Simeon (Laptev)

Safon Laptev was born in 1895 to the family of Yakov Samoilovich and Tatiana Gavrilovna Laptev in the village of Zhidki, Utchanskaya volost, Ishim district, Tobolsk province (now the village is the center of Zhidkovsky village council of Petukhov district of the Kurgan region ). The father’s farm was strong even by pre-revolutionary standards: the Laptevs had 6 horses, 5-6 cows, a windmill, a binder, a thresher, and sometimes they hired an employee for the season. In addition to Safon, Laptev had 2 more sons and 6 daughters.

In 1917, Safon Laptev was drafted into the army, but was declared unfit for service for health reasons. As often happens with children of poor health, Safon has become addicted to reading since childhood. He became a favorite reader at prayers in the village old believer chapel. At the same time, as stated in the “Ural-Siberian Patericon”, he began to take part in communal spiritual conversations. His first essay On the Unions is dated 1918, that is, it was written back in Liquids. ^[1] .

In the monasteries of Father Sawa

After returning from the army, Safon met a peasant Alexander Mikhailovich Myagkov, who told him that for many years his uncle was a Black-Nore at a skete in the Kolyvan taiga, talking about Father Savva (in the world of Selivestr Efimovich Myagkov) ^[2] . In 1919 he went to the monastery of Sawa's father on the Parbig River in the Kolyvan taiga. Was there "covered" under the name of Simeon. Soon he was noticed by the prior Savva as a competent interpreter of the holy books. Together with about. Savva participated in spiritual conversations with the peasants. Before his death, Father Sawa bequeathed Father Simeon the management of the economic affairs of the monastery, and Fr. Mine (in the world to Mikhail Prokop'evich Zebzeev) acceptance for confession.

Relocation to the tributary of the Yenisei River Dubches

Father Simeon organized the transition of hermitages to the Yartsevo District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (now the Turukhansky District ), to the left tributaries of the middle Yenisei (the watershed of the Dubchesa and Eloguya ) ^[3] . Mina's father also participated in the transition to the middle Yenisei, but in June 1941 he settled not on the left bank of the Yenisei, as Fr. Simeon, and on the right bank, on the Vorogovka River ( Vorogovskiy Village Council , now the Turukhansky District ), where he received to confess the inhabitants of the female hermitage, Mother Mastradei. Mina's father died on August 6, 1942, and was buried there at Vorogovka ^[4] . After death about. Mina Simeon was the only head of the Dubcez monasteries.

Author of many spiritual writings. Father Simeon was also the initiator of the creation and one of the main authors of The Tale of Wonderful Events, the three-volume Ural-Siberian Patericon of chapel old-timers.

Smashing of the Dubce Monasteries

In 1949, an airplane began to appear frequently over the Dubce Monastery. This hydroplane boarded a lake 30 kilometers from the monasteries and delivered an expedition from Novosibirsk. In the autumn of the 49th, the parties of two surveyors entered the sketes twice. After these visits, according to legend, the icons "began to twitch, click" - "they began to inform." On March 28, 1951, a detachment of approximately 30 police officers under the command of Konstantin Safronov (later a retired Interior Ministry major) detained one of the sketes, among the detainees was Cyril Laptev, the brother of his father Simeon. During the spring, 2 male and 4 female monasteries were discovered and crushed, and their inhabitants and inhabitants were arrested. The location of the monastery of Father Simeon punitive found only after two weeks of intensive interrogation of those arrested. He was arrested on April 15, 1954 ^[6] . O. Simeon and another 32 people were accused of anti-Soviet agitation and the creation of an “illegal anti-Soviet formation” (meaning the Skets) under articles 58-10, 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR . On January 4, 1952, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court sentenced Fr. Simeon to 25 years of ITL and 5 years of defeat in the rights, and others to 15 and 10 years of ITL.

Hegumen Simeon did not live to see his release and died at Ozerlag , refusing, according to the testimony of the Old Believers, to accept the camp writing. The date of his death is not known for sure: he calls the investigation file on August 20, 1954 ^[7] . Of those convicted in this case in prison, two died: Father Simeon and mother Margarita.

November 12, 1954, that is, a few months after the death of Father Simeon, the Old Believers convicted with him were amnestied by the Supreme Court of the RSFSR (Case 01902) and released ^[6] . Igumen Simeon was posthumously rehabilitated.

In 1957, the Angarsk Cathedral allowed chapel Old Believers in prison to take food from the “cadre” (the entire Soviet nomenclature was called by the chapels, including the camp staff) ^[8] .

• "On the unions" about 1918
• “A brief memorable record of current events and the fate of Ancient Rome” (1925/1926 or 1929/1930),
• "Proof from the Holy Scriptures against the Austrians" (or "On the Austrian" - 1927),
• "On the coming of the holy prophets and the last Antichrist" (March 3, 1928)
• Message to Father and Brother and Message to the Unknown (between 1929 and 1936),
• "On the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, a debate disguised as two people, faithful with an infidel" (1934),
• “Knowledge from the creature of the Creator and Ruler of the universe” (short version, written in 1934–1935, extended version, 1950–1951),
• "The Militant Church of Christ on Earth" (1935-1936),
• "The current Church of Christ in the North" (1949),
• "Knowledge from the creature of the Creator and the Lord of the universe."

• "Addition of Father Simeon's pedigree" // Drevleoslavoslavia on Ourale.
• Afanasy Gerasimov. The Tale of Dubchessky Scyths // New World, No. 9 (797), September 1991, p. 91-103.
• The defeat of the Old Believer monasteries in Dubchez in 1951 // Interpreter
• Letter of the former soldier V.N. Makarov // Carriers M.S. Old Believers
• Zolnikova N. D. The Fates of the Siberian Old Believers
• E. Ageeva. Old Believers' Controversy on the Antichrist at the End of the 20th Century.
• Perevozchikov, M. S. Old Believers (excerpts from the book). Part 3
• Ural-Siberian paterik. Texts and comments. Book 1 (Vol 1-2) Editor: Nikolai Pokrovsky

Recommended sources

• Pokrovsky N. Behind the page of the GULAG Archipelago // New World, 1991, No. 9, p. 77-90;
• Gerasimov A. The Tale of the Dubce Skites // New World, 1991, No. 9, p. 91-103.
• Carriers M. Old Believers. Krasnoyarsk, 1991, p. 35-55;
• Zolnikova N. D. The Modern Old Believer Writer from the Yenisei // Traditional Spiritual and Material Culture of Russian Old Believer Settlements in Europe, Asia and America. Novosibirsk, 1992, p. 283-288;
• Zolnikova N. D. The man and the universe in the writings of the head of the Siberian Old Believer monastery, Fr. Simeon // Humanities in Siberia . Domestic history, 1996, No. 2, p. 50-54.
• Zolnikova N. D. Father Simeon (Safon Yakovlevich Laptev). Militant Church of Christ on earth (translated from Church Slavonic E. I. Nasekaylo). // Power, society and people in historical and literary sources of the XVI-XX centuries. : collection of scientific papers / Ros. Acad. Sciences, Sib. Department, Institute of History; rep. ed. N. N. Pokrovsky. - Novosibirsk: Publishing House of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2012. P. 214—250