THE significance of communion cannot be overemphasized - it is the central sacrament of the Orthodox Church. But communion as a practice in its historical manifestations can be very diverse and undergo significant changes in a relatively short time. From this point of view, the frequency of regular communion of lay people accepted by a certain community is most significant.1 In this respect, the practice in question has experienced two revolutions in the twentieth century, or, so to speak, two Eucharistic transitions: from the synodal period to the Soviet period (during the entire Soviet period, the frequency of communion by an Orthodox parishioner increased approximately 5-10 times) and then to the post-Soviet period (another 4-5 times In this article, we will try to understand what factors led to the first Eucharistic transition and highlight some methodological points that seem to be important for studying the practice of communion and religious practices in general.

The study of the practice of communion presents us with an unexpected source study problem. Despite its significance for the Orthodox believer, communion is a silent practice that is rarely spoken about, and even less often

The research was supported by the Program of Fundamental Research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Traditions and Innovations in History and Culture".

1. The practice of communion is accompanied by a whole range of related practices. All of them together can be called Eucharistic practices : the presence or absence of pre-communion confession; Eucharistic fasting and the practice of marital abstinence in connection with communion; pre - and post-communion prayers and services that should be attended in connection with communion; lay prayers during the Liturgy, etc.

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it is recorded in writing. The regularity of communion is learned by the faithful from the context, from the custom, which is not always justified, and even less often understood. The good thing about the custom is that it is accepted - as it seems to its bearers - by everyone and has always existed. Interestingly, believers in the 1970s, by their own admission, were surprised, if not shocked, when they realized how much their own practice of communion differs from that adopted, for example, before the revolution.2 But this creates additional difficulties for the researcher, since the custom is rarely articulated. He casually and casually leaves traces, first of all, in sources of personal origin: diaries, letters, memoirs. In the course of our research, we will pay high priority to these sources. Our research has also been greatly assisted by interviews, mostly with parishioners of well-known Moscow churches, about the situation with communion that existed in their communities in the 1970s and 1980s. The degree of knowledge of the sources allows us to make only the first approaches to the study of this topic. It will be possible to speak more firmly about the evolution of practice with a more complete account of the material, but we will try to outline the main trends of this evolution.

At the same time, we will focus on studying the practice only on the territory of the USSR. In emigration, among various groups genetically related to the Russian church tradition, the practice of communion acquired its own characteristics, but until the end of the Soviet period - as it seems to us - it could not significantly influence the evolution of practice in the USSR. We will point out some exceptions to this rule in this article.

On the other hand, using the practice of communion as an example, we can consider a problem that is important for studying religious practices in general, namely, the problem of the relationship between the practice and the text describing this practice.3 Usually, a text (folklore or normative) defines a practice and gives it a justification. But in the case of the practice of communion, we find ourselves in a more complex, more dynamic situation. Learning prak-

2. Interview with A.V. Shchipkov, January 21, 2012.

3. See, for example, Panchenko A. A. Religious practices and religious folklore//Russian religiosity: Problems of studying / comp. by A. I. Alekseeva, A. S. Lavrov, St. Petersburg, 2000, pp. 14-25.

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The tiki of communion allows us to identify the most unexpected variants of the relationship between real practices and the texts that normalize them, and therefore it is especially interesting from a methodological point of view.

The fact is that the frequency of communion in the Eastern Christian tradition (oddly enough!) it doesn't have a basic text that clearly and unambiguously regulates it. Well-known texts, including canonical ones, describe the practice of a particular time, or express wishes for its change, or formulate an ideal and immediately compare it with existing practice, showing that real practice deviated far from even the generally recognized ideal.

One of the most famous texts on this subject is the 89(93) canonical letter of St. John the Baptist. St. Basil the Great "To Caesarea, the wife of a Patrician, on communion":

It is good and useful to partake and receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ every day ... However, we partake four times every week: on the Lord's Day, on Wednesday, on Friday, and on Saturday, and also on other days, if there is a memory of a saint.

Let's pay attention to the structure of this statement: Basil the Great first speaks about the ideal, about the norm ("it is good to receive communion every day"), and then speaks about the practice adopted in the Church of Caesarea, and it differs from this ideal ("four times a week"). Let us remember this structure of the utterance about communion. We will also find it in the Russian material, in particular in Mitr. Filaret (Drozdov). It turned out that the reader was left to decide for himself whether he would follow the ideal, or relate to the practice that is recorded in these statements. Other well-known texts state the minimum required for regular communion: at least once every three weeks, at least four times a year, and at least once a year4. However, practice may have deviated far from these prescriptions, and even their appearance rather indicates that the "lower limit" set by these texts was regularly violated.

4. 80 Rule of the Sixth Ecumenical Council; Rights and duties of the dean of parish churches. According to the current ecclesiastical and civil legal provisions, governing decrees of the Holy Synod and orders of the Diocesan Authorities. Moscow, 1900. p. 17; PSZ(1). Vol. 6. January 25, 1721 N 3718.

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Thus, communion, its periodicity - for all its significance-turns out to be a surprisingly "free" practice, regulated to the least extent by the canonical prescriptions of the Eastern Christian Church.

Moreover, communion cannot be considered as an integral practice in all historical periods. If the canonical decisions of ecumenical and significant local councils of the fourth and seventh centuries impose the same requirements on different church groups, bishops, clerics, and laity, regarding their participation in the sacrament 5, then already in the Russian situation, both in the medieval and synodal periods, no one could even think of approaching them with the same requirements. requirements and criteria for priests, lay people, and monks. Some kind of different versions of the practice of communion are being formed, which could differ significantly from one another. First, the practice of regular and near-death communion differs widely. Secondly, the practices of communion of the clergy, monastics and laity differ. Third, the practices of communion of higher and lower social strata differ. The Synodal period provides us with examples of a marked differentiation of these variations of sacrament practice. People could not receive communion for years, but during illness they could receive communion every six weeks; priests could receive communion weekly, monks monthly, and lay people only annually; nobles and citizens could receive communion twice a year, and peasants once every few years.

