К вопросу о староверах-филипповцах в Северной Добрудже: Кителештская пустынь
About Old Believers Filippians in Northern Dobruja: Kitelesht monastery

Summary/Abstract: Russian Old Believers Popovtsy (Lipovans) are well-known in Romania. At the same time, there are no reliable information about Priestless Filippians (bespopovtsy) in this country. The aim of this article is basing on Filippians’ sources and Romanian historical and local history investigations to put new information concerning the existence of the Priestless Filippians monastery in Northern Dobrudja in the second half of the 19th century. The study is based on comparative, descriptive, interpretative and other research methods. Several Filippians’ manuscripts mention the previously unknown Kitelesht monastery (hermitage), located “beyond the Danube. ” The data, presented in Filippians’ documents and Romanian studies and reference books, allow us to identify the “Kitelesht hermitage” with the small Russian Priestless monastery in Tichilești on the right bank of the Danube in Tulcea County (județ). At the moment we have information about 12 inhabitants of this monastery, who lived there at different times, apparently from the mid–1850s to the end (or at least until the middle) of the 1870s. At the beginning of the 20th century the monastery in Tichilești ceased to exist, and some years later in this place a leper colony was founded.

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