Manifestations of archaic religiosity in the images of northern Russian fools in the Middle Ages (XIII–XIV centuries)

Abstract

St. Sergius of Radonezh lived at a crucial time for formation of Russian Orthodox religiosity. This period is characterized not only by the growing popularity of the monastic system of life according to the model set by the founder of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but also by the appearance of bright personalities who carried the feat of foolishness for Christ (St. Procopius of Ustyug, St. Nikolay Kochanov and St. Theodore of Novgorod). Being an alternative way of ascetic order of religious life, foolishness expressed at the same time as the most understandable and evoked the sympathy and respect of the people of the gospel qualities (self-denial, asceticism, testimony of the truth of God, denunciation of social injustice), and rather archaic ideas of holiness, dating back to the pre-Christian period of the existence of the Slavs and associated with the idea of an excess of vital forces. Such a paradoxical combination of two ideological systems in the phenomenon of foolishness, one of which — Christianity — continued to be professed by the people, and the second — paganism — remained in the consciousness and everyday life of people, revealed a special «cultural dialect» of Russian Orthodoxy. Foolishness became a type of holiness, the closest to the archaic worldview. Being largely a legacy of religious beliefs and practices of previous eras, it was a wild branch, grafted by the labors of many ascetics of faith to the tree of Christian tradition and became a «community of the root and juice of the olive tree» (Rom. 11, 17) of the Gospel Truth.