"Frivolous" Believers and "Non-Modern" Rules: on the Issue of Traditional Orthodox Practices Deformation in the late Soviet Period

Abstract

The relevance of the research topic is connected with the importance of historiographical understanding of the patterns of traditional confessional culture development in the conditions of Soviet modernization, as well as the need to clarify the place of Orthodoxy in the life of Soviet society of the late Soviet period.The purpose of the study: to analyze the changes that occurred in the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church in the late Soviet period.Objectives: to consider the socio-cultural prerequisites for the deformation of the Orthodox community cult life, to identify the features of changes in the most common Orthodox practices, to characterize the causes of these changes.Methodology. In the process of forming the factual base of the paper the author used traditional methods of archival work, as well as methods of field research questioning, interviewing. Methods of description and historical induction, historical-statistical, historical-genetic methods were used to systematize the data.Results. The paper examines the socio-cultural consequences of the socialist project of the renewal of society implementation in the late Soviet period, which determined the changes in the attitude of Orthodox-oriented citizens to religious life, analyzes the changes in the organization of the most common Orthodox rites – baptism, church burial, confession, investigates the causes of changes in their traditional forms.Conclusions. The author concludes that the main vectors of deformation of Orthodox rites in the late Soviet period were associated with giving them a secret or correspondence character, reduction, as well as profanation. The corresponding changes were caused not only by the artificial and natural limitations with which church life was connected, but also by the lack of systematic knowledge about the mysteries and dogmatics of the overwhelming majority of parishioners.