Cossack faith

Cossack estates were at the crossroads of three faiths - Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

It is impossible to find another date in the history of Ukraine that would have such a profound and diverse impact on the fate of the Ukrainian people: 1492 - the year of the foundation of the Cossacks. The first written references to our heroic ancestors date back to this time. They are mentioned in official documents of the Ottoman Empire and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In 2014, the Ukrainian Cossacks turned 522 years old. History has many testimonies about various spheres of life of the inhabitants of Zaporizhzhya Sich. The past of the lands of the Zaporizhia region is traditionally associated in the popular consciousness with the history of the Zaporizhia Cossacks.

Peculiarities of the genesis of Cossacks, historical tradition, geopolitical and natural conditions of its existence led to the formation of a peculiar Orthodox worldview of the Zaporozhians.

The famous historian Olena Apanovych emphasizes that during the existence of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, the whole world was a believer. Religion was the main form of worldview, and therefore even atheistic ideas took the form of religious sects. National liberation movements, political and military conflicts had a religious character and form.

Religion accompanied a person throughout his life - starting with baptism at birth and ending with communion before death and burial, performed by a priest. Art was built on religious themes, and a large part of the books published at that time had a religious character. The holidays, during which people rested and communicated with their loved ones, were religious.

Therefore, the worldview of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks also had a religious character and was outwardly manifested in the traditions of Orthodoxy. Zaporozhye was at the crossroads of three confessions - Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Why did Cossacks traditionally adhere to Orthodoxy?

People came to Zaporizhzhia mainly from the Ukrainian lands that were part of Russia and Poland. For them, little familiar even with the intricacies of the Orthodox religion, Islam was completely foreign and incomprehensible, and "Busurmans" were compared to infidels. In addition, historically, representatives of the Islamic faith - Tatars and Turks - were enemies of Ukraine, Muscovy, and Poland. They often raided their lands and caused significant damage to the population. It is clear why the Tatars and Turks, and with them their religion, were perceived hostilely by the Zaporozhians.

The Cossacks' rejection of Catholicism does not have such deep historical roots. Until 1569, that is, before the adoption of the Union of Lublin, and even in the first years of the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, religious tolerance was one of the characteristic features of the social life of Ukraine. Only the struggle of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks with the Tatars and Turks was fought under religious slogans. With the arrival of King Sigismund III, the situation changed significantly. The government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, followed by the Polish nobility, began to oppress Orthodoxy. In 1596, the Orthodox church hierarchy was liquidated by the decision of the Berestei Cathedral. This caused an oppositional reaction from Orthodox priests, writers and polemicists.

But the greatest danger for the government of the Commonwealth was the Cossacks, who already in 1596, during the uprising led by Severyn Nalivaik, destroyed the estates of supporters of the union, proclaiming the slogan of the defense of Orthodoxy. The Cossacks showed themselves to be defenders of the Orthodox faith in the spring of 1610, preventing the attempts of Metropolitan Hypatius Potiy to persuade the Kyivan clergy to join the union and subjugate the local churches.

Since then, the defense of Orthodoxy for the Zaporizhia people has come to mean the defense of those rights and freedoms that were attacked by the Polish nobility. One can agree with N. Markovin's opinion that the Zaporozhian "observance" of the Orthodox faith was influenced, among other things, by the juxtaposition of the "claims" of the Catholic and Orthodox clergy. The latter, as Markovin wrote, unlike the preachers of the "lord's faith", did not infringe on their authority either in the family, or even more so in the social state, persuading only to act according to conscience.

Thus, devotion to Orthodoxy gave the Zaporozhians additional grounds for waging war against Catholic Poland and the Tatars and Turks who professed Islam. Zaporizhia recruiters shouted in the squares and fairs: "Who wants to be impaled for the Christian faith, who wants to be quartered, wheeled, who is ready to endure all kinds of torments for the holy cross ... come to us."

It is quite natural that the Orthodox rites of the Zaporozhians had a lot in common with the rites of the population of the neighboring Ukrainian lands. The reason for this was Zaporozhye's close connection with Left Bank Ukraine. It was from its territory that a significant number of people came and joined the military society; many of them had families staying on the Left Bank, and therefore in winter, in peacetime, the Cossacks went to their relatives.

Many of the Zaporozhians visited the Kyiv Consistory, the Mezhihirskyi and other Ukrainian monasteries on their own initiative or at the behest of Kosh. A significant part of the clergy came to Zaporizhzhia precisely from Mezhyhirya, and the Zaporozhian elders maintained fairly close contacts with the Ukrainian clergy. In the 18th century in Zaporizhzhia, it was common for "travelling dyaks" from the Kyiv Academy, who often settled in Cossack churches. Religious literature in Zaporizhzhya Volnosti came mainly from the Left Bank of Ukraine.

The Cossacks saw the justification for the cruelty of the war in the postulate of protecting the Orthodox faith from Muslims and Catholics. Frequent campaigns forced the Zaporozhians to significantly simplify religious ceremonies and add a military color to them. Kosh's desire to manage all spheres of life in Zaporozhye, including the religious one, led to a change in the traditional church management system.

