Was in the 16th century. Everyday life. "Domostroy" about the duties of a wife

The 16th century in Russia is the time of the formation of a centralized one. It was during this period that feudal fragmentation was overcome - a process that characterizes the natural development of feudalism. Cities are growing, the population is increasing, trade and foreign policy ties are developing. Changes in the socio-economic nature lead to the inevitable intensive exploitation of the peasants and their subsequent enslavement.

The 16-17th century is not easy - this is the period of the formation of statehood, the formation of the foundations. Bloody events, wars, attempts to protect themselves from the echoes of the Golden Horde and the Time of Troubles that followed them demanded a tough hand of government, uniting the people.

Formation of a centralized state

The prerequisites for the unification of Russia and overcoming feudal fragmentation were outlined as early as the 13th century. This was especially noticeable in the Vladimir principality, located in the northeast. The development was interrupted by the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols, who not only slowed down the process of unification, but also caused significant damage to the Russian people. The revival began only in the 14th century: the restoration of agriculture, the construction of cities, the establishment of economic ties. The principality of Moscow and Moscow gained more and more weight, the territory of which gradually grew. The development of Russia in the 16th century followed the path of strengthening class contradictions. In order to subdue the peasants, the feudal lords had to act in unison, use new forms of political ties, and strengthen the central apparatus.

The second factor that contributed to the unification of the principalities and the centralization of power was a vulnerable foreign policy position. To fight against foreign invaders and the Golden Horde, it was necessary for everyone to rally. Only in this way were the Russians able to win on the Kulikovo field and at the end of the 15th century. finally throw off the Tatar-Mongol oppression, which lasted more than two hundred years.

The process of formation of a single state was expressed primarily in the unification of the territories of previously independent states into one great Moscow principality and in a change in the political organization of society, the nature of statehood. From a geographical point of view, the process was completed by the beginning of the 16th century, but the political apparatus took shape only by the second half of it.

Vasily III

We can say that the 16th century in the history of Russia began with the reign of Vasily III, who ascended the throne in 1505 at the age of 26. He was the second son of Ivan III the Great. The Sovereign of All Russia was married twice. For the first time on a representative of the old boyar family, Solomonia Saburova (in the photo below - facial reconstruction from the skull). The wedding took place on 09/04/1505, however, for 20 years of marriage, she never bore him an heir. The worried prince demanded a divorce. He quickly received the consent of the church and the boyar duma. Such a case of an official divorce with the subsequent exile of the wife to a monastery is unprecedented in the history of Russia.

The second wife of the sovereign was Elena Glinskaya, descended from an old Lithuanian family. She bore him two sons. Having been widowed in 1533, she literally made a coup at the court, and in the 16th century Russia for the first time received a ruler, however, not very popular with the boyars and the people.

In fact, it was a natural continuation of his father's actions, which were entirely aimed at centralizing power and strengthening the authority of the church.

Domestic politics

Vasily III advocated the unlimited power of the sovereign. In the fight against the feudal fragmentation of Russia and its supporters, he actively enjoyed the support of the church. With those who were objectionable, he easily dealt with, sending him into exile or inflicting execution. The despotic character, noticeable even in the years of youth, was fully manifested. During the years of his reign, the significance of the boyars at the court falls significantly, but the landed nobility increases. In the implementation of church policy, he gave preference to the Josephites.

In 1497, Vasily III adopted a new Sudebnik, based on the Russian Truth, Statutory and Judicial letters, court decisions on certain categories of issues. It was a set of laws and was created with the aim of systematizing and streamlining the existing rules of law at that time and was an important measure on the way to the centralization of power. The sovereign actively supported the construction, during the years of his reign the Archangel Cathedral, the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Kolomenskoye, new settlements, fortresses and prisons were erected. In addition, he actively, like his father, continued to "collect" Russian lands, annexing the Pskov Republic, Ryazan.

Relations with the Kazan Khanate under Vasily III

In the 16th century, or rather, in its first half, it is in many ways a reflection of the internal. The sovereign sought to unite as many lands as possible, to subordinate them to the central authority, which, in fact, can be considered as the conquest of new territories. Having done away with the Golden Horde, Russia almost immediately went on the offensive against the khanates formed as a result of its collapse. Turkey and the Crimean Khanate showed interest in Kazan, which was of great importance for Russia due to the fertility of the lands and their favorable strategic location, as well as because of the constant threat of raids. In anticipation of the death of Ivan III in 1505, the Kazan Khan suddenly launched a war that lasted until 1507. After several defeats, the Russians were forced to retreat and then make peace. History repeated itself in 1522-1523, and then in 1530-1531. The Kazan Khanate did not surrender until Ivan the Terrible came to the throne.

Russo-Lithuanian War

The main reason for the military conflict is the desire of the Moscow prince to conquer and take control of all Russian lands, as well as an attempt by Lithuania to take revenge for the last defeat in 1500-1503, which cost it the loss of 1-3 parts of all territories. Russia in the 16th century, after Vasily III came to power, was in a rather difficult foreign policy situation. Suffering defeat from the Kazan Khanate, she was forced to confront the Lithuanian principality, which signed an anti-Russian agreement with the Crimean Khan.

The war began as a result of Vasily III's refusal to fulfill the ultimatum (return of lands) in the summer of 1507 after the attack on the Chernigov and Bryansk lands of the Lithuanian army and on the Verkhovsky principalities - the Crimean Tatars. In 1508, the rulers began negotiations and concluded a peace agreement, according to which Lublich with its surroundings was returned to the Lithuanian principality.

War of 1512-1522 became a natural continuation of previous conflicts over territory. Despite the peace, relations between the parties were extremely tense, looting and clashes at the borders continued. The reason for active action was the death of the Grand Duchess of Lithuania and the sister of Vasily III, Elena Ivanovna. The Lithuanian principality entered into another alliance with the Crimean Khanate, after which the latter began to make numerous raids in 1512. The Russian prince declared war on Sigismund I and advanced his main forces to Smolensk. In subsequent years, a number of campaigns were made with varying success. One of the largest battles took place near Orsha on September 8, 1514. In 1521, both sides had other foreign policy problems, and they were forced to make peace for 5 years. According to the agreement, in the 16th century Russia received Smolensk lands, but at the same time refused Vitebsk, Polotsk and Kiev, as well as the return of prisoners of war.

Ivan IV (the Terrible)

Vasily III died of illness when his eldest son was only 3 years old. Anticipating his imminent death and the subsequent struggle for the throne (at that time the sovereign had two younger brothers Andrei Staritsky and Yuri Dmitrovsky), he formed a "seventh" commission of boyars. It was they who were supposed to save Ivan until his 15th birthday. In fact, the board of trustees was in power for about a year, and then began to fall apart. Russia in the 16th century (1545) received a full-fledged ruler and the first tsar in its history in the person of Ivan IV, known to the whole world under the name of Ivan the Terrible. In the photo above - a reconstruction of the appearance in the form of a skull.

Not to mention his family. Historians differ in numbers, naming the names of 6 or 7 women who were considered the wives of the king. Some died a mysterious death, others were exiled to a monastery. Ivan the Terrible had three children. The elders (Ivan and Fedor) were born from the first wife, and the youngest (Dmitry Uglitsky) from the last - M.F. Nagoi, who played a big role in the history of the country during the troubled times.

Reforms of Ivan the Terrible

The domestic policy of Russia in the 16th century under Ivan the Terrible was still aimed at the centralization of power, as well as the construction of important state institutions. To this end, together with the Chosen Rada, the tsar carried out a number of reforms. The most significant are the following.

• Organization of the Zemsky Sobor in 1549 as the highest estate-representative institution. It represented all estates with the exception of the peasantry.
• The adoption of a new code of laws in 1550, which continued the policy of the previous legal act, and also for the first time legalized a single unit of tax measurement for all.
• Lip and zemstvo reforms in the early 50s of the 16th century.
• Formation of a system of orders, including Petition, Streletsky, Printed, etc.