At the same time, the faithful of the Russian Empire were well aware of the existence of various varieties of communion practice: the laity were well aware of how often their parish priests received communion, and pilgrims were familiar with the practice of communion in monasteries. The attitude to such differentiation within one participial practice can be implemented in two strategies. On the one hand, this can be perceived by everyone as a norm, as something that distinguishes and should distinguish a priest and monk from a layman. 6 (I think that this perception indicates the presence of a deep class consciousness).-

5. See: Canon 8 and 9 of the Holy Apostles; Canon 66 and 80 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council; and canon of the Council of Sardica; 2 canon of the Council of Antioch.

6. Compare the statements of peasants given in the article by V. Y. Makarova: Makarova V. Y. Nedaroimtsy, manipulators and lying on the bed: on the question of the peculiarities of the peasant attitude to confession and communion//Scientific theological portal " Bogoslov.<url>". August 24, 2011: http://www.bogoslov.ru/text/1910434.html.

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when a closer or conversely weaker contact with the sacred is perceived as a kind of social marker.) On the other hand, all parties or any one party may strive to overcome this discrepancy, to perceive the priestly or monastic rhythm of communion as a model. It seems that this is exactly what we encounter in the example of O. St. John of Kronstadt, who perceived the frequency of his priestly communion as the standard that everyone should strive for. In any case, the existence of such different strains within one practice already created tension between them and, consequently, the conditions for its evolution.

Synodal texts and practices

To understand the processes of the Soviet era, we need to focus on the situation of the synodal era, since it turns out to be a reference point for the evolution of our practice in the XX century. A special feature of the synodal period is the rather large attention of state legislation to the issue of the frequency of communion. A well-known rule of the Ecclesiastical Regulations prescribing obligatory annual confession and communion to the laity:

Every Christian must partake of the Holy Eucharist often, but at least once a year. < ... > For this reason, if a Christian appears to be very far removed from Holy Communion, he thereby reveals himself, which is not in the body of Christ, this is not an accomplice of the church, but a schismatic. And there is no better sign why to know the schismatic. Bishops should diligently observe this and order that parish priests should report their parishioners in all years, who did not receive communion in a year, who did not receive communion in two years, and who never did.7
The legislation of Peter I repeated the prescriptions of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich on the obligation of at least annual communion, 8 but in addition (and this was an important difference) burdened church practice with state control measures.-

7. PSZ(1). Vol. 6. January 25, 1721 N 3718.

8. See, for example: PSZ(1). Vol. 1. 25 October 1650 N 47; AAE. Vol. 4-10 March 1660 N 115; PSZ(1). Vol. 1. 1 March 1674 N 570 (indicated by E. V. Belyakova).

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a myth, since participation in the sacraments was supposed to separate the Orthodox from the Old Believers. Communion turned out to be a kind of yearly repeated investigative experiment to identify supposedly hiding Old Believers.

The Charter of the Ecclesiastical Consistories of 1841 and 1883 (Articles 15 and 17) repeated the norm of the Ecclesiastical regulations and imposed on the diocesan authorities the duty to monitor the annual performance by the laity of the" Christian duty " of confession and communion. Non-communion for 2-3 years was already qualified by the Charter as a reason for reporting such a case to the bishop, and then to the "civil authorities"9. Thus, here the annual communion was considered as one of the most important proofs of the trustworthiness of the subjects of the Russian Empire.

The church legislation of the same time looked at the issue somewhat differently.

Mitr. Plato (Levshin), in his instructions to the deans of 1775 (reprinted with corrections in 1858), instructed the latter to ensure that the families of clerics receive communion on all fasts, i.e. four times a year, and the dean must also call parishioners.

The dean sees to it that all the clergy and their wives and children, as well as acolytes with their families, and all the minor ones, make their confessions every year, and not only during Great Lent, but also, if possible, during all other fasts. They were partakers of the Mysteries (v. 9).

The dean, when visiting churches, should exhort the parishioners to make confession and partake of the Holy Mysteries during all four fasts, according to their Christian duty, and especially on Sundays and holidays to come to the temple of God, leaving their work and living honestly, according to the gospel commandments (v. 46).10
That is, four times a year communion was formulated as an ideal not only for members of the families of clergy, i.e. not only for the clergy, but also for all the laity.

9. PSZ(1). Vol. 16. Ed. 1. March 27, 1841 N 14409; PSZ(3). Vol. 3. April 9, 1883 N 1495.

10. Rights and duties of the dean of parish churches, pp. 5, 17.

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Mitre raised the bar even higher. Philaret (Drozdov) in his famous Catechism:

Ancient Christians received communion every Sunday, 11 but few of today's Christians have such purity of life that they are always ready to receive such a great sacrament. The motherly voice of the Church commands those who are zealous for a devout life to confess to their spiritual father and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ - four times a year or every month, and all of them - without fail once a year 12.

Rarely or frequently does the Metropolitan of Moscow invite Orthodox laity to receive communion? As we will see below, he was 100 years ahead of his time in this respect. The recommendation to receive communion every Fast and more often in the context of the synodal period is a recommendation to increase the frequency of communion, i.e. it does not reflect the synodal trend towards annual communion. But we will understand this only if we compare this text with contemporary practice.

