«Ritualism» and Criticism of «External Wisdom» in Works of Protopope Avvakum

The following paper is going to concern an imminent figure in the Tsardom of Moscow in 17th century, namely, archpriest (protopope) Avvakum Petrov`s. He is known to be at the origin of the Old Believers` movement. Two aspects of Avvakum`s worldview are going be considered in this work. Firstly, we are analyzing what has been defined in literature as ‘ritualism’ and its concept. Secondly, we are estimating Avvakum`s criticism of what he calls ‘external wisdom’. In our view, these aspects of Avvakum`s worldview are closely interconnected, and this fact does not allow us to consider them separately. Furthermore, the archpriest`s literary works will be the object of our investigation, and his worldview, precisely, the ritualism and ‘external wisdom’ criticism, – the subject matter. Moreover, there are several aims of the work. The first is to prove whether Avvakum and his followers can be called ‘ritualists’ or, in other words, whether they in fact prioritized rituals, and the second aim is to deduce the reasons for Avvakum`s criticism of ‘external wisdom’ be it political circumstances or his complex philosophy. The investigation is divided in two parts, each devoted to the questions posed.