Russia's foreign policy during the reign of Ivan the Terrible developed in three directions: the south - the fight against the Crimean Khanate, the east - the expansion of the state's borders and the west - the struggle for access to the Baltic Sea.

in the east

After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Astrakhan and Kazan khanates created a constant threat to the Russian lands, the Volga trade route was concentrated in their hands. In total, Ivan the Terrible undertook three campaigns against Kazan, as a result of the last one it was taken by storm (1552). After 4 years, Astrakhan was annexed, in 1557 most of Bashkiria and Chuvashia voluntarily joined the Russian state, and then the Nogai Horde recognized its dependence. Thus ended the bloody story. Russia at the end of the 16th century opened its way to Siberia. Wealthy industrialists, who received letters from the tsar for possession of lands along the Tobol River, equipped a detachment of free Cossacks at their own expense, headed by Yermak.

In the West

In an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea for 25 years (1558-1583), Ivan IV waged a grueling Livonian war. Its beginning was accompanied by successful campaigns for the Russians, 20 cities were taken, including Narva and Dorpat, the troops were approaching Tallinn and Riga. The Livonian Order was defeated, but the war became protracted, as several European states were drawn into it. The unification of Lithuania and Poland into the Rzeczpospolita played a great role. The situation turned in the opposite direction and after a long confrontation in 1582 a truce was concluded for 10 years. A year later, it was concluded that Russia lost Livonia, but returned all the captured cities except Polotsk.

On South

In the south, the Crimean Khanate, formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde, still haunted. The main task of the state in this direction was to strengthen the borders from the raids of the Crimean Tatars. For these purposes, actions were taken to develop the Wild Field. The first serif features began to appear, i.e., defensive lines from the rubble of the forest, in between which there were wooden fortresses (fortresses), in particular, Tula and Belgorod.

Tsar Fedor I

Ivan the Terrible died on March 18, 1584. The circumstances of the royal illness are being questioned by historians to this day. His son ascended the throne, having received this right after the death of the eldest offspring Ivan. According to Grozny himself, he was rather a hermit and faster, more suitable for church service than for reigning. Historians are generally inclined to believe that he was weak in health and mind. The new tsar participated little in the administration of the state. He was under the tutelage of first boyars and nobles, and then his enterprising brother-in-law Boris Godunov. The first reigned, and the second ruled, and everyone knew it. Fedor I died on January 7, 1598, leaving no offspring and thereby interrupting the Moscow dynasty of Rurikovich.

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, Russia was experiencing a deep socio-economic and political crisis, the growth of which was facilitated by the protracted Livonian War, the oprichnina and the Tatar invasion. All these circumstances ultimately led to the Time of Troubles, which began with the struggle for the empty royal throne.

Boyars

The boyar yards were surrounded by a palisade, and 3-4-storey log towers, "bullets" towered over them; the boyars lived in "svetlitsy" with mica windows, and around there were services, barns, barns, stables, serviced by dozens of yard serfs. The innermost part of the boyar estate was the female "terem": according to the eastern custom, the boyars kept their women locked up in the women's half of the house.

The boyars also dressed in the oriental style: they wore brocade robes with long sleeves, caps, caftans and fur coats; this clothing differed from the Tatar only in that it was fastened on the other side. Herberstein wrote that the boyars indulged in drunkenness all the days; feasts lasted for several days and the number of dishes was in the tens; even the church reproached the boyars for their indefatigable desire "to saturate the body without ceasing and fatten it up." Obesity was revered as a sign of nobility, and in order to stick out the stomach, it was girdled as low as possible; another sign of nobility was a bushy beard of exorbitant length - and the boyars competed with each other in terms of what they considered corpulent.

The boyars were the descendants of the Vikings, who once conquered the country of the Slavs and turned some of them into slave slaves. From the distant times of Kievan Rus, the boyars had "patrimonial estates" - villages inhabited by slaves; the boyars had their own squads of "combat serfs" and "children of the boyars", and, participating in campaigns, the boyars brought new captive slaves to the estates. Free peasants also lived in the estates: the boyars attracted unsettled singles to their lands, gave them loans for acquiring, but then gradually increased the duties and turned the debtors into bondage. Workers could leave the owner only by paying the "old" and waiting for the next St. George's Day (November 26) - but the size of the "old" was such that few managed to leave.

The boyars were full masters in their patrimony, which was for them "fatherland" and "fatherland"; they could execute their people, they could pardon; princely governors could not enter the boyar villages, and the boyar was obliged to the prince only by paying "tribute" - a tax that had previously been paid to the khan. According to an old custom, a boyar with his retinue could be employed in the service of any prince, even in Lithuania - and at the same time retain his patrimony. The boyars served as "thousanders" and "centuries", governors in cities or volosts in rural volosts and received "feed" for this - part of the taxes collected from the villagers. The governor was a judge and governor; he judged and maintained order with the help of his "tiuns" and "closers", but he was not trusted to collect taxes; they were collected by "scribes and tributaries" sent by the Grand Duke.

The governorship was usually given for a year or two, and then the boyar returned to his estate and lived there as an almost independent ruler. The boyars considered themselves masters of the Russian land; ordinary people, seeing a boyar, had to "beat with their foreheads" - bow their heads to the ground, and meeting each other, the boyars hugged and kissed, as the rulers of sovereign states now hug and kiss. Among the Moscow boyars there were many princes who submitted to the "sovereign of all Russia" and transferred to the service in Moscow, and many Tatar "princes" who received estates in Kasimov and Zvenigorod; about a sixth of the boyar surnames came from Tatars and a fourth from Lithuania. The princes who came to serve in Moscow "incited" the old boyars, and strife began between them because of the "places" where to sit at feasts, and who should obey whom in the service.

The disputants recalled which of the relatives and in what positions served the Grand Duke, kept a "parochial account" and sometimes got into a fight, beat each other with their fists and dragged their beards - however, it happened worse in the West, where the barons fought duels or fought private wars. The Grand Duke knew how to bring order to his boyars, and Herberstein wrote that the Muscovite sovereign with his power "exceeds all the monarchs of the world." This, of course, was an exaggeration: since the time of Kievan Rus, the princes did not make decisions without consulting with their warrior boyars, the "Boyar Duma", and although Vasily sometimes decided the affairs of "thirds at the bedside", the tradition remained a tradition.

In addition, under Vasily III, there were still two specific principalities; they were owned by Vasily's brothers, Andrei and Yuri. Vasily III finally subjugated Pskov and Ryazan and deprived the local boyars of power - just as his father deprived the boyars' estates in Novgorod. In Pskov, Novgorod and Lithuania, the traditions of Kievan Rus were still preserved, the boyars ruled there, and a veche gathered there, where the boyars voluntarily appointed a prince - "whatever they want." In order to resist the Tatars, the "Sovereign of All Russia" sought to unite the country and stop the strife: after all, it was the strife of princes and boyars that destroyed Russia during the time of Batu.

The boyars, on the other hand, wanted to retain their power and looked in hope to Lithuania, dear to their hearts, with its vechas and councils, to which only "noble lords" were allowed. In those days, "fatherland" did not mean huge Russia, but a small boyar estate, and the Novgorod boyars tried to transfer their fatherland - Novgorod - to King Casimir. Ivan III executed a hundred Novgorod boyars, and took away the estates from the rest and freed their slaves - the common people rejoiced at the prince's deeds, and the boyars called Ivan III "Terrible". Following the precepts of his father, Vasily III deprived the boyars of Ryazan and Pskov from their estates - but the Moscow boyars still retained their strength, and the main struggle was ahead.

Peasants

No matter how great the boyar patrimonies were, the main part of the population of Russia was not boyar serfs, but free "black-haired" peasants who lived on the lands of the Grand Duke. As in the old days, the peasants lived in communal "worlds" - small villages with a few houses, and some of these "worlds" still plowed on undercuts - cut down and burned areas of the forest. In the undercut, all work was carried out together, they cut wood together and plowed together - the stumps were not uprooted at the same time, and this aroused the surprise of foreigners who were accustomed to the flat fields of Europe.

