The First Hermit Settlers in the Old Settlement: Hermitage and Complete Silence in the Biography of the Principal Hieroschemamonk Johannes

Abstract

The article describes the existence of the first hermit settlers in the Old Settlement on the site of the future Sarovskaya hermitage, as well as the period of hermitage and complete silence in the biography of Hieroschemamonk Johannes (Popov), the founder of the Satiso-city-Sarovskaya hermitage. The author used such theoretical research methods as the study of handwritten sources and printed publications on the topic, analysis, synthesis and systematization of the information received, while the descriptive method is fundamental, including interpretation, comparison, generalization and hypotheses. As a result, all dates and events related to the studied material were identified and consistently structured; a preliminary attempt was made to investigate the existence of hermits; for a comprehensive study, the article also touched upon other topics related to the personality of the principal and founder of the Sarov monastery; an analysis of the views of researchers and historians on the topic was made, amendments and clarifications were made; the first conclusions were made when comparing the manuscript and the printed edition of «The Tale of the First Residence of the Monks»; traced and investigated the first stage of the incipience of the Russian monastery in the XVII–XVIII centuries on the example of the Sarov community desert.