Medicine of Old Russian monasteries from the perspective of a modern medical practice

• Main Authors: I. A. Melnychuk, A. A. Melnychuk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House "Grani" 2017-04-01
• Series: Granì
• Subjects: Церква; Київська Русь; монастирська медицина; світська медицина
• Online Access: https://grani.org.ua/index.php/journal/article/view/905

History of domestic medicine is indissolubly related to the history of the state and its political and social institutes among which Orthodox Church took a high position in times of Prince epoch. There is no doubt that in this period Church and its ramified structures executed a progressive role in the formation of the Kievan state. One of the work directions, that were actively developing in church centers - monasteries, was medical care for population and maintenance of conditions for indoor treatment in monastic shelters for patients and invalids. Till now not enough attention is paid to the research of this aspect of church activity not only from the side of explorers. Modern doctors, as a rule, are oriented on pre-revolution researches or works of soviet historians on medicine of the middle ХХ. After the adoption of Christianity in 988, a new social layer of Church people appeared in Rus. From the very beginning, one of the important directions of monasteries’ activities was service on curing the sick people, where folk medicine was losing its positions. Most well-educated monks-bookmen knew the bases of medical knowledge, attained by them during the protracted studies and self-education, some of them appeared to be talented doctors, prominent medics for their time. The monks of monastery came from the mountain of Afonasii, where at the monastery of St. Afonasii was the «hospital for the sake of sick», and brought medical knowledge». Nykonivskyi Chronicle describes the foundation by Yefrem the network of medical institutions at the temples of the whole Metropolitan church. In fact, he created the prefiguration of the entire system of health protection which covered the significant territorial and human massifs. That was unprecedented in Rus. We consider that by tradition of building temples, which came from Byzantine Empire, most of them, if not all, were equipped in bath-houses and hospitals. Churches and monasteries were in every town, ten – in the capitals of principalities, hundreds – in Kyiv. This tradition of Middle Ages and New Time’s fracture passed then to the cossack monasteries. Only after a bath-house, some surgical interferences were done – deletes of gall-stones, reduction of joints and vertebrae etc. When we compare Church and witch-doctors, chiropractors and midwives, who used to base on millennial ordinary knowledge, it should be noted that the first one had a substantially prevailing financial and theoretical base due to the «tithe» set by prince authority. This significant sum of money from the income of the state was sent on acquiring and copying of the translated books, building of alms-houses, and «strannopriimnikh domiv» at temples. Monastery or church hospital was actually inpatient department where a sick person was under day-and-night care of the specialist and educated junior personnel. Such conditions favorably differed from medical practice of magus-medicasters or secular «lichets» or «tsiriulnik» that usually consulted and cured at home. Besides, monks-doctors accumulated rich practical experience at struggle with dangerous illnesses and infections, curing wounds and seriously ill persons. The specialization of monastery doctors and names of the most respectful of them are notified in ancient documents. So, it was exactly monastery hospital that was founded by Orthodox Church and where doctors worked. Later, the rapid growth of Old Russian cities, their acquisition of German law contributed to spreading of secular medicine, formation of workshops for doctors and tsiriulniks, opening of pharmacies and educational-medicinal establishments in Lviv, Kyiv and other capitals of Ukraine/Rus. But alongside there was gratuitous, developed and full of practical experience medical branch. Coexistence of both types of medical aids was not a problem but addition to each other.