Pavel Tulsky, the "schismatic" among schismatics: towards the emergence of the "Tula Old Believers' Accord"
- Pages
- 28-38
Abstract
The article examines the personality of Pavel Smirnov/Tulsky who fled from the synodal church in 1831 to the Old Believers as a priest. Keeping in touch with the center of the Belokrinitsky accord — the Rogozhsky cemetery, Pavel gradually went into schism. On Pavel Smirnov's biography, the author seeks to identify and characterize the concept of the fugitive priesthood; the peculiarities of the approaches of the authorities and the official church to solving the problem of a "schismatic" priest; the behavior patterns of the "new" Old Believer hierarchy in relation to schism. To solve these problems, a corpus of historical sources reflecting the reaction of public institutions to a recalcitrant priest was studied. These include state authorities, the synodal and the Old Believer church. The author concludes that the beglopopovtsy successfully existed before the appearance of the belokrinitsky hierarchy. The article also notes the inability of the local secular and ecclesiastical authorities to solve problems related to the Old Believers.