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uated on the shoreline of Solovetsky Island on
the White Sea, it was founded during the 1420s-
1430s by monks of the Saint Cyril of Beloozero
(Kirillo-Belozersky) Monastery. During the 15th
and 16th centuries, its land holdings, located
along the shores of the White Sea and its tribu-
tary rivers, grew substantially. With more than
50 salt works in the 1660s and its important role
in handicrafts and commerce, the monastery
became the economic center of the White Sea
region. With 350 monks and more than 600 ser-
vants by the mid-17th century, it was also a polit-
ical power, especially because its archimandrite
(abbot) reported directly to the czar and not to
the ecclesiastical authorities. Solovetsky Mon-
astery also acquired importance as a major fron-
tier fortress with powerful walls, towers, and a
strong garrison, which successfully withstood for-
eign invasions in 1571, 1582, 1611, and 1854. In
addition to the Solovetsky Chronicle composed in
the monastery, it held many manuscripts and
served as the starting point for the introduction
of Christianity to the north. From the 1650s to
the 1670s, the monastery became one of the
strongholds of the traditionalist faction that
opposed the reforms of Patriarch
NIKON
. In 1668
this resistance to reform turned into one of the
most violent episodes of the Great Schism, when
the monastery rose in a rebellion that lasted until
January 1676, when a force of 1,000
streltsy
(a
hereditary military caste) finally stormed the
monastery through a breach in the walls. Many
monks, including the major leaders, were killed
in reprisals, and the monastery came to occupy a
prominent place in the chronicles of
OLD BELIEVER
martyrdom. After 1765, with the monastery
reporting directly to the Holy Synod, its auton-
omy was further dissolved. With the seculariza-
tion of ecclesiastical lands in 18th-century Russia,
the monastery's economic power was disrupted,
even though it continued to control substantial
wealth until the early 20th century. From czarist
times, the remote monastery had been used as a
place of banishment, but under the Soviets it
became a full-fledged labor camp for intellectu-
als. Many of its inmates were drawn for the con-
struction of the infamous White Sea Canal in the
1930s. With its five-dome Cathedral of the Trans-
figuration and powerful walls (six meters deep,
10 meters high), the Solovetskii complex remains
one of the best examples of medieval Russian
architecture. In 1992 it was selected as a UNESCO
World Heritage site.
Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeevich
(1853-1900)
philosopher
The second son of the historian Sergei M. Solo-
viev (1820-79), Vladimir Soloviev achieved dis-
tinction as a poet and an advocate of humanism
and a forerunner of 20th-century ecumenical
thought. At the age of nine, Soloviev experienced
the first of three visions of a beautiful woman
that would change his life and help shape his
theological views. Having completed secondary
studies at Moscow Gymnasium No. 1, Soloviev
entered the science faculty of Moscow State
University in 1869, but later transferred to the
philosophy faculty. After graduation in 1873,
Soloviev began attending classes in the seminary
of St. Sergius Monastery near Moscow. His
master's thesis, “The Crisis in Western Philoso-
phy,” was accepted in 1874 and helped him
secure a position as lecturer in Moscow Univer-
sity. The following year, however, he took a
leave of absence and traveled to England, where
he experienced for the second time the vision of
his childhood. Instructed by the vision, he trav-
eled to Egypt, where he claims to have seen the
vision for the third time in November 1875.
Soloviev now accepted Christianity and over the
years developed a theology centered on the
woman in the vision, whom he identified as
Sophia, or Divine Wisdom. He held that Sophia,
a feminine divine entity, was the ideal essence of
the world held in the mind of God. Back in Rus-
sia, in 1877 he accepted a post in the Ministry of
Education and lectured in philosophy at the Uni-
versity of St. Petersburg. His ideas developed
under the influence of respected church elders
known as
startsy,
Slavophile intellectuals, and
the writer Feodor
DOSTOEVSKY
. In his
Treatise on
Godmanhood
(1878), he developed the idea of a
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