Elder Kapiton and the monasteries founded by him

Introduction. The scientific literature pays considerable attention to the Old Believers and religious movements in the 17th century. It is believed that one of the leaders of the mass peasant movement of Old Believers was the preacher elder Kapiton. According to historians, from 1666 to 1897, about 20 thousand people burned down in Russia. These figures, as well as the fact that the tradition of self-immolation has existed for several centuries, indicate the relevance of covering the biography of one of the founders of the radical trend in the Old Believers of the 17th century, Elder Kapiton. Methods and materials. The method of archival heuristics made it possible to identify new documents in the fund 1260 in GAVO, collection 117 in the Archive of the SPBI RAS, and the fund 281 in RGADA. Comparative and retrospective methods were used to analyze these documents. Analysis. In the 1660s and 80s, self-immolations of “kapitons” took place in the Vologda and Belozersk dioceses, but they were not connected with the Kapiton monastery. Elder Kapiton came to the Vologda diocese and in 1630 founded the monastery of Holy Savior at Knyaginino, after which in 1634 he went to Kostroma county, where he built the Trinity Kolesnikov monastery, where the conflict occurred in 1639. In the monastery of Holy Savior at Knyaginino, after Kapiton’s departure, Daniel became abbot, but after his death, monastic life was interrupted in the 1660s and 90s.