of which in the text is unpredictable and original. The reader of the Life knows that he will be informed about the mystical connection between the life of Sergius and the Holy Trinity. But he cannot predict how this will be done: at the phrasal level, at the event level (and it is not known through what events), with the help of the hagiographer’s explanations and retrospective analogies. Elements of triple repetitions in the Life often do not form single blocks, but are separated by significant fragments of text. The reader must discover these series. Reading the Life turns out to be a reconstruction of the life of a saint as a whole with meaning. The text of the Life leads the reader to the deep meaning of the dogma of the Holy Trinity - a multi-valued and hidden meaning, created not in the Life, but already “prediscovered” by the hagiographer. The hagiographer’s refusal to explain the theological meaning of the Holy Trinity can be explained not by the “foggy” ideas about the meaning of the Trinity for the compiler of the Life, as G.P. Fedotov and V.N. Toporov believe, but by the desire not to touch the incomprehensible, to emphasize the mystery of the Trinity.

Bibliography

To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://www.portal-slovo.ru/

Ranchin A. M. The Life of Sergius of Radonezh (1314 or ca. 1322 - 1392), one of the most revered Russian saints, was compiled by the monk of the Trinity Monastery founded by Sergius Epiphanius the Wise, apparently in 1417-1418. Sergi's Life Style