Pilgrimage as a social and cultural phenomenon of Russian culture

The research deals with the pilgrimage phenomenon in Russian Orthodox culture which is considered in spatial and temporal contexts through the path taken by the pilgrim. The author attempts to review the space and time created by the pilgrim from a philosophical perspective. Special attention is paid to pilgrimage as a focus of social and cultural study through the genesis and ontology of the phenomenon. The research analyzes the particular way of thinking and reflection of the pilgrim and the core motive of pilgrimage, i.e. the intention to leave the material world and start a journey. Pilgrimage is impossible without its metaphysical feature that is regarded as a target of philosophical review and a social and cultural phenomenon. Pilgrimage is interpreted as an instruction of the Holy Fathers and the Holy Scripture of Orthodox culture. It was hypothesized that if the Christian culture was only in the mind and heart of the Creator, it would not be able to gain a real ontological and anthropological life. To materialize the Christianity and make it the basis of existence, it was necessary to translate the idea through pilgrimage available for people with a special intellectual energy. The author defines pilgrimage as the phenomenon of movement without fixing the time, distance, and settled way of life that seems to be fundamentally contrary to human nature. Thus, there is no alien space for pilgrimage because of the lack of identification of a person with a particular place. In this context, space is like a wide-open window that can be metaphysically captured only by the pilgrim.