Erzya Religion — the traditional faith and traditions of the Erzya people.
Historical Background
In M. Khramov's book "The Land Where Pushkin Visited" (p. 168), it is written that to the Pikshen cemetery the Mordva "from afar," from beyond the forest, "would bring their deceased for burial alongside their kinsmen"... It should also be noted here that our stan was also known as Chukalsky. In 1629, Mordva from various settlements of the then Nizhny Novgorod and Ardatov districts would gather in Chukaly with their wives and children to pray "over their forebears." The suspicious Moscow government detected a political motive behind these gatherings and conducted a strict investigation. It turned out that this was not the first such gathering; around 1580 the Mordva had likewise assembled in Chukaly.
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In response to an inquiry from the Nizhny Novgorod Missionary Committee about the composition of his parishioners and the state of their religiosity, priest A. Rayevsky reported in 1886: "The parish of the village of Pikshen consists of 1,500 souls (735 male and 765 female) of the Mordva of the Erzya tribe, including 11 Russian families, who were resettled by a landowner about 80 years ago from the village of Pustoshki in Sergach, and some from his estate in the village of Gnezdilovo in Oryol Governorate. These Russians have become Mordvinized and represent a kind of mixture of Mordva-Russians both in their domestic life and in their religious conceptions. The predominant language is Mordovian, and religious conceptions represent a mixture of Christianity, Mordovian paganism, and Russian folk superstitions. In subsequent years, the said families became fully Mordvinized" (Mozharovsky A. "Russo-Mordva on Nizhny Novgorod Soil," Nizhegorodskie gubernskie vedomosti, 1893, No. 36, pp. 1–3). ...
In the lands of Alatyr District (the southern part of the present-day Nizhny Novgorod Region), only two villages held out and escaped Russification. Earlier, the armies and detachments of the feudal-serf government had wiped from the face of the earth nearly 10% of the entire Mordovian population of the district. F.I. Leontyev, sent to suppress the Alatyr Mordva by Yury Dolgoruky, reported to his superior: "In Arzamas… and in Ardatov districts, on this (i.e., the left) side of the Alatyr, there are no rebel people gathered anywhere, and in those villages whose Mordva fought against your great sovereign's troops, they have gone into hiding, and he, the state nobleman and voivode, ordered those villages to be burned, and the rebel… people in those villages were burned." ("The Alatyr Mordva According to the Censuses of 1624–1721," Saransk, 1936, Mordgiz.) ...
From the 16th century onward, Orthodox churches and monasteries began to be erected on Mordovian lands, generously endowed by the tsarist government with water, arable, and forest holdings. They were charged with the task of rapidly baptizing the Mordva — and not only the Mordva, but also the Chuvash, Tatars, Udmurts, and Mari — and binding them to the Christian faith. The process was at times brutal in character. In 1656, the Mordva killed Archbishop Misail of Ryazan, an aide to Patriarch Nikon; after this, tsars issued decrees promising privileges to Mordva who converted voluntarily. Those who refused baptism were subject to penalties "levied on the unbaptized infidels remaining in those places"; physical measures were applied: they were beaten "mercilessly with cudgels, so that others would not dare to do so in future." It had been observed previously that the newly baptized Mordva were "unsteady in the Christian faith, do not come to God's churches, and have no spiritual fathers."
Other methods were also employed to further Christianization — specifically, recruiting priests who knew the Mordovian language. The people had little command of Russian, and moreover the Mordva did not wish to adopt a different religion. The Great Creator, the Supreme Sun-God — the Creator of all that exists — was Ineshkipaz. The faith of the Erzya is wholly connected with nature and with the environment in which people live. It is natural, logical, and rational. It prescribes norms of life that allow a person to maintain harmony in all things. The land of Mastorava was their temple. In the Erzya faith, a person is a free child of God; all people are equal and the same before God; He is within each of us and around us. This religion tolerates no intermediaries and rejects a priestly caste. That is why the Church, which serves power, and power, which serves the Church, cannot accept it. ...
