The origin of the Typ-icon of the Valaam Skete of All Saints (1789-1949)

This article examines the origins of the Typicon of the Valaam Skete of All Saints, founded by St. Nazarius (Kondratiev) in the late 18th century and serving as a model for other sketes both on Valaam and at other monasteries of the Russian Church in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite the scientific interest in the typicons of the Valaam sketes in recent years, their origins and the sources St. Nazarius relied on when founding the first Valaam Skete have not yet been fully examined. Using analysis and synthesis, problem-chronological, and statistical research methods, it was established that the Typicon of the Valaam Skete of All Saints combined the traditions of the Nilo-Sorsky Skete and the Sarov Hermitage. Moreover, among the manuscripts of the New Valaam Monastery (evacuated from Old Valaam in 1939-1940), a typicon for the skete was discovered. According to preliminary conclusions, it is a version of the Skete Typicon, well-known in scholarly circles, and in Russian manuscript tradition, is tacitly attributed to St. Nilus of Sora. In the discovered typicon, unlike the Skete Typicon (believed to have been adopted at the Nilus-Sorskaya Hermitage by its founder), the cathedral service is scheduled not from Wednesday to Thursday (the all-night vigil), but on Saturday (the memorial service and the Liturgy). This version is closer not only to the charter of the first Valaam Skete, but also to the charter of the Anzersk Holy Trinity Skete, which directly inherited the traditions of the Skete of St. Nilus of Sora. For future research, a working hypothesis is proposed that St. Nilus modified the liturgical portion of the Skete Typicon when introducing it to the hermitage he founded. Thus, the determination of the origin of the Typicon of the Valaam Skete of All Saints has opened up prospects for further study of the Skete Typicon, the liturgical tradition of the Nilo-Sorskaya Hermitage, and the legacy of St. Nilus of Sora, the founder of skete life in Russsia.