Historical experience of interpretation of the apocalyptic image of the Whore of Babylon in Protestantism and Old Belief: similarities and differences in approaches to interpretation

The article presents the experience of studying the practices of interpreting the apocalyptic image of the Whore of Babylon in Protestantism and Old Belief. It notes the main factors that influenced the specifics of the formation and development of these practices and reflects the cause-and-effect relationship between the ecclesiological ideas of Protestants and Old Believers and the forms of their choice of approaches to interpreting this image. The relevance of this study is determined by the high level of scientific interest in the problems of Protestant and Old Believer theology in general and apocalypticism in particular, despite the fact that the topic of comparative analysis of Protestant and Old Believer apocalypticism in modern scientific research literature is poorly covered. This work attempts to shed additional light on one of the least studied aspects of this topic, which, in fact, is its scientific novelty. The purpose of this study was to identify and outline the fundamental similarities and differences seen in the approaches to interpreting the image of the Whore of Babylon used by Protestants, on the one hand, and Old Believers, on the other. In the course of revealing the topic of the article, both general scientific and special methods of scientific research were used (methods of biblical hermeneutics, chronologica, comparative-historical, and others). As a result of the study, the main approaches used by representatives of Protestantism and Old Believers in the context of developing the practices of interpreting the image of the Whore of Babylon were identified, analyzed, and compared. Based on this comparison, it was confirmed that the opinion of a number of modern thinkers, pointing to an extremely high degree of similarity between Protestants and Old Believers, does not agree with the actual state of affairs.