The Solovetsky uprising (Solovetsky sitting) (June 22, 1668 - February 1, 1676) - the uprising of the Solovetsky monks against the church reform of Patriarch Nikon, which lasted eight years. The punitive tsarist army, numbering more than 1000 people, was able to capture the monastery because of the betrayal of one of the monastery's defenders. The leaders of the uprising and many of its participants were executed or exiled.
The reasons for the Solovetsky uprising
1657 - the brethren of the Solotsk Monastery, headed by Archimandrite Ilya, did not want to accept new liturgical books. 1663 - already under the new archimandrite - Bartholomew - the monks confirmed their decision. As a result, this issue was considered at the Church Council in 1666-1667. The council decided to send a new archimandrite, Sergius, to the monastery. However, the monks did not want to accept him, after which Sergius left the monastery. Instead, the monastery was headed by the former abbot of the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery, who was exiled to Solovki to retirement, one of the active supporters of the Old Believers Nikanor. The ideological inspiration behind the revolt was the monastic treasurer, Elder Gerontius.
1667 - the brethren sent a petition to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov (reign 1645-1676), in which they refused to accept reforms, not wanting to betray, in their opinion, the true Orthodox faith, and expressed their readiness to openly fight for it with the authorities. The answer to the petition was the sovereign's decree, according to which the estates and crafts of the monastery on the coast were confiscated.
Participants of the Solovetsky uprising
Participants were monks who did not accept the church reform, peasants, townspeople, fugitive archers, soldiers, and Stepan Razin's associates. An important reserve of the rebels were the Pomor peasantry, working in the usol, in mica and other industries, which came under the protection of the monastery walls.
Promotional video:
The course of the uprising
1668, May 3 - according to the tsar's decree, a streltsy army was sent to bring the monastery into obedience to Solovki. 1668, June 22 - archers under the command of solicitor Ignatius Volkhov arrived on the Solovetsky Islands. The monastery refused to let the streltsy army into the walls of the fortress. The eight-year siege of the monastery began.
During the first years, the siege was rather weak, because the authorities hoped for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. 1673 - the streltsy army was ordered to start active hostilities. At the same time, the rifle detachments were constantly increasing. On the part of the defenders of the monastery, the initiative gradually passed from the monks to the laity, who were preparing to rebuff. Many working people, fugitive soldiers and archers made their way to the island and joined the ranks of the rebels. In the early 1670s, the influx of participants in the uprising of Stepan Razin to the monastery increased, which to a large extent could intensify the uprising, deepen its social content.
Military actions gradually began to intensify. By 1674 there were more than 1000 archers and many guns under the monastery walls. The siege was led by the tsarist voivode Ivan Mescherinov. One of the important changes was also the fact that in 1675 the brethren stopped praying for the sovereign, although they did so during the first years of the siege.
1676, January 18 - the decisive role in the victory of the streltsy army was played by the betrayal of the deserter monk Feoktist, who told I. Meshcherinov how to get into the monastery. On February 1, a group of 50 archers was able to enter the monastery and open the gates for the rest of the army.
Solovetsk uprising - results. Value
The uprising was suppressed with incredible brutality. Of the 500 insurgents who were in the Solovetsky Monastery, only 60 survived after the capture of the fortress. All of them, with the exception of a few people, were later executed.
The Solovetsky uprising was of great importance in strengthening the Old Believers in the north of Russia. Despite the fact that the revolt was brutally suppressed, and perhaps precisely because of this, it served to strengthen the moral authority of the old faith among the local people, accustomed to seeing one of the main shrines of Orthodoxy in the Solovetsky monastery.
The uprising showed that ideologically, socially, the monastery was not a cohesive team. The monastery of that era cannot be viewed as a kind of homogeneous organization that operates in only one, official direction. It was a social organism, and forces of different class interests were at work in it. The monastery did not live a measured and lazy life, as many might imagine, but experienced turbulent events, actively intervening in the life of the state and the social processes of the Russian North.
Resistance to Nikon's reforms was only a pretext for an uprising, for which there were more complex reasons. Dissatisfied people joined the old faith, since the Old Believers were an anti-government phenomenon and directed against the ruling church.