In the 16th century, most of the forests had already been cut down and the peasants had to plow on the old undercuts, "wastelands". Now plowmen could work alone; where land was in short supply, the fields were divided into family allotments, but were redistributed from time to time. It was the usual system of agriculture that existed in all countries in the era of the resettlement of farmers and the development of forests. However, in Western Europe this era of initial colonization occurred in the 1st millennium BC, and it came to Russia much later, so the community with redistribution was long forgotten in the West, private property triumphed there - and collectivism and communal life were preserved in Russia.

Many works were carried out by community members collectively - this custom was called "help". All together they built houses, took out manure to the fields, mowed; if the breadwinner in the family fell ill, then the whole community helped to plow his field. Women together ruffled flax, spun, chopped cabbage; after such work, young people arranged parties, "cabbages" and "gatherings" with songs and dances until late at night - then straw was brought into the house and they settled down to sleep in pairs; if a girl didn’t like the guy she got, then she hid from him on the stove - this was called “dae garbuza”. Children who were born after such a "cabbage" were called "kapustniki", and since the father of the child was unknown, they were said to have been found in cabbage.

Sons were married at 16-18 years old, and daughters at 12-13, and the whole community celebrated the wedding: the groom's village played out a "raid" on the bride's village in order to "steal" her; the groom was called "prince", he was accompanied by a "team" led by "boyars" and "thousands", the standard-bearer - "cornet" carried the banner. The bride's community pretended to be on the defensive; guys with clubs came out to meet the groom and negotiations began; in the end, the groom "redeemed" the bride from the guys and the brothers; the bride's parents, according to the custom adopted from the Tatars, received a bride price - however, this ransom was not as large as that of the Muslims. The bride, covered with a veil, was seated in a wagon - no one saw her face, and that is why the girl was called "not a bride", "unknown". The groom walked around the wagon three times and, lightly hitting the bride with a whip, said: "Leave your father's, take mine!" - Probably, this custom was what Herberstein had in mind when he wrote that Russian women consider beatings a symbol of love.

The wedding ended with a three-day feast in which the whole village participated; in the last century, such a feast took 20-30 buckets of vodka - but in the 16th century, peasants drank not vodka, but honey and beer. Tatar customs responded in Russia by prohibiting peasants from drinking alcohol on all days, except for weddings and major holidays - then, at Christmas, Easter, Trinity, the whole village gathered for a feast-fraternization, "brotherhood"; tables were set up near the village chapel, icons were taken out and, having prayed, they proceeded to the feast. At brotherhoods, they reconciled those who quarreled and created a communal court; elected the headman and the tenth. The volostels and their people were forbidden to come to the brotherhood without an invitation, ask for refreshments and interfere in the affairs of the community: “If someone calls a tiun or a closer to drink to a feast or a brotherhood, then they, having drunk, do not spend the night here, spend the night in another village and they don’t take nozzles from feasts and brothers.”

Bratchina judged by petty offenses; serious matters were decided by the volost - "but without the headman and without the best people, the volost and his tiun do not judge the courts," say the letters. Taxes were collected by the tributary together with the headman, referring to the "census book", where all households were rewritten with the amount of arable land, sown bread and mowed hay, and also indicated how much "tribute" and "feed" should be paid. The tributary did not dare to take more than he was supposed to, but if since the time of the census some owner had died, then until the new census, the "world" had to pay for it. Taxes amounted to about a quarter of the harvest, and the peasants lived quite prosperously, the average family had 2-3 cows, 3-4 horses and 12-15 acres of arable land - 4-5 times more than at the end of the 19th century!

However, it was necessary to work hard, if in former times the harvest on the undercut reached 10-10, then in the field it was three times less; the fields had to be fertilized with manure and crops alternated: this is how the three-field system appeared, when winter rye was sown one year, spring crops another year, and the land was left fallow in the third year. Before sowing, the field was plowed three times with a special plow with a blade, which not only scratched the ground, as before, but turned over the layers - but even with all these innovations, the land was quickly "plowed", and after 20-30 years it was necessary to look for new fields - if they were still in the area.

The short northern summer did not give the peasant time to rest, and during the harvest they worked from sunrise to sunset. The peasants did not know what luxury was; The huts were small, in one room, clothes - homespun shirts, but they wore boots on their feet, and not bast shoes, as later. A literate peasant was a rarity, the entertainment was rude: buffoons who walked around the villages staged fights with tamed bears, showed "prodigal" performances and "swearing". Russian "foul language" consisted mainly of Tatar words, which, because of the hatred they had for the Tatars in Russia, acquired an abusive meaning: the head - "head", the old woman - "hag", the old man - "babai", the big man - "blockhead". "; the Turkic expression "bel mes" ("I don't understand") has turned into "stupid".

Holy fools

Akin to buffoons were holy fools, fellow Eastern dervishes. “They go completely naked even in winter in the most severe frosts,” a visiting foreigner testifies, “they are tied in rags in the middle of the body, and many still have chains around their necks ... They are considered prophets and very holy men, and therefore they are allowed to speak freely, everything, whatever they want, at least even about God himself... That is why the people love the blessed very much, for they... indicate the shortcomings of the noble, about which no one else even dares to speak..."

Entertainment

Fisticuffs were a favorite entertainment: on Shrovetide, one village went out to another to fight with their fists, and they fought to the point of blood, and there were also those who were killed. The court also often came down to a duel with fists - although Ivan III issued the Sudebnik with written laws. In the family, the husband did justice and reprisals: “If a wife, or a son or daughter does not listen to words and orders,” says Domostroy, “they are not afraid, do not do what the husband, father or mother commands, then whip them with a whip, looking because of fault, but to beat them alone, not to punish in public. For any fault, do not beat them in the ear, in the face, under the heart with a fist, kick, do not beat with a staff, do not hit with anything iron and wooden. , can cause great harm: blindness, deafness, injury to an arm or leg. Must be whipped: it is reasonable, and painful, and scary, and healthy. When guilt is great, when disobedience or neglect was significant, then take off your shirt and beat politely with a whip, holding hands, yes, beating, so that there is no anger, to say a kind word.

Education

Things with education were bad for all estates: half of the boyars could not "put a hand to the letter." "And above all, in the Russian kingdom, there were many schools, literacy and writing, and there was a lot of singing ..." - the priests complained at the church council. Monasteries remained centers of literacy: there were kept books that had survived from the time of the invasion, collections of "Greek wisdom"; one of these collections, "Shestodnev" by John the Bulgarian, contained excerpts from Aristotle, Plato and Democritus. From Byzantium came to Russia and the beginnings of mathematical knowledge; the multiplication table was called the "account of the Greek merchants", and the numbers were written in the Greek manner, using letters. Just as in Greece, the most popular reading was the lives of the saints; Russia continued to feed on Greek culture, and the monks went to study in Greece, where famous monasteries were located on Mount Athos.

Priest Nil Sorsky, known for his preaching of non-acquisitiveness, also studied on Athos: he said that monks should not accumulate wealth, but live from "the labors of their hands." The Russian bishops did not like these sermons, and one of them, Joseph Volotsky, entered into an argument with the hermit, arguing that "the wealth of the church is God's wealth." Non-possessors were also supported by Maxim the Greek, a learned monk from Athos, who was invited to Russia to correct liturgical books: omissions and errors appeared in them from repeated rewriting.

Maxim the Greek studied in Florence, was familiar with Savonarola and the Italian humanists. He brought the spirit of free-thinking to the distant northern country and was not afraid to tell Vasily III directly that in his desire for autocracy, the Grand Duke did not want to know either Greek or Roman law: he denied supremacy over the Russian Church, both to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome. The learned Greek was captured and put on trial; he was accused of incorrectly correcting books, "smoothing out" holy words; Maxim was exiled to a monastery and there, sitting in confinement, he wrote "many books of spiritual benefit" - including "Greek and Russian Grammar".