As we can see, the legislation of the XVIII-XIX centuries prescribed more frequent communion than was apparently accepted in the Russian church practice of the previous period. Prior to Peter, the laity, as can be seen from the decrees of Alexey Mikhailovich, received communion extremely rarely, perhaps once in their lives, before death. However, this more frequent communion was strictly regulated in secular legislation and was subject to state needs, and was placed at the service of state interests. As a result, the sacrament was enslaved by the state. At the same time, the appeals and even prescriptions of prominent hierarchs regarding the frequency of communion did not have as significant an impact on the practice of their flock as the decrees of the civil authorities.

11. This remark of mitr. Filareta dissonates with the above text of Basil the Great. In all likelihood, the idea of the ancient Christians receiving communion every Sunday is an interpretation of rule 80 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which prescribes excommunicating a lay person( and expelling a cleric from the clergy) who did not come to church and did not receive communion for three Sundays without a valid reason.

12. Voluminous Orthodox Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, Part 1, § 340.

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The actual practice of synodal time was closer to state legislation than to the appeals of hierarchs, and in some segments of the population, especially the peasants, it completely reproduced the practices of even rarer communion, characteristic of the pre-Petrine time.13
"They sang twice a year," Pushkin says of the Larins (Eugene Onegin, ch. II, p. XXXV), emphasizing the patriarchal and traditionally pious way of life. In 6o years, another writer's father will record the same trend in his diary. During the 7 years of his life in Melekhov, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov received communion 9 times. For three years he received communion once (1892,1897,1898), for three years-twice (1894-1896), for one year (1893), apparently, he did not receive communion at all 14. His communion took place either before Christmas, usually on Christmas Eve, or during Lent-on the first week (1 time), on Lazarus Saturday (1 time), and most often on Holy Thursday (3 times)15.At the same time, let us keep in mind that Pavel Yegorovich was distinguished by a special, albeit somewhat affected piety, and his practice of communion is the practice of an emphatically pious layman.

The peasants (who made up a significant majority of the Russian population) had a slightly different attitude to the frequency of communion. In a recent article, ethnographer Veronika Makarova showed that the annual communion was combined with the presence among the peasants of those who were called nedaroimtsy, i.e., who did not begin the sacrament, based on the idea of the need to observe special, one might say ritual purity after communion. At the same time, among the peasants, great importance was attached to the death communion 16. In addition, according to the peasants, the communion was "valid" for 40 Days, or

13. It seems that the fixation in the Spiritual Regulations of the need for at least annual communion led to a certain perversion: communion once a year in everyday consciousness began to be perceived as necessary and sufficient both in civil and church-liturgical terms. More often it was possible, but not necessarily, which means that in most cases it is not necessary.

14. It is possible that he simply did not write about this in his diary, because he was in Moscow for Christmas (cf.p. 73), but this is unlikely, given the thoroughness with which he kept his "chronicle".

15. Melikhovsky chronicler: The diary of Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov / comp. by A. P. Kuzichev, E. M. Sakharov. Moscow: "Nauka", 1995. 42, 78, 98, 104, 128, 135, 168, 180, 225.

Makarova V. 16. Yu Nedroma, manipulators and lying on deathbed: to the question about the features of the peasant relations to confession and communion//Scientific

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six weeks, so it was considered blasphemous to receive communion more often than this period.17 Thus, the practice of very rare communion, which existed in pre-Petrine Russia, was partially preserved among the peasants.

However, "nedaroimstvo" was not an exclusively rural phenomenon. 18 In 1883, the Perm Society of St. Stephen of Perm made a special decision to compile and publish for distribution among parishioners "a small and strong article against those who have not been well for a long time". Chairman of the society prot. Evgeny Popov, justifying the need to write such an article, said:

I know very well from my ministry as a parish priest in many parishes and as a dean in two districts that everywhere there are Orthodox people who have not been dead for five or ten years.19

This article was indeed written. Moreover, it retold and criticized the motives that guide those who do not approach the sacrament. The argument of the latter was the traditional argument of the "nedaroimtsev":

But you think in your own way - you argue that it's enough to join in a few years! Do you consider it excessive zeal to approach Holy Communion in all four Fasting years, and all the more so-

theological portal " Bogoslov.<url>". August 24, 2011: http://www.bogoslov.ru/text/1910434.html.

17. In the traditional peasant culture, there was a wide range of post-participial restrictions. So, "people who accepted the Sacrament should avoid marital relations, swearing, quarrels, wine drinking, bozhba, plentiful food, prolonged sleep and excessive physical labor" (Makarova V. Yu. Nedaroimtsy, manipulators and lying on their bed...). It was easier to observe these prohibitions during Lent, therefore, as V. Makarov shows. Yu. Makarova, in Russia, since the XVI century, the practice of communion at the beginning of Lent has been developing. Let us note that P. E. Chekhov received communion not only at the beginning, but also at the end of Lent, which means that the peasant idea of the" validity period " of communion was no longer relevant for him.

18.Due to the lack of definite data for an earlier period, it is difficult to say whether peasant ideas and peasant practices spread to urban strata in the late nineteenth century as a result of rural-urban migration, or whether "non-rich" people always existed among urban residents as well as among peasants.

19. RGIA. F. 1574. Op. 2. D. 263. Ll. 1, 3. Italics in the quotation of our - A. B.

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lei except for posts. Repeat after others like you, without a clear inner consciousness: "unworthy, not to hold back.".. Under these pretexts, some do not approach the table of Christ at all, as if they are more reverent for it, as if they are more concerned with its importance than others, even than the Church, which nevertheless allows you to start even after it has tested your state of mind in confession.20
It is interesting that the Perm priests considered it possible to call their parishioners not only to receive Communion annually, but also to receive Communion four times a year, 21 relying, obviously, on the Instructions to the deans and on the Catechism of Mitr. Filareta.

