DEACON FEDOR - AN AUTHOR OF THE MAIN IDEOLOGICAL WORKS OF PUSTOZERSKY WRITERS
Deacon Fedor is a writer and polemicist, and one of the ideological leaders of the first generation of the church reform opponents. He had an unconditional authority among his companions on the Pustozersky exile, as evidenced by the fact of writing journalistic treatises on their behalf in defense of the true Orthodoxy. Deacon Fyodor wrote such socially significant works as “The Orthodox Response” and the Epistle to Ioann Avvakumovich on the priesthood. The Orthodox Response is considered to be the main work by Deacon Fyodor. This work has become the main ideological document for the entire Old Believer heritage for many years. It presented a set of objections of the old rite defenders against church innovations, supported by convincing arguments and arguments in favor of a formulated point of view on the changes that occurred in the ritual and liturgical practice. The author has shown the illegality of editing liturgical books, as well as given evidences strong enough for the Christian that the experienced time is “anti-Christian”, “last” one. “The Orthodox Response” is considered together with another work significant for the whole Old Believer writings, written by Deacon Fyodor in summer of 1669 as an answer to Ioann, son of Archpriest Avvakum, who asked a question about the new priests. The author did this on behalf of all Pustozersky prisoners like in the previous work. In the Epistle on the Priesthood, the problem was thoroughly discussed how to perceive the priests assigned by Nikon, after Nikon was deprived of his patriarchal dignity. The paper concludes that these two works by Deacon Fedor were important for contemporaries and contributed to formation of a broad religious and social movement. They were also actively used in the XVIII century for creating the ideology of consent.