Historical Studies of the Opponents of Church Reform in the Second Half of the 17<sup>th</sup> Century
The article examines specific features of perception of the past by the opponents of church reform. The appeal to the writings of two monks from Solovetsky monastery provided an opportunity to show the initial stage of the formation of a special historical narrative in the Old Believers’ tradition. Sergiy Shelonin was the first, who composed a work describing historical events, choosing the Chronograph genre. The article demonstrates that this historical work reflects the author’s idea of the human development from Adam to the present, within which the history of Russia was briefly characterized, built into the stream of global Christian history. The analysis of the additional parts of the Chronograph made it possible to clarify the author’s intention and draw a conclusion about the peculiarities of the author’s approach to the selection of material and presentation of ideas about the past of mankind. In this historical work, Sergiy Shelonin outlined the key events that determined the crisis of modern society. The article shows, that another monk of Solovetsky monastery, Gerontiy, was clearly guided by the work of Sergiy, relied on the scheme of the historical process proposed by Shelonin to explain contemporary events. Developing the ideas expressed by his predecessor, Gerontius shed more light on them and strengthened the perception of reality in an eschatological key. An appeal to the past as a confirmation of the defended point of view will be actively used by the next generations of opponents of church reform. Analysis of the historical studies of the first generation of Old Rite defenders makes it possible to see the formation of prophetic-eschatological connection of Russian history with the world history. This is important for deepening our understanding of the broad religious and social movement that existed for several centuries, the development of which was based on national traditions.