The specificity of the religiosity of the Zaporozhians was clearly manifested in the attitude towards representatives of other faiths and different ethnic groups. The Zaporozhians were interested in increasing their numbers. Of course, one should not absolutize the fact that since there were traditionally no women in Sich, no one was born there. After all, the territory of the Zaporozhian Liberties was not limited to Sich at all. And yet, the military society felt a constant need for replenishment: many Zaporozhye residents were annually taken away by illness, old age, or wars. And for a long time, the main source of replenishing the ranks of the Zaporozhian Army was the acceptance of immigrants from outside Zaporozhye. Of course, the largest such replenishment came from neighboring Ukrainian lands, and the majority of these immigrants professed the Orthodox faith.

At the same time, Jews, Bulgarians, Serbs, Georgians, Wallachians, Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Montenegrins, Tatars, Turks, Kalmyks, Germans, French, Italians, Spaniards, Englishmen found refuge in Zaporozhye... Russian army captain Zarulsky, a contemporary of Novaya Sich, noted that for the sake of "increasing the army" the Zaporozhian Cossacks took immigrants regardless of faith, law, homeland and the reasons that forced them to leave it.

People of any ethnicity were admitted to Zaporozhye, but they had to accept the Orthodox faith. Without fulfilling this condition, the settlers had no right to live here. The need for this is emphasized by a number of documents. In the order to the Zaporozhian deputies in the Commission for drawing up a new Regulation on acceptance into the ranks of the Zaporozhian Army, it was said as follows: "people come to the Zaporozhian Army from different nations for residence and service as minors and adults, and upon their acceptance of the law of Greco-Russian and loyalty to Her Imperial to your majesty
oaths, sign up for service".

In memoirs and historical literature, the procedure for acceptance into the Army is recounted. The arrival on Sich was usually brought to the kosh chieftain, who asked: "Do you believe in God?" The newcomer answered: "I believe." - "And do you believe in the Mother of God?" - "And I believe in the Mother of God." - "Well, cross yourself!". A person was baptized. This limited the clarification of religious affiliation. In cases where the newcomer was not Orthodox, he had to be baptized in this faith before joining the Army.

Thus, in the request of the Archimandrite of the Neforoshchansky Monastery to the Metropolitan of Kyiv for the tonsure of the novice Iov Kryzhanivskyi, it was reported that this novice "of the Polish nation, in the town of Pensk from his Jewish parents, left them and went to Sich Zaporozhye, accepted the Christian faith there and was baptized there, the head of the Mezhyhirsky Monastery, Hieromonk Feodorit..., and the bridegroom was named Iov, and his groomsmen were the Zaporozhian Cossacks Ivan Shvidky and Artem Vasilov." In the certificate of the Cossack Vasyl Perehrest, it was reported that he was also born in the "Polish region", in a Jewish family, he came to Zaporozhye Sich of his own free will, where he was baptized in the Pokrovsky Church of Sich by the head of the Kyiv-Mezhyhirsky Monastery, and Zaporozhian Cossacks were his guardians. Sometimes Jews who had already converted to Christianity arrived in Zaporozhye. So, Ivan Leontiyovych Kovalevsky, born in Smila to a Jewish family, was baptized by his mother as a child, after which the family moved to Novy Kodak. In Zaporozhye, Kovalevsky first served in the Army, and later became a priest in the Holy Trinity Church in Samarchytsk.

In some cases, the Cossacks brought minors of other faiths to Zaporozhye and baptized them. So, the Zaporozhians in the Baltic kidnapped a Pole from his cradle, brought him to Sich and baptized him. In Khotyn, the regimental osavul Vasyl Receptov kidnapped a young Jew, brought him to Zaporozhye and baptized him, naming him Semyon Chernyavskyi. The Cossacks saved a young Pole, who was named Hryhorii Pokotylo, from death. The chieftain of Kurin brought him to Sich, where he baptized him into the Orthodox faith.

Kish, guided by economic and political interests, took care of increasing the contingent of the Army and the number of workers in Zaporozhye. That is why the Cossacks, having accepted into their ranks the baptized representatives of other faiths, regardless of their ethnicity, did not oppress them in any way, and they had the opportunity to obtain leadership positions in the Army. Yes, the above-mentioned Hryhoriy Pokotilo became the chicken chieftain. The son of a Polish landowner Oleksiy Hryhorovych (Bilytskyi, Bilskyi) took the same position. Former Crimean murza Ivan Chuguivets became a military scribe.

