Velikopozhensky monastery in the reign of Nikolai I

On the basis of documents of various departments of the spiritual and civil authorities from the State Archive of the Arkhangelsk region and the Russian State Historical Archive the history of one of the most influential northern Old Believers’ communities - the Velikopozhensky monastery in Mezensky district of the Arkhangelsk province during the reign of Nikolai I is considered.In the second half of XIX century the Velikopozhensky monastery was under scrupulous attention from the part of the church authorities who twice - in 1838 and 1854 - initiated its investigation. In 1838 and 1857 Arkhangelsky and Kholmogorsky Bishops visited the monastery, after their visits in 1838 an attempt of closing the monastery and relocation of its inhabitants was undertaken, in 1857 the prayer house was closed and sealed up. However in all cases the initiative of the church authorities did not find support from the part of civil authorities, seeing no necessity in severe measures and ordering limited surveillance, prohibition to erect new buildings and to accept new inhabitants so that the schism "had decreased by itself".Monastery constructions consisted of the prayer house, 3 large buildings of brethren’s dining room and 2 bestial houses, several small cells, a bath, a barn with a drying house and granaries. Skit’s buildings were not subjected to destruction by the authorities, except for 1 shabby house disassembled after 1855. During 1831 - 1840 the number of inhabitants decreased by half - from 85 to 38 people, including because of natural death. In 1854 in the monastery there lived 22 peasants from different villages of Ust-Tsilma volost, and only one of them was registered in the Velikozhensky monastery. Most residents have settled there in the 1820-1830-s. The prevailing population of the monastery were illiterate peasant women and their children, 5 people were adult male population, of which only two were literate. By that time by the main occupation the inhabitants of the monastery differed little from ordinary peasants, being engaged in cattle breeding and arable farming, hunting and fishing. At the same time, in 1857 Arkhangelsky and Kholmogorsky Bishop noted among skit inhabitants such occupation as female needlework and iconpainting.Geographical remoteness and inaccessibility of the Velikopozhensky monastery, the position of the provincial civil authorities and protection of the local heads helped it to survive in times of persecutions. Closing of the monastery in 1854 had formal character. Despite the destruction of the prayer house in 1857, public service in the monastery continued, and in the 1860-s the quantity of inhabitants even slightly increased. Nevertheless, the restrictive policy of the government concerning cenobitic sketes of Old Believers, forbidding erection of new buildings and settling of new inhabitants in the monastery, had its result. Traditions of a monastic way of life were left in the past with natural change of generations.