SAZONOVA T.V. Nuns of the Goritsky Resurrection Convent in the Second Half of the 16th – 17th Centuries: Origin, Causes, and Circumstances of Taking the Veil
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2026.1.9
Tatyana V. Sazonova,
Candidate of Sciences (History), Researcher, Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodskaya St, 7, 197110 Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation,
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0521-8717
Abstract. Introduction. The article deals with ways of forming the sisterhood of one of the Russian Orthodox convents in the 16th – 17th centuries – Goritsky Resurrection Nunnery. Methods and materials. This task is possible due to the analysis of a set of documents identified in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents; the Archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the State Archives of Vologda Region; the Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of Russia; the Department of Manuscripts of the State Library of Russia; and the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum, including property inventories, accounting books, and detective cases. The relevance of the work stems from the fact that research on the formation of Orthodox monastic sisterhoods has not yet been undertaken. The generalization of the reasons for entering the monastery and the reasons for taking the veil by women in the second half of the 16th – 17th centuries should stem from the analysis of specific cases of individual convents, since each of them had its own peculiarities. Analysis. The Goritsky Convent represents a social cross-section of 17th-century Russian society. Representatives of the highest nobility, landowners, townspeople, and local peasant women lived in it. During the period under review, the Goritsky Convent was under care of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Since the Kirillovsky Monastery was often used as a place of detention for the disgraced, the Goritsky Convent, which was subordinate to it, also became a place of residence for exiled representatives of the upper strata of society. Some women considered the nunnery, not least, as a place for a quiet stay in old age or infirmity. For poor or difficult women, it was important to get permission to enter the nunnery without a contribution. Some of the nuns found themselves in the nunnery against their will. Some were forced to take a veil by their husbands, who decided to get rid of their unloved wives in this way. Sources indicate that in some cases, wives went to a nunnery by agreement with their ex-husband, while the latter undertook obligations to ensure her welfare. In other cases, husbands created unbearable living conditions for their wives and beat or even mutilated them. The church authorities prevented violent acts by husbands and punished clergymen who performed the ceremony of taking the veil without the consent of a woman. The Goritsky Convent is also known as a place of exile for women who have committed criminal or religious crimes, as well as nuns who led an inappropriate lifestyle. Among them were also representatives of the elite, like Princess Anna Khilkova, as well as the most ordinary women. Living at the convent could be part of a chain of punishments: the perpetrators could be sent here from another convent and, if they persisted, transferred to the next one. In addition, non-Orthodox prisoners could be held in the nunnery, for whom the convent became a place of detention or internment.
Key words: Russian Orthodox Church, monasticism, veil, Belozerye region, Goritsky Convent.
Citation. Sazonova T.V. Nuns of the Goritsky Resurrection Convent in the Second Half of the 16th – 17th Centuries: Origin, Causes, and Circumstances of Taking the Veil. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 4. Istoriya. Regionovedenie. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. History. Area Studies. International Relations], 2026, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 99-111. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2026.1.9
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) 
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