Thus, the synodal situation, which was the starting point for the development of practice in the Soviet period, was characterized by the following points::

- enslavement of the sacrament by the state;

- differentiation of the sacrament among different church groups (laity, priests, and monastics) and different social strata (in particular, among peasants and non-peasants);

- for most lay people, annual communion, and sometimes even rarer, like that of the "nedaroimtsev", was mostly the norm. In part, as we will see below, annual communion was recognized as the norm even at the early stage of the Soviet period.

The Early Soviet Period: the "emancipation" of Communion practice

1917 brought the practice of communion first of all emancipation, liberation from the link with the state control functions attributed to it. N. B. Kitsenko speaks about a similar process in relation to the sacrament of confession 22. The sacraments again began to be perceived for themselves, and not as a certificate of civic trustworthiness. For some, this meant refusing to participate in the sacrament. For some, this made it possible, though not yet necessary, to review its regularity.

The "extreme" existence of believers in Soviet times. Indeed, more frequent communion is necessary.-

20. Ibid., l. 4 vol. See also l. 5.

21. Ibid. Ll. 1 vol., 4 vol., 6.

22. See N. Kitsenko's article in this issue.

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lo is a different circumstance. Believers in Soviet Russia faced persecution and death, whether from starvation or repression. This "extreme" nature of their existence has led to more frequent communion, and, in addition, to a loosening of the requirements for preparing for the sacrament.

Protopresbyter George Shavelsky testifies that he had to observe in two capitals at the end of 1917 and in 1918.:

Persecution with torments and constant sudden arrests and executions of believers sharpened the religious feeling in the latter to the highest limits, special whole-night divine services were required, at which each of those present sought to make confession of their sins and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, so that they could face the coming day with purification and strength, in which torment and death might await them. In view of the large number of such applicants, private confession was out of the question.23
There is evidence that Fr. Alexy Mechev, during the famine of 1921-1922, gave communion to his parishioners at every liturgy they could attend.24 Archpriest Boris Nikolaev describes the mass communion during the" purge " of Pskov from unreliable elements in April 1935.:

..[N]arod was rampant: in those days there was a campaign of mass staged expulsions, and everyone was in a hurry to talk, going forever to a foreign land. On Annunciation, we gave communion to 800 people, and on Palm Sunday, 1100-25.

Shavelsky George, protopresbyter. 23. Orthodox Pastoral Care, St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Institute, 1996, p. 605.

24. This was mentioned in a personal conversation by the famous spiritual writer Archimedes. Sofroniy (Sakharov; 1896-1993), whose brother, N. S. Sakharov, was an active member of the Mechevo community. - Communication by S. V. Chapnin, 1992. Compare also the practice of daily communion that prevailed in this community: "The Good Shepherd". The life and works of the Moscow elder Archpriest Alexey Mechev. Moscow, 1997. pp. 342-343, 350; especially: Ibid., pp. 389 (communion during the famine years without a special fast, because "the fast was involuntary").

25. Znamennaya zhizn. Memoirs of the life of Archpriest Boris Nikolaev. Autobiography. Moscow: Ast-Press Shkola, 2008. p. 179. In 1937, Pskov had 55,184 inhabitants, i.e., on Palm Sunday 1935, only about 2% of the city's inhabitants took Communion in one church. See: All-Union Population Census of 1937: General Results. Collection of documents and materials, Moscow, 2007, p. 68.

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As we can see, the" extreme " existence of believers in Soviet Russia was one of the main factors influencing the increase in the frequency of communion.

Here, regular practice seemed to merge in its "function" with the dying "parting words". People were preparing for death, the question of proper preparation faded into the background, the regularity increased, since those in mortal danger could receive communion every day.

But there was another point.

Further blurring of the boundaries between communion practices of different ecclesiastical "classes". In the post-revolutionary period, the boundaries between the practice of communion among the laity, clergy, and monastics were intensively blurred. This new trend is already evident in the practice of communion among the laity. St. John of Kronstadt. As N. B. Kitsenko showed, his understanding of participation in the Eucharist as the most important condition for salvation and the practice of the synodal period of rare communion of the laity caused the Kronstadt pastor a sharp sense of incongruity. He was painfully aware of the contradiction between the practice of communion by a priest and a parishioner and wanted to overcome this contradiction. 26 Hence the call for parishioners to take communion more often. Thus, in the practice of the Kronstadt pastor, it was precisely the "blurring" of the boundaries between the practice of communion of the clergy and the people. His work in this regard was based on the revolutionary view for the synodal mentality that all church groups can and should receive communion equally and that access to communion is not a special social marker. The sanctity of Father John, recognized by the people, legitimized this view in the eyes of the clergy and the faithful.

But at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, this view was rather an exception, the boldness of a single charismatic pastor. After the revolution, the blurring of the boundaries between different branches of practice became much more intense, especially since it was already sanctified by the authority of Fr. St. John's.

It seems to us that the practices of communion between lay and religious people converged particularly intensively during the Soviet period. Here is one, but quite eloquent

Saint of our Time: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People, Moscow, 2006.

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an example of this kind. As you know, the persecution of monasteries by the Soviet authorities led to their almost complete closure on the territory of the USSR by the end of the 1920s. But this did not mean the disappearance of monasticism, which went out into the world, continuing to observe monastic vows. As a result, there was an intensification of contacts between monks and lay people, who very often found themselves united within the same community.

