The Time and Reasons for Fyodor Kolychev’s Retreat to the Solovetsky Monastery

This article considers the first stage of the life of Metropolitan Filipp (lay name Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev, 1566–1568). The author focuses on the motives and circumstances of his retreat to the Solovetsky monastery. The work calls into question the widespread hypothesis according to which his joining the monastery was closely connected with the repression against the Kolychevs after the suppression of the Staritsky mutiny in 1537. The author demonstrates that, firstly, Stepan Kolychev’s family was not persecuted and, secondly, that Fyodor had gone to the Solovetsky Islands before the Staritsky mutiny took place, i. e. in the first half of 1534. By that time, he was a mature twenty-seven-year-old (by the standards of the time). The author comes to conclusion that Fyodor decided to enter the monastery consciously and voluntarily. The reasons for his decision should not be sought in the political sphere but only in the sphere of religious consciousness. By the moment of taking his monastic vows, he had no unrealised political ambitions left. This fact distinguishes him from Vassian (Patrikeev) and Filaret (Romanov), who were forced to take monastic vows and regarded the Church as the sphere where they could realise their ambitions. Fyodor’s social skills may have played a very important role in him being elected abbot of the Solovetsky monastery. The monks needed a young and active abbot who would have the skills and experience to manage a large household. At 37–38 years of age, Filipp had business acumen, and not so many monks came from the service class. The election of Filipp contributed to the flourishing of the Solovetsky monastery’s patrimony in the 1540s–1560s. The research refers to chronicles, acts, colophons, and the Life of Metropolitan Filipp. These historical sources are analysed with the help of source study methods, which make it possible to reconstruct the past from contradictory and fragmentary evidence. The author pays much attention to the analysis of Filipp’s Life and tries to distinguish valuable facts of his biography from typical hagiographic motifs.