The Russian Church kept a wary eye on learned foreigners, fearing that they would bring "heresy". Such a case already happened at the end of the 15th century, when the Jewish merchant Skhariya arrived in Novgorod; he brought many books and "seduced" many Novgorodians into the Jewish faith. Among the heretical books was the "Treatise on the Sphere" by the Spanish Jew John de Scrabosco - it was translated into Russian, and it is possible that from this book in Russia they learned about the sphericity of the Earth. Another heretical book, "Six-winged" by Immanuel ben Jacob, was used by the Novgorod archbishop Gennady to compile tables determining the date of Easter.

However, having borrowed their knowledge from the Novgorod Jews, Gennady subjected the "heretics" to a cruel execution: they were put on birch bark helmets with the inscription "This is Satan's army", they put them on horses face back and drove around the city to the hooting of passers-by; then the helmets were set on fire and many "heretics" died from burns. "Six-wing" was forbidden by the church - just like astrological almanacs with predictions, brought to Russia by the German Nikolai from Lübeck; all this referred to "evil heresies": "rafli, six-winged, ostolomy, almanac, astrologer, Aristotelian gates and other demonic kobes."

The church did not advise looking at the sky: when Herberstein asked about the latitude of Moscow, he was answered, not without fear, that according to "incorrect rumor" it would be 58 degrees. The German ambassador took an astrolabe and started measuring - he got 50 degrees (actually - 56 degrees). Herberstein offered European maps to Russian diplomats and asked them for a map of Russia, but achieved nothing: there were no geographical maps in Russia yet. True, scribes and tributaries measured the fields and made "drawings" for accounting purposes; at the same time, a treatise by the Arab mathematician al-Ghazali, translated into Russian, was often used as a guide, probably by order of some Baskak.

While in Moscow, Herberstein asked the boyar Lyatsky to draw up a map of Russia, but twenty years passed before Lyatsky was able to fulfill this request. It was an unusual map: according to the Arab tradition, the south was at the top, and the north was at the bottom; not far from Tver, a mysterious lake was depicted on the map, from which the Volga, Dnieper and Daugava flowed. At the time of the compilation of the map, Lyatskaya lived in Lithuania; he served the Polish king Sigismund, and the map was not created out of good intentions: it lay on the king's table when he was preparing a new campaign against Russia. Lithuania and Russia were primordially hostile to each other, but Lithuania in itself was not a dangerous adversary. The greatest evil for Russia was that Lithuania was in a dynastic union with Poland, and the Polish king was at the same time the Grand Duke of Lithuania - not only Lithuania, but also Poland was the enemy of Russia.

A feature of everyday life in Russia in the 16th century. there was an increase in class stratification. There is a further increase in the distance between social groups, the development of class-corporate everyday culture.

Scenarios of the life of a Russian person in the 16th century. had a lot in common. Families, as a rule, were large among both nobles and commoners; there was no medicine, and hence the high infant mortality (even Tsar Ivan the Terrible had five out of seven children die in infancy). After the birth of all children, they were baptized - this is the first Christian Sacrament to which they were attached. Childhood passed relatively the same, with a difference only in the level of material prosperity. In the XVI century. written recommendations appear on how to raise children (before that, such "instructions" were scooped only from the Holy Scriptures, sermons and teachings of spiritual fathers).

Between 1546 and 1558 Sylvester was created by the priest of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin " Domostroy", a kind of home charter that strictly defined all the rules of life in the family, the basics of housekeeping, etc. Several chapters are devoted to the issues of raising children. The upbringing of children was based primarily on Christian morality and Russian family traditions. It was based on the concept responsibility: parents - for the moral character of children, for what they will grow up to be, children - for the fate of their parents in old age. Parents had to teach their children the basics of the household and their profession (crafts, military affairs, public administration, etc.). The purpose of upbringing was the cultivation of a God-fearing, pious, observant moral and bodily purity of a faithful Christian. "Domostroy" speaks of corporal punishment as a common method of education, but to what extent it was a theory, and to what extent the spanking of children was used in practice, we do not know.

Public schools in Russia XVI century. did not have. Education was mainly conducted at home, in the family. According to ch. On Decree 26 of the Stoglavy Cathedral (1551), church schools were opened in the cities. The teaching literature for them was the books of the Holy Scriptures, mainly the Psalter, and some liturgical books. But the education of children was not widespread and was not compulsory.

Childhood has changed little compared to the Middle Ages. Until the age of seven, the children lived with their mother. Then the peasant and townspeople's children were gradually included in the household chores that were feasible for them. Noble children from the age of 15 began their career path. They were included in tens(lists for noble military reviews), but until they received their own estate, they were considered "newcomers" - novices.

The age of majority came from the moment of the creation of one's own family, with marriage. Marriage was officially allowed for women from the age of 12, for men - from the age of 15 (ch. 18 "Stoglav"). In practice, apparently, there were both earlier illegal marriages (at eight or nine years old - to attract a worker to the family, to conclude a formal relationship with noble families), and later ones. The Pilot Book, a set of canon law translated from Greek, set the age limit for marriage for women at 60 years.

We do not know the statistics of the number of marriages entered into by a person in Muscovite Russia. Apparently, most still married once. Remarriages were performed by widows and widowers, with the exception of those who left for the monastery after the death of their spouse. Divorce was allowed only for valid reasons (wife's adultery, committing a state crime by one of the spouses, physical inability to have an intimate life during three years of marriage, the unknown absence of one of the spouses for five years, etc.), in this area the situation has not changed compared to the Middle Ages. The reasons for the divorce included the immoral behavior of the wife (drinking alcohol in a tavern, washing in a men's bath, spending the night outside the home, participating in depraved "games", despite the husband's prohibitions). The church treated similar adventures of men more condescendingly. Infertility of spouses was not considered a reason for divorce: God decides whether to give children or not. Looking for a new spouse for childbearing meant going against God. Not without reason, Vasily III, divorcing the barren Solomonia Saburova, prepared accusations of witchcraft and divination, and the theme of "barrenness" sounded in the background.

The second and even more so the third marriage was not welcomed by the church. Permissions for them were accompanied by the imposition of church punishment (penance): a bigamist was deprived of communion for two years, and a tripartite - for five years (ch. 21 "Stoglav"). The fourth marriage was forbidden. According to the rules, a church wedding was possible only in a nervous marriage; in the second and third, prayers were simply read. But in practice, the prohibitions were often violated (Ivan the Terrible, who, by definition, had to act as a moral model for his subjects, married either six or seven times).

The Church (through the spiritual fathers and the institution of confession) fought primarily against bodily impurity, immoral behavior. The church monitored the morality of intimate behavior more carefully than social transgressions. So, at confession, it was prescribed, first of all, to ask in great detail about misconduct in the sphere of personal life (priests were even given special questionnaires, numbering several dozen very detailed items), and only then it was necessary to ask about murder, theft and other crimes against society.

In the XVI century. the category of "prodigal" sins and debauchery included sexual life on days forbidden by the church (fasting, holidays, Saturday and Sunday and some other days of the week, most often Wednesday and Friday), intercourse with other people's wives or corruption of girls, intercourse with non-believers, various kinds non-traditional sexual relations, "fornication thoughts", dressing up in clothes uncharacteristic of one's sex, shaving a beard (for such likening oneself to a woman, a person could be anathema), sleeping without night clothes, participating in "games" with "demonic songs, harp, snot and unclean games", "vomiting from overeating or drinking", even "laughter to tears" was a fornication sin. In addition, "Stoglav" forbade the joint washing in the baths of men and women, gambling, pagan games (Rusalia), false prophecy, etc. Buffoonery, drunkenness, dissolute and immoral behavior were limited and condemned.