However, the given facts cannot serve as a basis for asserting: "Nowhere was there such tolerance for different faiths as we see in Zaporozhye." Cossacks treated their co-religionists and representatives of other faiths quite differently. The Zaporozhians, considering it their duty to protect the Orthodox from Muslims and Catholics, quite often made raids on Tatar and Turkish lands in order to recapture captives (yasir) captured by non-believers in the territories inhabited by Orthodox. During the hostilities with Turkey, the Zaporozhians quite often repulsed captive Orthodox Christians, who were not prevented from returning to their homeland. When the Cossacks under the command of Danylo Tretyak recaptured 673 Vlachs and Jews from the Tatars, the Vlachs, as co-religionists, were allowed to stay in Zaporozhye or "move beyond the Dnipro". At the same time, sometimes the Cossacks detained those released from captivity in order to return them to the bosom of the Orthodox Church. Thus, during the war of 1768–1774, the Zaporozhians recaptured a yasir from the Tatars, which included two "Turkified" women (that is, those who converted to Islam). The Cossacks appealed to the spiritual authorities, asking to return the "Turkified" to Orthodoxy, since it is doubtful to receive them "as excommunicated from the Orthodox faith, in the Church of God without the knowledge and permission of the archpastor."

The Zaporizhia Cossacks, considering themselves to be the defenders of the Orthodox faith, were one of the driving forces behind its protection - many immigrants from Right-Bank Ukraine came to them, who were dissatisfied with the oppression of the Polish government and cruel measures regarding the conversion of the Orthodox into the Union.

Many spiritual persons who were wronged by the Poles came to Sich; among them was the abbot of the Motronyn Monastery Melchizedek Znachko-Yavorskyi. Such clerics called on the Zaporozhians to protect the Orthodox from the arbitrariness of the Poles. At the request of Melchizedek, even Catherine II appealed to Warsaw to stop the persecution of the Orthodox faith. Although at that time the Russian empress did not manage to achieve anything from the Polish government, rumors about the queen's "defense" of Orthodoxy spread throughout Ukraine and reached Zaporozhye. Under the influence of these events, the Cossacks, who had been hostile to the Poles for a long time, began to go to Haidamaks, organize armed detachments and destroy cities and estates in Right-Bank Ukraine.

The Cossacks, who were part of the ranks of the Haydamaks, also spoke here under the slogan of defending Orthodoxy. It explained its actions by the fact that "the Uniates caused great trouble and ruin to the Christian people, and during the same ruin, the priests were cut off by their pious words, their heads, beards, and mustaches and tortured tyrannically; They did that not only to priests and monks, but also to the Christian people, and they also brought the confederate army into Ukraine, they wanted to torture the Christian people." The Haydamaks captured a large number of cities and estates on the Right Bank, among which were Boguslav, Korsun, Kaniv, Uman, Lysyanka, Zhabotyn, and Medvedivka. After the capture, settlements were subjected to destruction, fires and looting, and Catholic and Uniate priests, Poles and Jews were exterminated. The landowner Lipoman, a Catholic, who was a witness to these events, said that Poles were thrown from the roofs onto spears, killed "with whatever happened", and at the entrance to the church of the Franciscan monastery in Lysyanka, the Haydamaks hanged a Pole, a Jew and a dog with the following inscription: "Lyach , a Jew and a dog - all faith is the same." Some Poles and Jews fled to Khanate Balta. Then the Haydamaks captured this city, killed the Jews and Poles who were hiding there, and expelled the Tatars. Sometimes Jews and Poles fled under the protection of the troops of the Tsar of Moscow. Thus, the chieftain of the Uman kuren Semyon Nezhivy, entering Krylov, did not find a single Jew or Pole there. Then he turned to Colonel Horvath with a complaint that the military leadership of the Moscow tsar was hiding the enemies of Orthodoxy.

Semen Nezhiviy even demanded that Horvath hand over the latter together with their property to the Cossacks, adding: "we are not interfering for property, only so that the Christian faith is not further defiled by them, and that there are no enemies of the state, as well as
orthodox Christians".

The Cossacks, mercilessly killing and robbing Poles and Jews during the Haidamac movement, tried not to harm the Orthodox population. Some of the Cossack leaders of the Haydamaks, after capturing the settlements of the Right Bank of Ukraine, even took "certificates" from their Orthodox residents, in which it was reported that the Haydamaks did not cause them any offense "and they did not commit any robbery against Christians." Such certificates were submitted by the Zaporizhia in case of arrest by Russian troops as proof of their zealous performance of their Christian duty and protection of the Orthodox population from persecution by Catholics and Jews.

The unfriendly attitude of the Cossacks towards the Jews had deep historical roots. Already in the 16th century. the Jews concentrated in their hands great power in Poland and Lithuania. In the 17th century royal and landlord estates were given to them for ransom, as a result of which even the Poles themselves found themselves dependent on Jewish capital. Even more than the Poles, the Ukrainians felt the oppression of the Jews. Jewish tenants of lordly estates were granted extremely broad rights on Ukrainian lands - they could even manage the lives of the peasants who lived on these estates. The Jews set rather high taxes and fees from the peasant population. In addition, in many cases they also rented churches, and the Orthodox had to pay them a certain amount for permission to send Christian relics. Therefore, the Orthodox population of Right-Bank Ukraine felt hostility towards the Jews, and brought this hostility to Zaporizhzhia.