The life of Herodion Iloezersky (on the relationship between local hagiographic texts and local history)

The Life ofSt. Herodion Iloezersky (LH) is an unstudied monument of regional hagiography, which reflects the characteristics of this type ofhagiographical texts. Life events of the Reverend seem quite trivial, if not to know their legal, economic and home background. The LHprovides diverse material for the study of Russian hagiography in general and of the 17th century in particular, and of the local historyof the White Lake region. Hagiographical text, which seems to have little information in terms of big history, is extremely importantto local history and the history of daily life. The documentary legal materials complete the LH. In the spring of 1653, Archimandrite ofthe Cyril-Belozersky Monastery Mitrofan held an investigation, as a result of which a document was drawn up, recording the evidenceof local residents about the events that were somehow connected with the Rev. Herodion. Accurate and legally significant record ofevidence was the main task of the church investigation. The discovery of documentary materials for the preparation of the canonizationof Saint Herodion, a variety of versions of hagiographical text, numerous documentary evidence about life of Ozatskaya ruralmunicipality, where the saint was active, allows us to put the question of originality of the hagiographic text and of the definition of therules, by which series of events reflected in the text of a legal document were converted to hagiographical text. Comparative analysis ofthe document and of the hagiographic text allows seeing some patterns of transformation of the legal document into hagiographical text.It shows that the story of an event being translated from the language of everyday life into the language of Kingdom of Heavenlooses details, names of minor characters, dates, circumstances of the incident. Important is the fact that in the text of the life the centralcharacter of each story stands as far as possible, solo as a person interacting with a higher power, either directly or by means of onlyone saint, but never with the participation of other people who also fall into the category of circumstances without direct relation to theevent. In the initial period of its existence hagiographical text was or could be addressed to the people who themselves were participantsor eyewitnesses of the events described. In the stories about miracles in the LH between man and God there is the only mediator Rev.Herodion. Everything else, however important it may seem to modern readers and listeners, did not matter in the distant past (in theirordinary daily life). That is, the apparent causal relationship between events in one row, from the perspective of the compiler of thehagiographic monument and certainly in terms of audience LH was imaginary. Thus, the hagiographic text is subordinated primarily toone purpose: it must demonstrate the true (spiritual) nature of the event, and that makes all particular details totally unnecessary,including causal relationships that can only obscure the timeless meaning.

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