After marriage or marriage, a period of life and social activity began. For women, it consisted primarily in housekeeping and procreation, childbearing. The professional activity of a woman in the XVI century. were engaged in little: they were employed in the peasant economy, in some sectors of the service sector, crafts and crafts. We know about the role of female nobles in court life, about women's monasteries, which became economic units. There is even one testimony about a Russian female warrior named Katya, who was killed in the Livonian campaign of 1558. But in general, the social role of a woman in the 16th century. had a rather special framework.

"Domostroy" about the duties of a wife

“Having risen from bed, washed and prayed, indicate to the servants the work for the whole day, to each his own: for whom to cook food for the day, and for whom to bake sieve or sieve bread, and the hostess herself would know how to sow flour, how to shut-knead knead , and roll up and bake bread, and sour, and lush, and baked, as well as kalachi and pies ... And meat and fish food, and all sorts of pies and pancakes, various cereals and jelly, bake and cook any dishes, everything would be the hostess knew how to teach the servants what she knew.

When the bread is baked, then the clothes are washed: so in the common work and firewood is not unprofitable; but at the same time, you need to keep an eye on how smart shirts and best clothes are washed, and how much soap and ashes are used ... And any food, both meat and fish, and any dish, quick or lean, the hostess herself would know and know how to cook , and teach the servants: such a housewife is hospitable and skillful ... If a good housewife knows all this by the severity and instructions of her husband, as well as by her abilities, then everything will be quick and there will be plenty of everything.

And which woman or girl is needlework, so indicate the matter: to sew a shirt or embroider an ubrus and weave it, or sew on a hoop with gold and silk - which of them was taught what, and that's all to see and notice ...

Yes, the hostess herself would know everything, which of them to give a job, how much to give what and how much to take, and how much of what someone will do in a day, how much is not enough, and how much of what will come out, she would know everything herself, and everything would be her account. And the hostess herself, in no case and never, unless she becomes ill or at the request of her husband, would not sit idle, so that the servants, looking at her, were accustomed to work. Whether a husband comes, whether a simple guest, she would always sit at work herself: for that, honor and glory to her, and praise to her husband. And the servants would never wake up the mistress, but the mistress herself would wake the servants and, going to bed after all the labors, would always pray, teaching the same to the servants.

The average life expectancy, according to various estimates, ranged from 21 to 30 years, but this interval took into account infant mortality rates and the longevity of the elderly. More accurate demographic information is difficult to derive. There are no data at all on peasants and townspeople. According to the rank books, it can be seen that the period of mention in the ranks of a nobleman actively involved in the state service rarely exceeded 15 years on average. Given that the service began at the age of 15, we get a period of social activity from just 15 to 30 years. The highest aristocracy had a longer period of activity - up to 40 years or more. Some of the boyars who survived among the sovereign's disgrace reached a very advanced age, still being listed in government posts. Among the ordinary children of the boyars, the "turnover of personnel" was higher.

What were the material conditions of life for the people of Moscow Russia? Judging by Domostroy, food, at least in the wealthy urban strata and among the well-to-do petty and middle nobility, to whom this codec is oriented, was quite diverse. Only the lists of dishes include dozens of items, the daily menu had to be updated almost every two or three days. Such a variety, of course, applies to a greater extent to the noble and wealthy strata. Bread was the basis of the diet of the poor. Foreigners noted the extreme unpretentiousness of the Russian warrior: in the campaign he ate breadcrumbs, cold water and a mash of flour (usually oatmeal).

The basis of the costume of the inhabitants of Moscow Russia of the 16th century, as in the Middle Ages, was shirts and ports. Gets spread shirt-shirt with a shifted section of the gate from the center line to the left. Worn over a shirt zipun- swinging clothes above the knees, semi-tight, with butt fasteners. outerwear were kaftans, okhabni, feryazi, terliki. Nobles could wear foreign cut dresses (Polish and Hungarian caftans). Women wore over shirts sundresses(For example, shushun - long closed sundress with false patch sleeves), body warmers(showers), letniki. Simple casual wear for girls could be apron - two unsewn long panels gathered on a lace on the chest. A set of clothing (a shirt - a zipun - a caftan or other outerwear) could weigh up to 15-20 kg, which made the movements slower and gave a stately gait.

Clothing was girded with leather belts or cloth sashes, often also decoratively decorated. Small leather bags hung from the belt. The main headdress for men was a cloth round hat, for the rich - with fur trim. (circle). The style of the cap largely depended on the fabric: high caps, often with curved ends. At the base of the cap there were lapels, on which decor was placed, usually in the form of embroidery or buttons. Peasants wore felted round hats with small upturned brim. Notable people wore at home tafyu, or skufyu, - a small round hat, similar to a small skullcap. The church fought against this custom (especially in those cases when the taffia was not removed in the church). "Stoglav" even contains a special chapter "On the tafyas of the godless Makhmet" (ch. 39), where these headdresses are called "the godless Mohammed by tradition."

Winter hats were triukhi, or malachai(traditional-shaped earflaps), ceremonial high throat caps(from fur from the throat of fur-bearing animals), worms(hats made of fur taken from the belly). Ceremonial exits were characterized by the simultaneous use of several hats: a skufia, on top of it - a cap, then - a throat cap.

Unmarried girls in the summer could go bareheaded, tying their hair with strips of cloth, weaving pieces of leather, colored cloth, etc. into them. Married women covered their hair with scarves (ribs, fly), warriors(tightly covering the hair with cap-type bandages). Ceremonial headdresses were kiki and kokoshniks. Kika consisted of three elements: a decorative forehead decoration (kika proper), a cover for it (magpie) and decoration of the back of the head (butt pad). The kokoshnik was an arched decoration in the forehead part, often trimmed with embroidery, pearls, gold and silver threads. The lower edge was sheathed with threads of pearls (short - down below or long, shoulder-length, strands of beads - dressed).

Shoes was represented by leather boots, boots and boots, onuchs, bast shoes. In addition, they wore gloves(to know - from expensive fabrics and leather) and mittens(from wool and sheepskin), women - sleeves(fur muffs). Rings, rings, necklaces and other jewelry (including men) were common as a sign of wealth and position in society. Among noble women, it was customary to use cosmetics (whitewash, blush) in abundance, in the literal sense of the word "draw a face." Since the paints contained a lot of harmful substances, metal salts, they accumulated in the female body and led to serious diseases. But beauty and custom required sacrifice.

Men cut their hair "in a bracket" or "in a circle" (circumcision in a straight line of hair around the head, shorter on the forehead). Mustaches and beards, as in the Middle Ages, were considered signs of manhood, a person growing up. The women wore braids. The manner of cutting the nails of aristocratic women was interesting: in two arcs from the base, so that a sharp point resembling a claw was obtained.

The main types of peasant buildings remained the hut and the cage. According to scribe books, more than 40% of peasant households at the end of the 16th century. generally consisted of only these two buildings. But this was apparently a consequence of the socio-economic crisis at the end of the century. In more prosperous times, the peasant yard, apparently, was more complex in its structure, it had one or two huts, a barn, a barn, a stable, a shed for storing hay, a barn, a bathhouse, and other outbuildings.

In the northern and central regions, large houses begin to appear in the huts. huts with basements(the second floor turned out to be residential, and the first (basement) was used for household needs). In the conditions of the Russian winter, the concentration of everything necessary under one roof, the keeping of livestock here was a rational decision. Such a scheme for organizing a peasant house would be developed in the Russian North in the 19th century, but examples of it can be found earlier.

Dwellings of aristocrats in the first half of the 16th century. in their main features they continue the tradition of medieval chambers, choirs and towers. In large cities, the number of stone buildings is gradually increasing.

