The Alms Collectors from the Orthodox East in the 19th Century Russia: a Medieval Tradition in Modern Times

Between the 1840s and the 1910s, Russia was regularly visited by alms collectors (taxidiots) from the monasteries of the Balkans and the Near East, who were allowed to travel about the country and gather money and church objects during one or two years. This practice, usual for the Balkans since the 16th century, had not been common in Russia. The alms collecting became an important element of the supportive policy in favour of Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire and at the same time an instrument of politics during the aggravation of the Eastern Question. Many collectors came from the Athos monasteries. The issuing of permissions depended on different factors: a preference was given to Slav monasteries, or to those Greek abbots who were disposed to Russia. The attempts at unofficial alms collecting were persecuted both by the government and by police measures on the ground. The present research is based on unpublished documents from the Russian Holy Synod. Its object is the study of: 1) the bureaucratic procedure of the admission of foreign monks to the Russian territory; 2) the monks’ actions and methods of obtaining their permissions; 3) the motives for a permission being allowed or refused; 4) the place of the alms collecting in the system of financing Orthodoxy in the Balkans and the Near East.