Abstract
The article studies the polemical orientation of the hagiographical Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, Written by Himself in relation to the author’s earlier works, The Answer of the Orthodox, and other texts that were included together with the Life in the Pustozersk Collection. An analysis of the creative evolution of Avvakum’s thought will demonstrate that the Life’s appeal to holy foolishness at its narrative climax was its strongest ideological weapon against the new Church elite (the Nikonians). This appeal gave rise to an unprecedented emphasis on the author’s personal life experience that was meant to be proof of the “theoretical” arguments against Nikonian rationalism in the The Answer to the Orthodox. As a demonstration of a mystical-experiential approach to knowledge of God, his dramatized holy foolishness justified his choice to present his own biography as a publicistic hagiographical narrative.
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