Petrov Stanislav G.,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Transition of the Valaam Monastery to a New Calendar Style as Covered in the Diary of Hieromonk Pamva (Ignatiev)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2020-2-7
In the life of Orthodox churches, the past century was marked by the beginning of their transition in liturgical practice to a new calendar style. As is known, the Bolsheviks who seized power tried unsuccessfully to conduct a calendar reform in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s. Despite the resistance of the faithful, at the same time, under pressure from the authorities, the Finnish Orthodox Church switched to a new calendar style. One of the largest and most significant Russian monasteries – the male Valaam Monatery of the Transfiguration of the Savior was at the epicenter of this struggle. As a result of the non-recognition of the new style, a significant part of the monks among the monastic fraternity split, which became a tragic page in the history of the monastery. For support of the old style and refusal to submit to secular and spiritual authorities, the monks were subjected to severe persecution and repression. The purpose of this article is to consider the problem of calendar reform through the prism of perception of hieromonk Pamva (Ignatiev), an ordinary inhabitant of the Valaam Monastery, based on his spiritual diary, which he kept from 1912 to 1939. The manuscript of this unique source on the history of monastic life in the first half of the twentieth century is located in the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia. The article concludes that this monument is an integral part of the literary heritage of Valaam. The use of the text of this ego document in the works devoted to the history of Orthodoxy in Finland is analyzed. The biography of Hieromonk Pamva (Ignatiev), the author of the diary, is presented. The characteristic of his image in the memoir literature covering pilgrimage trips to the Valaam monastery is given. The article shows the results of selecting records from the diary’s manuscript containing information on the progress of the calendar reform in the monastery. The most complete array of diary entries of Hieromonk Pamva, covering the period from 1922 to 1933, is published in the article using modern edition methods.
Publishing: 29/04/2020
How to cite: Petrov S.G. The Transition of the Valaam Monastery to a New Calendar Style as Covered in the Diary of Hieromonk Pamva (Ignatiev) // Historical Courier, 2020, No. 2 (10), pp. 84–112. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2020/ISTKURIER-2020-2-07.pdf
Links: Issue 2 2020
Keywords: Russian Orthodox Church; Valaam Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior; Orthodoxy in Finland; calendar reform; Hieromonk Pamva (Ignatiev); diaries; publication of sources