Thus, several confessors appeared at the beginning of the XX century. In 1923 they moved to Moscow, to the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery (the only open church that operated as a parish), where a large community was formed around them. In the Zosimov Desert, the practice of receiving communion was adopted: novices and monks tonsured in the ryasophorion received communion once a month, fulfilling the call of mitras addressed to the "zealous". Filaret (Drozdov); tonsured in the mantle-two or three times a month; tonsured in the great schema-every day or several times a week (and the Zosimovites also sought to receive communion in prison). With the arrival of the Zosimovites in the Moscow parish church, the practice of monthly communion, adopted in the desert for novices and ryasofor monks, gradually spread to the laity, who were the spiritual children of these elders. The monastic tradition was literally transferred to the world 27.

The experience of the confessors of the former Zosimov desert was particularly important both because of their high authority and because their spiritual children - both those who took the tonsure and those who were married-later became well-known pastors themselves. For example, the spiritual son of the vicar of the Petrovsky monastery schiarchim. Archpriest Vladimir Smirnov was a priest of such a well-known center of Moscow church life in the post-war period as the Temple of Elijah the Prophet in Obydensky Lane 28.

Ignatia, a nun. 27. Seniority in the years of persecution. Venerable Martyr Ignatius (Lebedev) and his spiritual family/Text preparation, publication, preface and comments by A. L. Beglov, Moscow: Publishing House of the Moscow Metochion of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 2001. 350 p., ill. (B-ka of the journal "Alpha and Omega"), pp. 187, 323-324, 389; Arseny (Zhadanovsky), Bishop. Zosimov Desert builder schiigumen Herman//Bishop Arseny (Zhadanovsky). Memoirs, Moscow, 1995. 86, 91 - 92, 94 - 95.

28. " Woe to those who have hearts." Archpriest Vladimir Smirnov: (Spiritual Children about the spiritual Father), Moscow, 2004.

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As a result, the frequency of communion in the 1920s was very diverse.

On the one hand, those who were not active parishioners were still required to give at least an annual "govenment". Pskov Archpriest Boris Nikolaev recalled the recommendations that the parish priest gave his mother during Lent in 1922, who had not received communion (or perhaps had not been in church at all) for seven years: "At confession, the priest gave her a bow and took the word to speak every year"29 On the other hand, the community of Fr.Alexy Mechev practiced frequent, sometimes daily communion. 30 Some enthusiasts of the renovationist movement, such as Fr.Alexander Evert in Pskov, did the same. In the late 1920s, he gave communion to his parishioners at every service, i.e. on Sundays and holidays after the general confession.31 However, both among the pastors of the Patriarchal Church and among the Renovationists, these were only 32. Most people's practice was somewhere in the middle. Young Boris Nikolaev received communion three times during Great Lent in 1926 in the church of the Patriarchal Church: on the first week, on the 4th, and on Holy Week 33. The same practice of receiving Holy Communion three times during Lent (with a difference in nuances) we meet later in the 1970s - 1980s in the circle of Fr. Dimitri Dudko 34. This was no longer the practice of taking communion once at the end of Lent,

29. Znamennaya zhizn, p. 140. Italics in the quotation nash. - A. B. A similar practice in relation to this category of parishioners persisted in the province and in the post-war period. See Vladimir Pravdolyubov, Archpriest. The true meaning of the modern sermon of super-frequent Communion//"Holy Fire". 2007. No. 16 (April).

30. "The Good Shepherd". The Life and Works of the Moscow elder Archpriest Alexey Mechev, Moscow, 1997, pp. 342-343, 350, 389.

31. Znamennaya Zhizn. p. 161. "Confession was based on a book," says a memoirist about this community, i.e. sins were listed according to a list from some publication or handwritten collection.

32. The memoirs were brought to us by the voices of the Moscow clergy, who harshly condemned Fr. Alexy Mechev for his practice of receiving communion. Future prot. Boris Nikolaev refers to the practice of Fr. Alexander Evert as an innovation in Pskov at that time. The life and Works of the Moscow elder Archpriest Alexey Mechev. Moscow, 1997. P. 342; Znamennaya zhizn. p. 161. Cf. The cautious attitude of renovationist leaders to the liturgical innovations of Fr. Vasily Adamenko: Damaskin (Orlovsky), igum. Martyrs, Confessors and Piety of the Russian Orthodox Church of the XX century. Biographies and materials to them, Vol. 1. Tver, 1992, p. 205.

33. Znamennaya zhizn, p. 147.

34. Interview with A.V. Shchipkov, January 21, 2012.

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like P. E. Chekhov, and not a peasant approach, according to which it was necessary to "keep" communion for 40 Days, and, accordingly, it made sense to take communion at the beginning of Lent. The situation has changed significantly.

Post-war period: stabilization of practice

After the war, the period of" turbulence " of practices ended. The extremes have been smoothed out, but compared to pre-revolutionary times, we are seeing a noticeable increase in the frequency of communion: we are increasingly hearing about monthly or slightly more rare communion as a normal practice.

Thus, the daughter of the well - known author of church samizdat N. E. Pestov, Natalia Nikolaevna Sokolova, as a schoolgirl in the 1940s and 1950s, received communion "once five or six times a year", i.e. approximately every two months. 35 Her husband, fr. In the 1970s, Vladimir Sokolov already gave communion to his parishioners on a monthly36. Parishioners who were part of Fr. Dimitri Dudko's circle (and lived in different cities, not only in Moscow) during the same period, as well as in the 1980s, received communion up to 10 times a year, according to one of them, "not every month, but gravitating to once a month. 37 At the same time, as we have said, during the one-and-a-half-month period of Great Lent, it was customary to receive communion in the circle of Fr.Demetrius three times, during the first, Holy and Holy weeks. Similarly, parishioners of the Church of Elijah the Ordinary received communion a little less than once a month. 38 The practice of communion in the parish of Fr. Dimitry Dudko had its own peculiarities. The fact is that after the priest was expelled from Moscow, during his ministry in the village of Grebnevo, a significant part of his flock consisted of visitors who visited their mentor at different intervals. At the same time, it was assumed that every time they arrived, they would be able to-

Sokolova N. N. 35. "Under the roof of the Supreme" / under the general editorship of His Grace Sergius (Sokolov), Bishop of Novosibirsk and Berdsk. Moscow, 1999. P. 37.

