Why holy monasteries turned into state prisons
The history of Christian Europe has preserved the memory of times when monasteries became places of state exile. The fates of monarchs and righteous men were decided there.
In April 1042, riots raged in the streets of Constantinople. The deposed emperor Michael V and his uncle were trying to save themselves. On the imperial ship they fled to the Stoudios Monastery, hoping to take refuge behind its holy gates. The doors of the monastery opened, but an enraged crowd quickly surrounded the church.
The ruler of only the day before clung convulsively to the altar, believing that its sacred status would stop his pursuers. In vain. The guards and townspeople dragged the fugitives out into the square and blinded them. An eyewitness of these dramatic events, the historian Michael Psellos, stood nearby and wept. Later he recorded the words of the monarch, who, before the punishment, called his fate deserved: "God is just, and justice now punishes me for what I have done."
The blinded Michael was sent first to the Elegmon Monastery, and then exiled to the island of Chios. In Byzantine politics this was a long-established practice. Tonsure was regarded as civil death, which made it possible to eliminate a political rival without shedding blood. A full execution risked provoking rebellions, while the monastic habit forever deprived a man of any claim to the throne, yet preserved his life. A similar fate befell the empress Irene: in 802 she was exiled to the island of Prinkipo, and then transferred to Lesbos, where the former mistress of the empire earned her living by spinning wool.
Half a century before Michael V's flight, in December 944, the sons of the emperor Romanos I Lekapenos overthrew their father. He was forcibly tonsured and exiled to the island of Prote. However, already in January 945 the conspirators met the same end: they were deprived of power and sent to the very same island. The former ruler greeted his own sons already clad in the monastic habit. According to the chronicles, he quoted to them the words of the prophet Isaiah: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me."
Law instead of the block
The legal foundation of this phenomenon took shape long before the Byzantine palace coups. In the sixth century the emperor Justinian enacted a Novella, one chapter of which dealt with the punishment for adultery. A civil court sentenced the guilty woman to flogging, after which she was sent to a monastery. The husband was given two years to reflect. If the husband agreed to forgive his wife, he took her back home. If, however, no reconciliation took place within two years, the woman was tonsured and remained in the monastery for life. Her property was divided: two thirds went to the children, and one third to the monastery.
Confinement was originally conceived as an act of state mercy.
It gave a person time for amendment and repentance, replacing the death penalty. Over time, however, the Christian monastery was transformed from a place of spiritual correction into a place of forced imprisonment.
Princely shackles in Kiev
In the Rus' lands the practice of monastic exile appeared in the twelfth century. In 1146, in the course of internecine strife, Prince Igor Olgovich of Chernigov was taken prisoner. Shackled in "irons," he was confined in the Monastery of St. John in Pereyaslavl. The captive fell gravely ill and asked to be tonsured. Bishop Euthymius performed the monastic rite over him.
The ailing prince was taken to Kyiv, where he received the schema at the Monastery of St. Theodore. The former ruler wished to spend the rest of his days in prayerful solitude. But political struggle did not release the schemamonk. In September 1147, the Kyiv veche decided to finally deal with the House of Olgovichi.
An enraged crowd burst into the church during the service itself. The schemamonk was dragged out into the street and torn to pieces. His monastic rank did not protect him from reprisal, although the prince had already fully renounced worldly power.
Earthen Pits and Supreme Decrees
By the sixteenth century, the monastery prison had become an established institution of state investigation. In 1554, the name of the first official prisoner appears in the documents of the Solovetsky Monastery. He was Hegumen Artemy of the Trinity Monastery. From that moment, the northern cloister became the main dungeon for religious and political dissidents.
A century later, Patriarch Nikon found himself in confinement. In 1666, after the Church trial, the disgraced primate was exiled to the Ferapontov Monastery, and then transferred to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. In total, he spent fifteen years in confinement. His Holiness was guarded by a bailiff, a centurion, and twenty musketeers armed with clubs. Evidence of his spiritual fortitude has survived: the former Patriarch personally made a wooden chair and carved an inscription on it: "this chair was made by the humble Nikon, Patriarch, in confinement."
In the eighteenth century, the Suzdal Saviour-Euthymius Monastery became another center of exile. From 1766 to 1902, more than four hundred people passed through its prison quarters, including priests and monks. In 1902, prisoners were still being held there, some of them for 15 and even 20 years.
The system of exile was strictly bureaucratized. From 1835, a person could be sent to a monastery solely by Supreme Decree.
The document traveled a long path: from the parish priest to the diocesan bishop, then to the Synod, to the Over-Procurator, and, finally, to the emperor's desk.
The conditions of confinement were extremely harsh. At Solovki, earthen prisons were built: pits about three arshins deep, lined with brick. The prisoner was lowered into them through a hatch, through which food was also passed. In the 1830s, prisoners were held in cramped cells measuring two by three arshins, two people to a cell. The dead were buried in the monastery garden without a cross or inscription.
The sectarians held there often entered into theological disputes, which ended with them throwing pieces of bread and spoons at one another. The exiled medical assistant Kolchin, having gained access to the secret archive, became the first historian of the Solovetsky prison. And the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Porfiry (Karabinevich), described the position of the prisoners in the 1860s thus: "Exiled and sit, that is, until death takes pity and ends the suffering."
The Last Koshovyi Otaman
Among the Solovki prisoners, a special fate fell to Petro Kalnyshevsky, the last Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Sich. In 1776, by personal decree of Empress Catherine II, the elder was exiled to the North. He spent 25 years in monastic confinement.
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In 1801, the new emperor signed a decree for his release. However, the former otaman refused to return to his homeland and decided to remain in the monastery until the end of his days. Kalnyshevsky reposed on October 31, 1803, and in 2015 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church glorified the righteous Petro among the saints.
Monastic prisons were abolished slowly. In 1883, the Solovki prison stood empty for the first time in three centuries, although it was finally closed only in the autumn of 1903.
In Kyiv, the history of the Kirillov Monastery ended differently. After the secularization reform of 1786, the monastery was closed, and in 1803 the state authorities established a hospital for the «божевільних» ("insane") on its grounds.
The monastery buildings were turned into hospital wards. The monastic land once again received outcast people, but now they were cared for by physicians rather than monks.