In the first half of the XVI century. the distance between the people's domestic life and the life of the aristocracy was still not so great. It was expressed rather in quantitative indicators, the amount of wealth and diversity, but did not have fundamental differences.

dwelling

The life of the Russian peasant and city dweller has changed very slowly and little over the course of centuries. The Russian traditional house, which had developed in antiquity, remained the same one-room building with small windows plugged with a bull's bladder or cloth soaked in hemp oil. Inside the house, a significant part was occupied by a stove, heated on black: smoke accumulated under the roof (there were no ceilings) and exited through the door and special windows made in the upper part of the wall. These features were common to both rural and urban houses. The rural house of a nobleman or son of a boyar differed from the peasant one only in a slightly larger size. Judging by some of the remains of old houses in Trubchevsk, the city house was sometimes built of stone. The walls were made very thick - up to two meters. The lower semi-underground part of the house - the basement - had vaulted ceilings. There were iron rings in the ceiling for hanging food. The upper part of the house was sometimes decorated with stucco door and window casings. Artistically executed lattices were inserted into the windows. These were rare houses of very wealthy people.
As before, the main furniture in the house was a table and fixed benches. Wooden and earthenware utensils were stored on the shelves. Glassware was used in the richest houses. Large and small chests contained various goods: clothes, tablecloths, towels. Separately, the dowry for the daughter's wedding was formed. The most valuable part of the furnishings were the icons hanging in the "red" (beautiful) corner.
The door from the house led to the vestibule - an unheated room, usually made not of logs, but of boards or twigs. Various tools of labor, part of household supplies were stored in the hallway.
In general, a residential building was either a hut (mainly in the north and east of the Bryansk region), or a hut - in the south and southwest. The roof of the hut is double-pitched, the hut is four-pitched. Huts were placed with a narrow (end) part on the street, huts - wide. The hut was often made of poles, between which logs or poles were placed. The entire building was covered with clay. A common feature for the hut and the hut was that in the Bryansk region they were usually set up without a basement, characteristic of the Russian North. The house on the basement is better than the ground one, it is adapted for protection from deep snow and spring floods. The door from the hallway led to the courtyard. Compared to the XIV-XV centuries, the number of outbuildings for peasants and townspeople increased. This indicates an increase in the well-being of the population. There were barns, sheds, cages, bathhouses in the yards. Merchants arranged warehouses for goods at the house. The craftsman, if he worked outside the home, had a special room for work. There was a garden attached to the house.
The world of things that surrounded the family life of a person in the 16th-17th centuries consisted mainly of wooden objects. In the forest region, wood was the most accessible and easily processed material. In addition to wood, clay was often used. Iron products were comparatively rare. They made the working parts of tools, tools, weapons. Metal products were highly valued.

Settlements

Having gone beyond the boundaries of his yard, a person found himself on the street of a village, village or city. Until the 16th century in Russia, in the course of the development of territories, more and more new villages appeared in one or two courtyards. Now the number of households in rural settlements has begun to grow. By the end of the 16th century, villages of 10-20 households were becoming habitual. There were villages with several dozen households, such as Suponevo, which belonged to the Svinsky Monastery and stretched along a large trade road. The estates of the peasants were located in one line in cases where the village was built up along the road or along the river bank. In other cases, there was no noticeable order in the layout of the settlements. It was only in the 17th century that the street planning of villages began to appear. A notable building in the village was a church, usually wooden. Near the church were the courtyards of the clergy.
Cities had more of the same type of construction. In the XVI-XVII centuries, the system of urban development continued to exist, which had developed in antiquity. There was a fortress in the center of the city. Roads radiated from the fortress. Streets sprang up along these roads. These streets were formed not by houses, as in modern cities, but by estates, enclosed by more or less high fences. A sign of urban development was that the estates adjoined each other. They did not form a straight line, and one estate protruded forward, closer to the road, the other retreated from it. Because of this, the street in some places became narrower, then wider. Streets, as well as settlements, were often separated from each other by vegetable gardens, streams, meadows. They were somewhat isolated from each other, especially since the settlements were usually inhabited by people of the same kind of service. Such are the Streltsy, Pushkar, Zatinnye, Cossack, Soldier, Yamsky settlements in Bryansk, Karachev, Sevsk. At night, the streets were not lit and were not paved.
In the cities of southwestern Russia, the central fortresses were wooden. The walls of the Bryansk fortress were made of oak and covered with boards. The fortress had 9 towers, two of which had gates to enter the fortress. In the second half of the 17th century, an extension of several towers with gates was made to the old fortress. The territory of the fortress has doubled. Among the gray wooden buildings and greenery, churches stood out for their height, especially those made of stone. There were many churches in Bryansk, Sevsk, Starodub. Most of them were built of wood, apparently in the traditional tent style for the 16th-17th centuries - with high pyramidal tops, reminiscent of a tent to a Russian person. The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery near Sevsk preserved such stone tents in its architectural appearance. Although it was built at the very beginning of the 18th century, its buildings show features of the architecture of the previous era. In the middle of Starodub today stands the Nativity Cathedral, built in the 17th century. It consists, as it were, of three large and wide towers clinging to each other. This is how temples were built in Ukraine. The building is decorated with convex, as if protruding from the walls, details - patterned architraves on the windows, shoulder blades - flat ledges at the corners of the cathedral. Each tower is crowned with a dome. Over time, there were more and more decorations on churches - the era of the dominance of a bizarre, elegant baroque style was approaching. Features of this style are noticeable in the architecture of the stone gate church of the Svensky Monastery. The appearance of the churches of the Bryansk region combined the features of Russian and Ukrainian art.
In the center of the city on the square there was a market, where city dwellers came every day. It was the busiest place in the city. The shops in the market stood in rows - one line of shops, as it were, looked at the same opposite line. In a row, as a rule, they traded a certain set of goods. So, in Bryansk on the market there were rows of fish, meat, mosquito (haberdashery). Near the market there was a guest yard where visiting merchants stayed.

The shape of the population. Everyday life

The clothes of ordinary inhabitants of the region have changed little since ancient times. Residents of villages and cities wore shirts made of homespun cloth. Women's shirts were decorated with embroidery. In winter, they wore clothes made of sheep's skin - sheepskin. Shoes were mostly leather, in some cases they wore bast shoes.
Ordinary life, both in the city and in the village, began early. Even before dawn, the women got up to send the cattle to the common rural or urban herd. There was no breakfast in our modern view, we ate the remnants of yesterday's food. Then work began in the field or workshop. At lunch the family got together again. The men sat down to dine, the women waited on them. Then the whole house went to sleep. Slept for two hours. Then work resumed again until the evening. After dinner, the family rested and went to bed.
Holidays brought variety to the usual routine. The family went to a solemn service in the church, went out to watch the youth play in the city or in a meadow near the city. Many games were ancient, pagan in nature. Guests were taken to the feast, which took place from day to evening.

Spiritual life

The spiritual needs of the population were satisfied by reading religious books and worship. Every church, every monastery had at least a small collection of liturgical books. Handwritten and printed books appeared together with the Old Believer settlers in the southwestern districts of Russia. Some of them came from the printing house of Ivan Fedorov.
Songwriting was of great importance in the life of the population. Some of the songs that have survived to this day reflected historical events, features of life in the Russian borderlands, in particular in the lands of Sevsk. Some songs reflected the impressions of the people from the Time of Troubles. They ridiculed people who, out of interests of profit and profit, easily ran from one contender for power to another. Songwriting was akin to proverbs and sayings. From an environment clearly hostile to False Dmitry I and his supporters, sayings came out in which, in the form of fables, the impostor was called a piglet and cancer: "Sevchane met cancer with bells", "Look, brother, the voivode is crawling and dragging a bristle in his teeth", " The Sevchans planted a piglet on a perch, saying: “Don’t kill yourself, don’t kill yourself - let the chicken stand on two legs.” The same desire to humiliate, ridicule the participants in the anti-government movement is also noticeable in such sayings: Yelets is the father of all thieves, and Karachev is a sacrifice (option: they are in addition), and Livny is marvelous to all thieves, and Dmitrovtsy (option: Komarinians) are not betrayers of old thieves. , probably already after the civil war, but according to fresh memories, when it was possible to laugh at the inhabitants of those areas who tried to support unsuccessful applicants for the Moscow throne. ia in the family. Strengthening the family, the complication of wedding ceremonies gave birth to new and new songs. Weddings lasted for several days, and each of them corresponded to certain customs. With songs and rituals, agricultural work took place, especially sowing and harvesting.
The life of the inhabitants of the southwestern districts of Russia was distinguished by the preservation of many ancient features. This is explained by the fact that large areas of this region were isolated by dense forests from large trade roads and cities, from central and local authorities.