36. Interview with E. V. Belyakova, October 31, 2011.

37. Interview with A.V. Shchipkov, January 21, 2012. Italics in the quotation are ours.

38. Interview with V. G. Kaleda, October 2011. It is interesting that, according to ordinary parishioners, the majority of Orthodox people received communion at this time exactly four times a year. (This was partly, but only partly, true, as we will see from Kasimov's example.) That is, everyday practice was perceived by its bearers as frequent communion.

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they were kissed and received communion. Accordingly, the regularity of communion could vary: those who came once a month, once a month and received communion, those who came more often, more often and participated in the sacraments.39 Fr Alexander Men set the frequency of communion for his parishioners very individually, but he also required that communion be performed at least once a month.40

In the Ryazan hinterland, in the city of Kasimov in the 1960s-1980s, there was a practice that, on the one hand, was noticeably different from the pre-revolutionary one (here they took communion five times a year instead of one), but on the other hand, it retained the features of traditional peasant ideas about the" validity period " of communion for six weeks:

In our localities, zealous Christians received communion every fast, twice on Lent, during the first and Holy weeks. The old and sick of them took the blessing from the priest "not to go out for six weeks", that is, to receive communion every forty days. Naturally, communion was preceded by a week-long prayer, which included fasting (by fasting-strengthening it), standing at all church services (of course, if possible), reading the Holy Scriptures and patristic works that help to test the conscience, and as a result-confession and the rule. Relaxation was allowed to those who had not received communion for a long time. They were told to take communion at least once a year.41
On the other hand, according to the recollections of the same priest, authoritative monastic mentors, confessors of the Glinskaya Pustyn and Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, recommended that lay people receive communion once a month and once every two weeks, respectively. 42 We note that this recommendation in itself is another example of the convergence of parish and monastic practices of communion.

But during this period, there were also supporters of communion even more frequent than the monthly one. N. E. Pestov at the end of life, according to svide-

39. Interview with A.V. Shchipkov, January 21, 2012.

40. Interview with M. A. Zhurinskaya, May 17, 2011.

Pravdolyubov Vladimir, Archpriest. 41. The true meaning of the modern sermon of super-frequent Communion."Holy Fire". 2007. No. 16 (April).

42. Ibid.

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according to the testimony of his daughter, "for a long time" he received communion every week. 43 In the 1970s, around fr. Vsevolod Shpiller had a narrow group of his spiritual children who received communion weekly or at least more often than once a month. 44
Perhaps the most striking example of more frequent communion, which many memoirists talk about, is the practice of Archimandrite Peter. Father Tavrion (Batozsky), in the 1970s the confessor of the Transfiguration Women's Desert of the Riga Diocese. Fr. Tavrion offered pilgrims (and even required them) to receive communion at every service during their stay in the monastery. Accordingly, communion could be daily or almost daily. According to the recollections of one of the pilgrims, he and his companions received communion four times during the five days they spent in the desert. Tavriona. I wonder what my practice is about. Taurion justified the otherness of monastic life, saying something like this: you are in a monastery, everything is different here, take communion 45. Such frequent communion was perceived as an exception to the normal course of things. Pilgrimage to the monastery

- this is a way out of everyday reality, even ordinary church reality, and, accordingly, a way out of ordinary, "normal" practices.

The combination of the practices of communion and pilgrimage occurred not only in the case of trips to the Archimandrite. Some of the Moscow parishioners had a tradition of confessing and receiving communion in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra during Lent.46 The combined practices, communion on pilgrimage, and pilgrimage for communion performed their primary function

- the introduction of a lay person to the sacred, and a pilgrimage, a way out of the ordinary course of things, increased the feeling of such communion. This will be especially noticeable in the post-Soviet years due to a new surge in Orthodox pilgrimages. However, this topic, as well as in general the topic of combining practices, in this case - communion and pilgrimage, remains completely unexplored, although it seems extremely important.

Sokolova N. N. 43. "Under the roof of the Supreme", p. 364.

44. Interview with E. V. Belyakova, October 31, 2011.

45. Interview with V. G. Kaleda, October 2011; Interview with E. V. Belyakova, October 31, 2011.

46. Interview with E. V. Belyakova, October 31, 2011.

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Communion and calendar. Another topic that requires separate consideration is the combination of the practice of communion and the church calendar. In the Russian church tradition, which was generally relevant in the Soviet period, the practice of communion was separated from the church holiday. They took communion by fasting, on the name day, but not on the day of the feast itself 47. And even fasts, for example, Great Lent, were given communion not on Sundays, but on Saturdays or on Wednesdays and Fridays. Thus, in the mid-1920s, 12-year-old Boris Nikolaev received Lenten Communion on weekdays (i.e., at one of the Pre-Consecrated Liturgies) or on Saturdays of the 1st and 4th weeks, and probably on Holy Thursday.48
By the second half of the 1950s, the picture had changed somewhat. A unique document, the liturgical diary of the Moscow Church of the Sign of the Mother of God in Pereyaslavskaya Sloboda, kept by its rector, Archpriest Kleonik Vakulovich (1891 - 1972) in 1954-1962, allows us to trace the combination of tradition and new trends. This church, one of the few churches that has never been closed, is located near the Rizhsky railway station, and therefore in Soviet times it was accessible to residents not only of Moscow, but also of the Moscow region. In this regard, the peculiarities of the practice of communion recorded by Fr. Cleonik can be considered characteristic of the Moscow region as a whole.

