الاصول الدينية للمجتمع الروسي دراسة تاريخية في الوثنية السلاڤية والمسيحية والشامانية

Abstract

We do not know when the first roots of religious beliefs began in ancient Russia, But it can be said generally that the first peoples in the territory of Russia did not have any specific religious concepts during the past ages, But the inability of man to struggle with nature and his mysterious perceptions of him, led over time, the appearance of the sacred beings, in the sense that led to the emergence of religion; People have added to the various natural phenomena the supernatural power and turned it into gods; Archaeological data indicate that the oldest religious evidence in Russia dates back to the fourth millennium BC, revealing the oldest places of worship.

With the rise of the Slavic tribes, religious developments took place in Russian territory, The Slavs sanctified the force of nature like other ancient peoples, Although today we cannot distinguish many of the features of ancient Slavic religion because of the destruction of their religion by Christian clergy, However, the remaining traces and oral traditions have helped researchers to rebuild the features of that religion. The admission of the governor of Kiev, Vladimir I, to Christianity in 988 as an official religion in his kingdom is the most important event in the history of Russia, This has contributed to the development of culture and education there, and the Church has become the main instrument for the transfer of Byzantine civilization to Russia, in the fields of literature, art and music. During the period from the end of the tenth century BC until the beginning of the twentieth century, the history of the Church witnessed great developments through its relationship with the authorities on the one hand and the movements hostile to it on the other, especially with its emergence from heretical movements in the fifteenth century AD. The role of the Church as an authority with great political influence in Russia ended only with the reign of Caesar Peter the Great (1682-1752) and the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796), who effectively contributed to the end of that vast clerical influence.

Despite the entry of Christianity into Russia, pagan ideas and traditions have not ended, but have remained entrenched in Russian society, On the one hand, the Shamanic rituals continued to exist in Siberia until the twentieth century, On the other hand, many of the attributes of the ancient gods were added to the Christian saints, On the third side, magical traditions existed even before the First World War, which clearly indicates that Christianity could not penetrate the old Russian popular beliefs.