The longer he sat, creating the text, the smaller it became in the bottle and the brighter and more revolutionary the ideas became!
Here, 0.5 ... (although no, here is at least 0.7) liters have come to an end:

But that's not all. The description of the construction of the walls of Jerusalem, given in the book of Nehemiah, coincides in all respects with the description of the construction of the Moscow Kremlin (according to the decoding of Nosovsky and Fomenko), which was carried out ... also in the 16th century.

The author has put an end to it. He hiccupped victoriously, showed the middle finger to invisible opponents, wiped the saliva running down the line and, holding on to the wall, along a complex trajectory, went to sleep. On the way, wiping the leg on the floor, smeared by Fomenko (m), which he had just stepped on.

"And another question: what is the reason that Satan became the embodiment of evil?"

I'll start with a Biblical quote: "And he showed me Jesus, the great priest, standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan, standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said to Satan: The Lord forbid you, Satan, may the Lord forbid you, He who chose Jerusalem, is he not a brand cast out of the fire? (Zechariah 3:1,2)"

So the point is that without Satan, that is, without Evil, the perfection and exaltation of man is simply IMPOSSIBLE! It seems to me that God knew in advance that Satan would rise, just as he knew that Jesus would be crucified, but still allowed it. And it pleased him. Now I will explain:

This is similar to how it was with the patriarch Jacob in the wilderness. "And Jacob was left alone. And Someone fought with him until the dawn; (Genesis 32, 24)"

The fact is that without this confrontation, a person has not achieved even the little that he achieves in life. And then it is worth thinking about the role of obstacles in human life. Those obstacles that a person usually curses, wanting to avoid them and get rid of them, but thanks to which, that is, overcoming which, he ultimately accomplishes his achievements.

So it became clear to me that without the help, or rather, without the confrontation of Satan, that is, the confrontation with Satan, a person cannot complete the path of ascent and improvement. That is why God allows temptations from the evil one to the believer, so that the believer can test his faith, learn to wield spiritual weapons and learn to control his spirit.

This is where God, Jesus is the embodiment of good, and Satan is the embodiment of evil, and together they give rise to the struggle of these very opposites, and for what, so that a person would not be a robot devoid of his own thought, but would be the Creator here on earth in order to improve and become strong in the face of God!

“For example, Orthodoxy replaced a direct appeal to I.Kh. with an appeal to God through saints, priests, etc. It also introduced the worship of the relics of saints, and so on and so forth. Of course, there is a placebo effect in medicine, but why mock people like that? So, I think, if you really believe, then not through Orthodoxy. To begin with ... "

Yes, indeed, and I already wrote this, that the problem of modern religion is a huge number of rituals, because of which people begin to believe not in God, not in the power of prayer, but in magical objects bypassing God, they begin to believe in the power of the same the candle itself as a magic wand, as a remedy for all diseases, without thinking that objects in themselves do nothing, everything is done by prayer. He himself repeatedly witnessed such a picture: the priest said that he would now illuminate food for Easter, for example, people immediately pushing, shoving, begin to get food, open everything, unfold, then begin to greedily lift everything up, otherwise God forbid a drop of holy water will not fall on his food, because without it the food will not become holy. I look at these people and understand that the true value of faith, the value of God, is receding into the background and replaced by faith in magic. All these rituals were conceived in order to help people understand and feel the sacrament of prayer, but what we see now came out. Today's religion is far from God. Just today I came across a video and I advise you to watch:

"I just never heard such interpretations of God from the highest part of the clergy. Maybe there are such?"

I thought about this for quite some time. The Bible says that God created Adam and Eve in his own image and likeness and settled them in Paradise. So God could not settle a person in his biological shell in Paradise, but what could he settle there? Soul! So maybe God created the Human Soul in his own image and likeness, then perhaps God is a perfect energy, the embodiment of Goodness and Justice. In Christianity, it is forbidden to depict God on icons, since no one has seen God and cannot know what he looks like. So maybe God does not have any shell, maybe He is this kind of energy that permeates the entire universe, but the mind, the limits of which we are simply not able to determine? Note that this does not contradict the Bible, but rather explains how God can simultaneously monitor everyone, just can God be everywhere?

“Well, for starters, tell me: with the blessing of God, entire nations were destroyed? Did he cause a flood? Did he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? One of the cities was destroyed by deceit: first, circumcision was arranged, and then, while all the men of this city were still sick, they killed everyone. There are many such examples, I will not give them?

Interest Ask. Why did God love his people so much that he destroyed them all at once? So here is the answer in my opinion! So God did these seemingly terrible actions out of love for the world that He created! God's love for the world He created implies the sharpest rejection of the fact that this world defiles, destroys and disfigures. As the Bible says:
“But the earth was corrupt before the face of God, and the earth was filled with wickedness. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupted, for all flesh had perverted its way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:11,12).
God's judgment, manifested this time in the Flood, is aimed at delivering the universe from evil and, therefore, is a manifestation of love. Healing the world from evil (or at least reducing its scale) is possible only in two ways - either those who do evil repent and change their ways, or God simply physically deprives them of the opportunity to do evil further.
The people who lived before the Flood perverted their way, and perverted it so much that no other means of suppressing evil were already possible. Their civilization turned out to be so vicious that it was possible to stop all the evil that it did only by physically washing it off the face of the earth.
Now you ask: And he just killed all these people? But physical death (sooner or later inevitable for everyone) is far from the worst thing that can happen to a person. When God sends a death to a person, which seems to us untimely, this may show concern for his eternal salvation. The evil that antediluvian people indulged in was destructive not only for the universe as a whole, but also for themselves. The Flood deprived them of the opportunity to do harm not only to others, but also to themselves!

This "film" in modern Christianity occupies more space than the original teaching of I.Kh. So is it better to believe in your own way than to follow the crowd and follow the rituals of the "film"?

No, I am not against all these rituals. I focused on the fact that people need rituals, not God. God needs prayer..

In the old testament He showed many different miracles, your point of view is interesting, was it God or not?

Of course it was God. Please compare the time and do not forget that God needed a powerful base for millennia to create a modern religion, because without those miracles, now hardly anyone would believe in God. And now people have enough of those imperceptible small miracles that God does every day, and the Bible itself, where that base of our faith is collected.

Are you a determinant, are you “for” Christianity, or do you have your own point of view about God.

Here it really came out harsh, I wanted to say that God is something perfect, an essence devoid of injustice

Yes, goosebumps climb on the back, only for a different reason.

I made my point and my first Bible reading experience was just that!

The answer is simple: it is impossible to prove the absence of something.

Take not God, but Christ. In principle, proof of the human soul would be sufficient to prove God. I meant that a person still cannot give rational evidence that will show that there was no Christ, that the whole religion is built on a lie.

I ask for more questions) And how to make colored text?)