The diary of the Church of the Sign shows (see Table 1) that the faithful, as before, did not often receive communion on the day of a holiday that was not related to the Lenten period. For example, during the twelve feasts of Ascension and Pentecost, the Temple of the Sign in 1957 had only 100 communicants each. This number was lower than the average number of those who received communion on an ordinary Sunday (which does not coincide with the memory of any venerated saint or any other holiday), as well as the number of those who received communion on the great feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, which is less significant from the point of view of the church charter than the above-mentioned twelve-day feasts, but completes the Peter and Paul lenten cycle (230 people)..

47. This practice may have originated from the understanding that on a holiday it is impossible to "observe" or "keep" the sacrament, that is, the ritual purity that traditional consciousness required to be observed after communion with the sacrament.

48. Znamennaya zhizn. p. 147. This conclusion suggests itself, since in the context of his statement "weeks" are not referred to as Sundays, but weeks.

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Table 1. Distribution of communicants by days of the church year in the Church of the Sign of the Mother of God in Pereyaslavskaya Sloboda (Moscow) in 1956 and 1957 49

Types of days of the Church year

Number of communicants

Min / max (number of registered cases)

Average

weekday

6/60 (16)

30

weekday + commemoration of the venerated saint

15/210 (11)

81

Sunday afternoon

50/170 (17)

122

Sunday + commemoration of the venerated saint

150/600 (3)

316

lent + weekday (Wednesday, Friday, great Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

60/410 (24)

230

great Lent + weekday + commemoration of the venerated saint

115/350 (3)

241

great Lent + Sunday, Saturday day

380/1500 (19)

880

holy thursday

600/1500 (2)

1050

Orthodox parishioners still sought to receive communion on their name days. On the day of commemoration of a venerated saint, and especially a saint whose name was a common female name, the number of communicants (more often - communicants) outside the Lenten period increased by about 2.5 times compared to the average number of those who received communion on a weekday or Sunday that did not coincide with the day of remembrance of such a saint. And, apparently, on such days they took communion in suppressing-

49. Calculated by: Vakulovich Kleonik, Archpriest. Diary of the Church of the Sign of the Mother of God//Alpha and Omega, gon. N 2(61). pp. 293-328; N 3(62). pp. 208-244.

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Father Cleonik specifically notes that on the days of Saints Tatiana, Anastasia, Xenophon and Mary, Simeon and Anna, Evdokia, Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sofia, there were such and such a number of "communicants" or "birthday communion girls"in the church 50.

At the same time, the faithful now increasingly took communion on Sundays. Perhaps it was the fact that Sunday was a day off that prompted them to do this. During Lent, the number of communicants on Saturdays and Sundays now very often coincided, and sometimes Sundays were ahead of Saturdays in terms of the number of communicants (for example, during Lent in 1957). At the same time, Lent remained the main period of the year when Orthodox believers received communion. At this time, the number of people receiving communion exceeded the indicator of similar days of the rest of the year by 3-7 times. During Lent, parishioners more often than on other days sought to participate in the sacrament on Saturday and Sunday of the first and on Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week. Moreover, in 1956, the number of communicants on the first week was more than twice the number of communicants on Holy Week (1500 on each of the days against 600). And in 1957, the first and Holy weeks were almost equal from this point of view (1,250 communicants on the Sabbath of the first week and 1,500 on the Sabbath of Passion). Two traditions of communion - at the beginning and at the end of Lent - coexisted and, apparently, fought with each other during this period.

However, the peak of the church year - the feast of Easter-was still not associated with the communion of the laity. In general, the Russian church tradition probably did not know of the communion of the laity on this feast day as early as the seventeenth century.51 This situation continued throughout the Soviet period. But in the 1960s and 1970s, a priest served in Moscow who challenged the established tradition. It was O. Vsevolod Shpiller, who began to give communion to his regular parishioners at Easter and this noticeably stood out from the background

50. See ibid. N 2 (61). p. 297, 301, 304 - 306, 311, 319, 321, 325; N 3 (62). P. 228.

51. Compare Arseny Sukhanov's description of Easter Communion in Jerusalem, which evokes the shock experienced by a Russian traveler: Proskinitarii. Walking of the elder builder Arseny Sukhanov in 7157 (1649) to Jerusalem and other holy places to describe the holy places and Greek church orders. (Monument of the XVII century). Kazan, 1870. pp. 93-94 (indicated by E. V. Belyakova).

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there were 52 other Moscow abbots of that time. It seems to us that this practice should be avoided. Vsevolod can be explained by his experience as an expatriate minister and familiarity with the Eucharistic traditions of other Orthodox Churches. In the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, the struggle for Communion on Easter began much earlier.

Let us compare the appeal of the Archbishop. St. John of San Francisco (Maksimovich), dating back to the 1940s and 1950s.:

We pray for this only when we begin to prepare for Lent and then repeatedly during Lent: that the Lord will grant us to partake on the night of Holy Pascha. < ... > Of course, we must speak earlier and, having already taken communion during Lent, again partake of the Holy Mysteries. Before the Easter Liturgy, there is no time to make a detailed confession, this should be done earlier. And on the light-bearing night, having received general permission to approach the Divine Lamb, the pledge of our Resurrection. Let no one leave the Church prematurely, hurrying to taste the flesh of animals, instead of tasting the Most pure Body and Blood of Christ.53
At the same time, it seems that the practice Abroad itself was influenced by the corresponding practice of other Orthodox Churches - Serbian and Greek, where Communion on Easter has never disappeared.

Prayers of the laity during the Liturgy. Another aspect of the practice of communion that needs to be mentioned is how a lay person can participate in liturgical prayer. Soviet sources give three possible answers to this question: a lay person can 1) listen or sing along to what the choir sings, 2) read special prayers to himself that are not related to the text of the Liturgy or only indirectly related to it, 3) follow the prayers of the priest.

