Monasticism in the Middle Urals of the Synodal Period: Gender Characteristics and State Policy

This article examines the dynamics of the number and gender ratio of the Orthodox monasticism of the Middle Urals in 1722–1917. The research draws upon a set of office records from the archival collections of the Synod and Ural monasteries and legislation and reports of the Synod’s chief prosecutors. Regional data are compared with national statistics, which is important for the overall picture of the study. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the analysis considers the entire synodal period and the fact that the materials of the Middle Urals show the causes and nature of the changes that took place. As a result, it is possible to significantly correct the opinion prevailing in historiography that the reason for the prevalence of female monasticism was only the social status of women from the peasantry and the urban poor. The list of reasons was much broader: the regulation of the number of monasteries and monasticism, monastic tonsure, the introduction of the cenobitic rite, the ideological ferment of the early twentieth century, and wartime conditions. The numbers of Orthodox monasticism in Russia only reached the level of 1724 in 1912. Naturally, the ratio of male and female monasticism in the country (58 % monks, 42 % nuns) that had developed by the beginning of the period was due to the forms of material support for monasteries. This proportion was significantly disrupted by the staff reform of 1764–1788 and was restored only by the 1880s. The slight predominance of female monasticism by 1917 is explained by the fact that, unlike the beginning of the synodal period, convents had independent sources of income and longer traditions of communal life. The analysis is relevant in modern conditions of developing the legal status of monastery life.