The biography of the repressed orthodox priest Vasiliy F. Infantev and the microhistorical approach to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church

The article examines the experience of using a microhistorical approach in studying the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the works of modern Russian historians devoted to the life and work of Orthodox priests in the last years of autocracy, during the revolution of 1917, Civil War and Bolshevik authoritarianism. According to the author, there are two main approaches to the use of the microhistorical method. According to one approach, microhistory does not imply the need to resort to the comparative analysis of similar cases in different regions of Russia. The main attention is paid to the unique situation that has developed in a particular region in connection with the activities of specific individuals who have fallen into extreme situations of wars, revolutions, famine and anti-clerical terror of the Bolshevik government. The other approach, on the contrary, allows for the possibility of moving from the study of local history to comparisons and broader generalizations concerning the social, political and cultural processes that took place in the country as a whole, but at a deeper level, taking into account the results of the analysis of the religious and social position and the life experience of individual ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church. This approach, according to the author of the article, makes it possible to more accurately understand the essence and regional nature of historical processes.