Of course, I understand that you were trying to write something epic, but it turned out to be a simple thought of an unbeliever, processed by the modern world. Just look at how an unbeliever enters a church and sees an altar where people take the blood and body of Christ in the form of bread and wine, where a priest conjures with "magic" candles, relieving diseases, where they pour holy water, expelling evil spirits, where people stand for hours to bow to some relics. And what, looking at this, do you think Where did I get to, what kind of "sect" is this, a lot of people worship some objects, douse themselves with holy water, etc. And what do you feel? The church is a gathering of fanatics who believe in a candle like a magic wand, believe in holy water as a remedy for all diseases, that people do not believe in God, but in some kind of magic. And it seems to you absolutely absurd, devoid of any meaning, you cannot understand how you can believe in it, and from here the thought is born, quite logical that religion subjugates people? And in this place you, my friend, make a big mistake. You rest against the film, stop, looking at it and think how you can believe in it, forgetting that this is just a film, the dimensions of which you cannot understand, under which is hidden the very "living", real God that some people believe in Why did I say some? Because the priests, as you say, lure people into the church, creating these very rituals: today we will pray to a certain saint so that our throat does not hurt, tomorrow another, so that there are no accidents, etc. And then they perform big mistake. With their rituals, they turn, not on purpose, people who believe not in God, but in magic. People no longer think about God, but think about ridiculous actions that will increase their health, well-being, etc. The church itself does NOT believe in the miraculous power of holy water or a candle - it believes in the power of prayer - the power of dialogue with God. And these objects are only means for understanding people. A man prayed, and he thinks that these are just words, but "holy" water (which is essentially ordinary water) hit a person and that's it, he thinks that now everything will change, now there will be happiness and health. For such a person, nothing will change, because he does not believe in God, but in magic. And unfortunately, it is not the desire of most people to understand the power of prayer that leads to belief in that very magic. And faith, true faith, which today can only be slightly seen in modern temples, is very deep and these are not banal words - faith in the living God is really very deep and very far from the modern non-believer, as well as the majority of "believers", like many themselves are called people. So it turns out that you, like a large number of people, just look at modern magic in churches, and of course, looking at this, it’s simply not possible to believe in the same God that everyone is trying to find. And then they shout on the forums that religion is a means of subjugation, that God does not exist, that this is all a conspiracy, and so on. Have you tried to seek God? Not the God who is drawn to us from childhood, but the real God? Skeptic, I read many of your comments. So, from people like you, that is, people with a logical, rational opinion, who at the beginning try to deny the whole theory of the existence of God, but then they try to look deeper into religion and understand the very essence that is hidden from most people, then the most ardent believers turn out , because these are people who do not believe in magic, but in the living God. I witnessed this in my only 18 years, I became more than once. So the following chain turns out: People do not believe -> Priests or Priests are sincerely trying (believe me, most of these people are really good, without any evil thoughts, true believers, and not those individuals - participants in conspiracy theories, about which the media often writes) to drive people to faith in God, but making a mistake, they try to create some magical rituals that people willingly believe in, in order to attract people -> As a result, people begin to believe in the very magic, thereby creating religion fanatics -> People like you , maybe they tried someday to find God, but they ran into this film, which unfortunately grows every day, and making a logical conclusion that the church is a bunch of fanatics, retreated, and now write, convinced that you are right, such comments. And this chain makes more and more people either unbelievers or fanatics of the faith, and this is very sad. My advice to you, try to find a priest and just talk to him about God or find some good book about God. I recently read the book "Prayer of Jabez" although it was not very ideal, but I took many interesting thoughts from there.

God does not want to see us as slaves, he gave us free will, and provided a choice. Note that there is no person on earth who has not heard about God. Each person makes his own choice: to believe or not to believe, more precisely, as I would say, look at religion superficially (there are two options: do not believe or become a fanatic of faith) or try to look into its essence (and here to understand what God is and become a true believer ). Now I will try to answer the question: Why does God, if he exists, not show people a "miracle", so that everyone would immediately and unconditionally believe. So the answer is simple: God, as I said, does not want to make people slaves. It gives people the opportunity to understand and make their choice. He does small miracles every day, personally, for each person, but which most people don’t even notice, so for a true believer, such a miracle would be enough) God cannot make a big miracle that everyone would believe in, because having made such a miracle, people they will instantly become fanatics or slaves of religion, and having come to God on their own, without any signs, a person becomes great both in the eyes of people and in the eyes of God. And those same fanatics or slaves of religion would become too vulnerable to the opposite side of God - the Devil. Rushed, you say, but this is a simple truth: if there is light, there is darkness; if there is cold, there is heat; If there is a God, there is a Devil. So think about what could happen if God showed himself? If you look superficially, then yes, everyone believes happiness and peace, but in reality it’s not like that, it’s not like that at all. All these people who would cry after an obvious miracle would be too weak and vulnerable to the Devil, their faith would be too changeable and they would fall prey to him very quickly. When answering any of your questions of such a plan, think about what would happen if everything was as you say. Now about the fact that many people imagine God as an old man flying on a cloud and watching a person. I think that God is not a person at all, God is energy, the energy of absolute good (good in the fullness of the word), the pure energy of justice, well, draw a conclusion about who the Devil is. Now about the Bible. Undoubtedly, the Bible has been interpreted a great number of times. But the fact is that the Bible is not a book for God, it is a book for people, and no matter how many times I told and retold the little red riding hood in different ways (not a good example), the important thing is that I convey the meaning. So in the Bible, no matter how many people retell its meaning, yes, much can be hidden, much is lost, but the very meaning of God is still hidden in the Bible! Throughout the Bible it is said that God is Love, God is Justice and finally God is Good! That's what a person needs to understand! Neither now nor in the 16th century could people, and in general a person could not just sit down and invent a Bible.

(Continued) The Bible is told to people through God, through Christ. No earthly Book can live so long and still give people answers and new questions. Try a skeptic, open your Bible, collect your thoughts and try to absorb the meaning of each word and goosebumps will crawl up your back. Whoever speaks there, there are no contradictions in the Bible, everything that is written there only needs to be correctly explained and everything will become clear. Understand neither 2000 years ago, nor in the 8th c. BC. (when the old testament was being written, when people didn’t really know how to write), neither in the 16th century, nor now a person, using only his brain, simply could not write the Bible, could not build such a logical chain. Why are there still no rational theories that there is no God? What do you think the church forbids? There is nothing like it, they simply do not exist, but on the contrary, every day there is more and more evidence, and even in the face of this site, that there is something that we are not able to understand. How many studies have been carried out on the authenticity of the very Shroud of Turin, on which the face of Christ is depicted, science cannot explain how it could appear there! And you think the church forbids again? Oh, no, friends, people would be happy to prove to the whole world for a long time about the falsification of, for example, this very relic, but this does not happen. Look at how people expose even the most amazing, at first glance, man-made "miracles", but still cannot prove the non-existence of Christ? On the contrary, people with the development of science are becoming more and more convinced that there really was such a person as Jesus. You see, everything in the Bible is too logical for a man to write it without the help of God. Look at the Commandments: they still reflect all human sins, and they were written in the 15th century. BC. I am a Catholic, I regularly visit the church and I thought for a very long time whether God really exists, I read many books, articles in favor and against the existence of God, today I am sure that God exists and every day I am convinced of this. I feel His help and support. Lord, there were so many seemingly hopeless situations, but I had only to sincerely pray and I was simply surprised how everything was resolved. Yes, sometimes I just sat, thinking about what happened and just did not believe how everything could have been decided, as if one in a billion! Also note that all religions of the world are similar: everywhere there is a higher power - God, there is a Savior, the meaning of each religion is to do Good, to pray to God. Yes, there are many offshoots, but it seems to me, I’m even sure that there is only one source, but something was retold with less detail, something with more, something one by one, something else, and we have what we have now. I know a lot of people are reading this with a wrinkled face, but just try to understand, it's not for nothing that religion has lived for so many years. Just try to read a few books, just open your Bible to any page and try to catch the meaning of every word. And you will discover that marvelous and wonderful world that I discovered for myself! Amen (if anyone does not know, this means confirmation of their words)

Ahaha. Only a sick person could write such nonsense. He learned from a children's book that the evangelists lived in the 16th century! Brilliant! A discussion of the evangelists was scheduled in the Christian Westminster Abbey! Epic nonsense.