HAGIOGRAPHY OF SAINT VARLAAM KERETSKY AND ORAL TRADITION OF WHITE SEA REGION
Mineeva Inna Nikolaevna
Petrozavodsk State University
Abstract. The article is devoted to the problem of worshipping Saint Varlaam Keretsky in Karelian Coastal Region in the XXI century. Oral memories of the saint revived after long decades of oblivion due to educational activity of Orthodox Church. Modern cult of Coastal Region monk is characterized by three basic peculiarities: 1) heightened interest for Saint Varlaam is associated with his unusual and difficult life story (the murder of a wife, special penitential feat - to carry the coffin with wife’s body in a boat until it’s reduced to dust); 2) Saint’s worship cult is conditioned by the proximity of our contemporaries’ place of residence to the places where the basic events described in hagiography occurred; 3) oral stories associated with laymen’s everyday life are still in use. Laymen pray the Saint; ask for his assistance on the sea in bad weather.
Key words and phrases: Беломорье, Кольский полуостров, прп. Варлаам Керетский, народная агиография, устная история, White Sea region, Kola Peninsula, Saint Varlaam Keretsky, folk hagiography, oral story
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Русский
