The problem of religious asceticism in the works of Russian and Soviet historians at the turn of the 20th century

The paper studies the problem of religious asceticism in the context of community service for the Russian Orthodox Church based on the analysis of works by the Russian and Soviet scholars and churchman historians at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Ye.Ye. Golubinsky, A.P. Dobroklonsky, S.I. Smirnov, P.V. Znamensky, A.V. Kartashev, M.V. Tolstoy, Ye.N. Poselyanin. The author looks into the birth of orthodox asceticism in Rus, provides a classification of the types of religious asceticism, gives characteristics of the most prominent ascetics in the Ancient Rus, such as Anthony and Theodosius Pechersky, Venerable Sergius hegumen of Radonezh, Joseph of Volotsk, Nilus of Sora, Daniel of Pereslavl, Cyril and Therapont of Beloozero. The author indicates the importance of each of the types of the orthodox religious asceticism for the Russian statehood, the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian culture, especially book culture, private and social life.