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Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2018 year, number

ORTHODOX SACRED ARTIFACTS OF THE YENISEISK DIOCESE: ACTUALIZATION AND STRATEGIES FOR PRESERVATION. THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY

A.Yu. Mainicheva
Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the SB RAS, 17, Acad. Lavrentiev av., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
Keywords: православные святыни, символы, православие, традиции, мировоззрение, актуализация символьно-знаковых систем, стратегии сохранения в культуре, Orthodox sacred artifacts, symbols, Orthodoxy, traditions, worldview, symbolic-sign systems actualization, preservation strategies in culture

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of updating and conservation strategies for symbolic-sign system which had been embodied in the Orthodox sacred artifacts and has determined the ethnic-cultural identity of the population of Russia for centuries. It shows that the sacred artifacts veneration had several reasons for updating, including the response to changing social life, meeting the need for religious practice, perpetuating the memory of outstanding people and significant events using the example of the Yeniseysk diocese. Activities on reproducing the traditional Orthodox patterns were planned not only by the clergy, church hierarchs, representatives of the royal family, but also by representatives of various segments of population. As a rule, wealthy people acted on their own behalf, and peasants petitioned for the temple construction on behalf of the community. One of the important strategies for conversation of Orthodox shrines was putting them in the temple vault, often available for parishioners - placing icons in the interior of the temples, relics in cancers, making tombs. A kind of strategy to support the traditional character-sign series was the liturgical ministry in the annual and diurnal cycle, as well as religious processions, which in time and space reproduced the scenario and religious meaning of reverence. Such reverence supports the established world order along with the heavenly protection on the earth. Instead of the lost churches, new ones or sometimes chapels were established on the same places, instead of the destroyed chapels crosses were erected, supporting the memory of the holy place. Sacred artifacts were an attribute of the ideological picture of the Orthodoxy and the memory of them presented at all levels - from the individual to the national, in any sphere of culture - material, spiritual, artistic and social ones. The safety of sacred artifacts was ensured by the strategies that resumed the artifacts’ functioning in the cultural environment and by the order established by the religious canons.