ORTHODOX MONASTERIES OF UKRAINE CENTERS OF EDUCATION AND PREPARATION OF WOMEN FOR SPIRITUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN (XIX EARLY XX CENTURY)

Abstract

The article reveals and analyzes the leading trends in the preparation of women for the spiritual and moral education of children of this period, reveals the main purpose, process, content and objectives of training. It is highlighted at which monasteries of Ukraine at that time there were women’s educational institutions where girls were prepared for the spiritual and moral upbringing of children. The historical digression clearly shows us that for centuries the centers of spiritual education, culture and education were Orthodox monasteries. In the XIX - early XX centuries. at the monasteries of Ukraine there is a rapid development of educational institutions for girls, mostly of spiritual condition. The first such institutions were: a school for orphans of the clergy at the Odessa Michael the Archangel Monastery (1844) and a theological school for girls of the clergy at the Lebedinsky Nikolaev Monastery (1859). At that time, monastic educational institutions were divided into two categories. The first category included institutions under the “patronage” of the Empress Mary, the second - schools that were subordinate to the Holy Synod, under the management of the diocesan elders and the care of local clergy and the abbess of the monastery.These educational institutions differed in goals, organization of internal regulations, curricula, staff, rights of officials and material support, but had a common goal: to give girls an education that would meet their purpose: on the one hand, to act as a wife, and with another is to become an educated mother who raises her children in a spiritual and moral environment and a housewife. Thanks to the “Statute of Women’s Diocesan Schools” of 1868, graduates received the title of “Home Teacher”, which gave them the right to teach.It is important to emphasize that the first monastic women’s theological educational institutions were planned as three-class -with a two-year course of each class. The compulsory subjects that the girls were to study included: the Law of God (short catechism and sacred history), church singing, reading, Slavic and Russian languages, short grammar, arithmetic (up to the “triple rule”), short Russian history and geography, teaching needlework and housekeeping. The main task of the monastery school was to educate the heart and will, which should strive for good. The life of the soul is determined by the heart and concentrated in it, and the will, directed to good and guided by conscience, is the basis of the moral character of man. Good upbringing indicates successful learning.