Using Statistical Analysis to Study Life within Orthodox Convents

Abstract

Our previous article demonstrated how the internal reorganization of the Nizhnii Novgorod Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross interacted with developments in its external environment to transform the convent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from a small community composed mainly of older women, predominantly widows, that possessed limited means into a large and wealthy community that appealed overwhelmingly to young, unmarried, and disproportionately literate women, increasingly from unprivileged backgrounds. As our analysis of the trends in the convent’s membership made clear, the decision‒ and for some women the ability‒to enter the convent was strongly influenced by a woman’s particular worldly status, circumstances, prospects, and location. Using statistical methods of analysis, the present article demonstrates that, once a woman had joined the community, considerations deriving from the community’s internal values and needs outweighed these worldly attributes in shaping central aspects of life within the convent. In particular, neither social background nor the level of literacy influenced the progress of women through various stages of a monastic vocation, nor did social background generally have an impact on the assignment of obediences or elevation to positions of leadership. Rather, the assignment of obediences and appointment to leadership positions appear to have been based on the degree to which a woman’s particular skills and abilities met the community’s internal criteria and needs. This transcendence of worldly attributes and values within the community helps to explain its appeal during the late imperial period, especially for women from unprivileged social strata, whose actions in turn helped to transform the convent and adapt it to conditions of modernizing change.