Review of the Historical Transition from Paging to Christianity in the Chuvash Region from the Middle XVI Century to Beginning of the XVIII Century

Abstract

This article is devoted to an overview of an important historical event in the life of the peoples of the Chuvash region — Christianization, in the period from the middle of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century. As will be indicated below, the ethnic and cultural environment of the Middle Volga peoples is distinguished by a rich composition, combining the features of different religions. The process of introducing the Christian religion took quite a long time, and the results of educational activities are still being evaluated. It can be said with certainty that the main impetus for Christianization was given by two sources: the missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church and the government. The interests of the First spread primarily in connection with the need to fulfill the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel (go, teach all nations by baptizing them (Matthew 28, 19)), while the authorities needed to solve their pressing problems. So, for the tsarist, and then the imperial system, it was fundamentally important to stabilize the social and economic aspects of life in all regions — in this regard, the issue of voluntary and encouraged Baptism into Orthodoxy reached a new level. Based on the available information, it is rather difficult to give an accurate assessment of the transformation of the Chuvash peoples from pagan to Christian, since the very foundation of the socio-cultural and religious experience of peoples, and the not very effective method of enlightenment turned out to be insufficiently productive, leading to the growth of communities only for a short time, after which the newly-baptized ones again returned to the religion of their ancestors, adapting new images and terminology from Christianity to it.