СОСТОЯНИЕ ДУХОБОРЧЕСТВА В ЗЕМЛЕ ВОЙСКА ДОНСКОГО В ПЕРВОЙ ТРЕТИ XIX ВЕКА

Abstract

The features of the spread of Dukhoborism in the Land of the Don army in the first third of the 19th century are considered. An analysis of archival sources that were not previously introduced into scientific circulation, which are office documents of the Novocherkassk spiritual consistory, made it possible to draw conclusions that in the Don region the Dukhoborism was not a religious movement with a large number of adherents. Sectarian groups were an association of one to five families localized around the personality of a Dukhobor preacher. Their appearance among the Cossack parishioners, as a rule, was discovered by the parish priest by chance. A feature of the region was the joining of representatives of the Old Believers to the Dukhobors. Control over the appearance and spread of the Dukhobors was entrusted to the parish clergy of the Novocherkassk and Georgievsk dioceses. It was carried out thanks to the reports of the priests to the ecclesiastical boards and to the detective authorities about the sectarians they identified. The investigative process over the Dukhobors consisted in obtaining a confession of deviation into the Dukhobors and an admonition by a priest to join the Christian Church. In case of refusal, the Dukhobor Cossacks were sent to a permanent place of residence on the Caucasian line, and their children were distributed to monasteries in order to study the dogmas of the Christian faith. The strict control of the military government over the spread of Dukhoborism in the Don led to the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century only 2 Dukhobors lived here.