02 — Founding Volokolamsk
The foundation in 1479 of the Dormition (Uspensky) Monastery near Volok Lamsky under the patronage of Prince Boris Vasilievich of Volotsk, and its rapid growth into one of the wealthiest and most influential houses of Muscovy — its stone cathedral and frescoes, its estates accumulated through princely and boyar donations, and its library — together with the rigorous cenobitic rule Joseph gave it: the total community of goods, the three graded degrees of ascetic life, and the exacting discipline of order. This section covers Joseph’s most concrete and enduring achievement, the monastery and the rule that are the institutional core of everything else attributed to him.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (cenobitic founder; “Possessors”)
The Dormition Monastery is the ground on which the whole of Joseph’s career stands. Before he was a polemicist, a defender of monastic estates, or a theorist of the God-given prince, he was the founder and abbot of a single house, and it was the strength, wealth, and discipline of that house that gave his words their weight. These two files treat the monastery as institution and as community: the first sets out the foundation of 1479, its princely and boyar patrons, the stone Dormition cathedral with its frescoes from the circle of Dionysius, the accumulation of estates through the vklad (donation-commemoration) system with its synodikon commemoration of donors, and the monastery’s library and book culture; the second sets out Joseph’s Monastic Rule — its redactions, the total community of goods, the three degrees of ascetic life, the discipline of external order, the penalties, and the famous paradox of a house that owns much governing monks who own nothing. The defense of that corporate wealth and the contrast with St. Nilus of Sora are taken up in Sections 05 and 06.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Dormition Monastery | The 1479 foundation under Prince Boris Vasilievich of Volotsk; the stone Dormition cathedral and its frescoes from the circle of Dionysius (with the attestation of his participation noted); growth in monks, lands, and wealth through princely and boyar vklady with synodikon commemoration; the monastery as a major economic and spiritual center; its library and book culture. |
| The Strict Typikon | Joseph’s rigorous cenobitic Ustav (Extended/prostrannaya and Brief/kratkaya redactions; Goldfrank’s edition): the total community of goods; the three graded degrees of ascetic life in food, clothing, and footwear; the discipline of fixed places, silence, obedience, regulated diet, and prohibitions; discipline and penalties; and the tension between corporate wealth and personal poverty. |
See Also
- 01 — Foundations: From Pafnuty of Borovsk to Volokolamsk — the break that led Joseph to found his own house in 1479
- 05 — The Case for Monastic Estates — Joseph’s defense of the corporate landholding accumulated here
- 06 — The 1503 Council and the Two Ways — the contrast with St. Nilus of Sora over property and the common life
- Russian Monasticism — the cenobitic revival within which Volokolamsk stands
- The Mongol and Muscovite Periods — the political world of Ivan III and the appanage of Volotsk
- St. Sergius of Radonezh — the founder of the cenobitic tradition Volokolamsk continues
References
- Goldfrank, David M., ed. and trans. The Monastic Rule of Iosif Volotsky. Rev. ed. Cistercian Studies 36. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2000.
- Fedotov, George P. The Russian Religious Mind, Vol. II: The Middle Ages, the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries. Ed. John Meyendorff. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.
- Ostrowski, Donald. “Church Polemics and Monastic Land Acquisition in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy.” Slavonic and East European Review 64, no. 3 (1986): 355–379.
- Steindorff, Ludwig. Memoria in Altrussland: Untersuchungen zu den Formen christlicher Totensorge. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1994.