Guri (Tushin)

He came from the Morozov family ^[1] , according to other reports - the Kvashnin boyars ^[2] .

He was tonsured in the Cyril Monastery at the abbot Nifont in 1478 or 1479 . Despite his youth, in 1484 , Guri for a short time became hegumen of the Kirillov Monastery, replacing the hegumen of Serapion, who howled the irritation of the Cyril brotherhood in violation of the covenants of the founder of the monastery. A year earlier, 15 Cyril elders left the walls of the monastery in protest. The reason for this was the overreach of the abbot to increase monastic possessions. In particular, he received 30 villages remote from the monastery from Grand Duke Ivan III . Having become abbot, Guri returned these villages to the prince, asking them instead of the bread rug , “a quitrent of life,” and soon he retired.

It is not known exactly when Guri became close to the Monk Neil of Sora . Probably this happened after the return of the Nile from Athos . At the very least, the message of the Monk Gurius is known, in which, answering the questions of the monk, he speaks of “retreating from the world”, offering to avoid polemics with “about the worldly who think and are occupied with meaningless cares,” to follow the “laws of the Divine Scriptures”. The very tone of the message suggests the spiritual closeness of Rev. Nil and Guria. However, Guri did not follow the example of his mentor, remaining within the walls of Kirillov until his last days.

An important aspect of Guria's activity was the writing-off of books. A number of collections belonged to the pen of the monk Guria have survived to our time. A number of texts (not canonical content) bear traces of the editorial staff of the Cyril scribe. According to his own testimony for his life, he rewrote 37 books. In collections, transcribed by hand of Guria, a large place is occupied by books of an ascetic-contemplative orientation. This is, first of all, Isaac the Syrian , Simeon the New Theologian , Gregory of Sinai . N. A. Kazakova notes that these texts are mainly related to the Greek-Eastern Orthodox world. Among the lives copied by them, there is only one Russian. This is a short laid life of Cyril Belozersky.

In 1509, he copied two volumes of the collection of lives compiled by the Monk Nile, a total of 1,160 sheets. Many texts of the Monk Nile are known to us thanks to the work of the monk Guria.

O. Guri was one of the promoters of the idea of ​​non-possessiveness of the Trans - Volga elders . At the end of the second decade (aggravation of the confrontation between the monastic parties), as a part of his collections, there are fewer works on ascetic literature, there are more texts related to public life. He rewrote and included in the collections “A Word on Heretics” and “The Collection of a certain Elder” Vassian Patrikeev , a message from Maxim the Greek to Vasily III about “villages”. Of course, his acquaintance with the monk-prince himself, who was also a pupil of Neil Sorsky. It was at this time that he launched his struggle against the monastery estates. However, Vassian's books are subject to some revision. As can be seen from his editions of the Vassian "words", he held more moderate views than his influential associate. In particular, he saw the deprivation of monasteries of estates not through violent secularization, but through the exhortation of monastery owners. In general, Guri looks at the problem through the prism of monastic work. It is unlikely that he was generally a supporter of secularization: in this way he rewrote “Word 165 father to the offending holy church,” protecting church property. Like other Cyril elders, he was not a supporter of harsh punitive measures against heretics.

The Gospel of Basil III is well-known, signed by Guria: “This prince gave the Gospel to the great Vasily Guria Kirillovsky Tushin”, which indicates the attention of the Grand Duke to Belozersky scribe.

The interest in the activities of the Athos monk and scribe Maxim the Greek, who arrived in 1518, is indicative . The Explanatory Psalter, the life of Savva of Serbia translated by the Monk Maxim, as well as his epistle to Basil III, were soon transcribed by Guriy.

Guri Tushin was also interested in the annals. In the 37th book about. Guria enters "Russian Chronicler", a short chronicle collection covering the time from 1074 to 1523 . If the basis of the first, more ancient part of the “Chronicler” is the early monastery chronicler, then the second part belongs to Gurius himself. The peculiarity of the "Chronicler" Guria is the all-Russian view of history.

Guri Tushin died on July 8, 1526, at the eighth decade. Eloquent assessment of. Guria, coming from the opposite "camp". Savva the Black , the biographer of Joseph Volotsky wrote: “the elder is honest ... alive with a strong and healthy life”, “kept the traditions and commandments of the holy wonderworker Cyril in everything.”

• Message from the same elder Neal to another (brother) about the benefit (Message to Gurius (Tushin).
• N.A. Kazakova. Book writing and socio-political views of Guria Tushin // Transactions of the Department of Old Russian Literature. T. XV. M.-L., 1961 s170-199
• Kazakova N.A. Guri Tushin // Dictionary of scribes and books of Ancient Russia . Vol. 2. The second half of the XIV-XVI century. Part 1. AK. - M.: Science, 1988.
• Nikolsky N. K. Community and cell life in the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery in the 15th and 16th centuries. and at the beginning of the XVIIth // Christ. Thu., 1907, August , p. 174-177
• Lurie Ya. S. On the ideology of the Nile of Sorsky // Transactions of the Department of Old Russian Literature. T. XIII. M.-L., 1957 . p. 182-213.