52. Interview with E. V. Belyakova, October 31, 2011. Vsevolod also agreed with other Moscow pastors about the possibility of receiving communion for the laity at Easter, for example, Archpriest Peter the Great. Vladimir Smirnov, however, the practice of the temple of the Prophet Elijah Ordinary remained more conservative during this period. See "Woe to Those who have Hearts". Archpriest Vladimir Smirnov: (Spiritual Children about the spiritual Father), Moscow, 2004, p. 125.

53. Archbishop John (Maksimovich). Archpastor, prayer book, ascetic. To the 25th anniversary of his death. 1961 - 1991. Publication of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia. San Francisco, 1991. pp. 222-223.

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The practice corresponding to the first option is natural and most common. The second and third options are less common. The existence of a practice corresponding to the second option was testified to by Fr. Sergiy Zheludkov, who was critical of it: "There were publications in popular soul-saving literature that offered bad prayers of their own invention for this case." 54
Prayers other than the text of the Liturgy were recommended by Jerome to his listeners. Samson (Siveret)55.

But there was a third option. It is known that Fr. Alexander Men recommended that his parishioners produce small books-the Eucharistic Canon printed on a typewriter. The size of the book was large enough to fit in the palm of your hand. This was also necessary in order not to attract outside attention. This little book was used to monitor the course of the Liturgy in order to understand the meaning of the priest's exclamations and the content of the entire sequence. This did not mean that the parishioner would say the secret priestly prayers himself; the goal was to understand them and consciously participate in the priest's prayer. 56
Of course, this was suggested to Fr. Alexander by Fr. St. Sergius of Zheludkov, formulated in his 44th "liturgical note":

But what should we do today, what advice should we give to a conscious Christian today - how should we pray to him during the celebration of the Eucharist? <...> They <authentic prayers of the Eucharist> are printed in the Service Book. They should be written out and read in whispers or in the mind with the priest. In this practice, they will soon be memorized by heart.57
Here we can see how the texts of samizdat directly influenced the Eucharistic practice of Orthodox parishioners. And although they did not change the frequency of communion, they did bring in the Eucharist-

Sergey Zheludkov, Holy Hierarch. 54. Liturgical Notes, Moscow: Sam & Sam, 2003, pp. 134-135. Find out which specific publications Fr was referring to here. Sergius, I haven't succeeded yet.

55. The elder Hieroschemist Sampson. Biography, conversations and teachings, letters, Moscow, 2004, pp. 145-147.

56. Interview with M. A. Zhurinskaya, May 17, 2011.

Sergey Zheludkov, priest. 57. Liturgical notes, pp. 134-135.

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A new element, previously unknown, is being introduced to the practice. Here the question of more frequent communion was no longer raised so much as an attempt was made to achieve a more conscious attitude towards the sacrament being performed on the part of parishioners.

It seems that this practice should be considered in the context of the reflections that were then relevant for various church groups on the" universal priesthood " of Orthodox believers (cf. 1 Peter 2: 5,9)" on the equal participation of laity in the Liturgy, and on the fact that "Christ is among us not only in the altar, but also in the whole church"58. Such discussions took place among Fr.Dimitry Dudko's parishioners in the 1970s. 59 But apparently Fr. Alexander Me's circle was no stranger to this intuition.

Conclusions

So, we see three trends that are relevant for the Soviet period.

First, the sacrament is "released" from the state control functions of the previous period, which creates conditions for changing the practice of communion.

Secondly, the extreme nature and "near-death" nature of human existence during the Soviet period become an impetus for the practice to begin to undergo such changes.

Finally, and third, the blurring of the boundaries between the monastic (primarily) priestly practices of communion and the practice of laity communion determines the direction of this evolution: the practices of different "strains" that developed during the synodal period are gradually converging, and the common denominator of this convergence is an increase in the frequency of laity communion - an increase, in comparison with the previous period,in the number of very significant.

This" Eucharistic transition " of the Soviet period was due not so much to the influence of new texts on practice as to a change within the practice itself. This change appears to us precisely as a blurring of the boundaries between its various "excesses": the boundary between regular communion and death communion, between the communion of monks and laity, became transparent. Familiarization with the sacred was becoming

58. Communication by A.V. Shchipkov, March 25, 2012.

59. Communication by A.V. Shchipkov, March 25, 2012.

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Consequently, the fear of it, so characteristic, for example, of the pre-revolutionary peasant consciousness, gradually disappeared. At the same time, regular or, conversely, episodic contact with the sacred ceased to be a social marker and began to be perceived in the actual religious context.

The blurring of the boundaries between ecclesiastical "estates", the entry of monasticism into the world, and the disappearance of the clergy, which implied the appointment of priests from the "people", from yesterday's laity (and not from hereditary clerics), apparently had another mental aspect. By the end of the Soviet period, some groups of parishioners (especially young urbanites) were becoming increasingly aware of what is called in theological parlance the "universal priesthood" of Orthodox Christians. As a result of this feeling, there was a need to consciously participate in the priest's prayer and, accordingly, participate more regularly in the sacrament.

In the post-Soviet period, the practice of communion was to undergo another radical metamorphosis. The most important impetus for this was given by the texts of foreign authors read in Russia at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s in the context of the already existing trend towards convergence of various forms of practice. But this is the subject of another study.

Bibliography

Archive materials

Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA).

F. 1574 (To The Village Of Pobedonostsev).

Interview

E. V. Belyakova (gon G.). M. A. Zhurinskaya (gon G.). V. G. Kaleda (2011).

A. V. Shchipkov (2012).

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