A decree of 1740 set out the procedures for baptism. Baptisms were to be conducted by special officiants. The godfathers were required to be "old-stock Russian men." The encouragement of mixed marriages between Russians and the newly baptized Mordva was prescribed. It was forbidden to give the newly baptized their former "pagan" names. Surnames were likewise assigned in Russian, after the names of the Russian "godfathers"; those who persisted in resistance were driven by armed men into a river or pond and forced to immerse themselves three times, and upon emerging each person was required to approach the officiating godfather present for "anointing with chrism." ...
More than 200 years have passed since the villagers were baptized, yet the inhabitants preserved some Mordovian names and nicknames, as they were more convenient to use. The nicknames were mostly those of animals, livestock, and birds: Surkan, Ozyazun, Chavkan, Kuyarun, and so on. In Pikshen, the pagan name Kobay was preserved. ...
There were cases in Mordovian villages where priests would not give children tsarist names. They held that the Mordva were not entitled to bear tsarist names. ...
However difficult the baptism of the villagers may have been, the great majority accepted Orthodoxy, came to know the names of the saints, and began visiting places sacred to Orthodox Christians. From Pikshen, our ancestors walked to Sarov, visiting the place where Seraphim of Sarov had lived. There were people who lived by his precepts in solitude, in the forest. ...
Not far from Zavidovka, in a large forest (Oreshka vir), in a deep ravine where the water does not freeze even in winter, a monk of comparatively young age lived in an earthen dugout. In winter, someone from the Yastrebov family (they had a khutor there) discovered him and persuaded him to come and live in the village until spring. He was put up in the bathhouse. The toes of his feet were frostbitten; he was thin. He survived until spring, then went off somewhere. Nadezhda Ivanovna was still a small child at the time but remembered that the monk paid attention to the bathhouse where the women bathed on Saturdays and showed interest in them. ...
Burials came to be oriented according to Christian custom — with the feet toward the sunrise, signifying Christ's coming to earth from the east. In our time, believers and non-believers are buried in the same cemetery. During the Patriotic War, many crosses were cut down, burned, or used as firewood by residents of nearby houses. ...
To this day, some residents ask, before death, to be taken into the forest to beg forgiveness of Viryava for having sometimes broken branches without need. Many women, setting off somewhere on errands, say as they leave the house: "Atyat, babat pomogado, lezdado" (Grandfathers, grandmothers, help us, assist us). They say they do help. Try it — address them more often; do not forget that your lineage was filled with hardworking, kind people. They, just as we do, rejoiced and grieved, and each in their own way turned to God, whether in the forest or at the cemetery, with both arms raised. ...
The young N.A. Dobrolyubov, having visited the Mordva in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, wrote the following: "To associate with boyars is honorable, with priests is holy, but with the Mordva — though it may be a sin — is better than all." No, dear Nikolai, it is no sin. ...
The elders counsel young people never to do harm to any religion, never to destroy temples or churches. History shows that this does not pass without a trace. Patriarch Nikon suffered at the end of his life; the people of Pikshen who took part twice in the dismantling of a church suffered as well. A neighbor's culture enriches the neighbor, and religion is part of culture.
Iranian Influences
Elements of Zoroastrian religion in Mordovian folk religion.
The term "Mordva" encompasses two closely related Finno-Ugric peoples — the Moksha and the Erzya. The majority of present-day Mordva are Orthodox Christians; however, certain legends about their traditional religion have survived, which allow its broad outlines to be reconstructed.
It is known that the ancestors of the Finno-Ugric peoples in ancient times occupied vast territories stretching from the forested areas of the Volga Region and the Kama basin to the Urals, where they came into contact with Iranians — which is why the Mordovian lexicon contains a distinct layer of early and late Iranianisms.
Alongside the most ancient Iranian borrowings in the Mordovian languages, lexical borrowings from an Iranian linguistic source of a later period are also found: Erzya vaz, Moksha vaza — Yaghnobi wása "calf," Ossetic wæs; Erzya ŕiśme "chain," Moksha ŕiśmε "rope" — cf. Ossetic rætæn "thick rope," New Persian resen, rasan "rope"; Erzya purtsos, Moksha purts "pig" — cf. Khotanese Saka pā'sa "pig," Kurdish purs, and so on.
All of this suggests connections between the ancestors of the Mordva and the Iranians. On the basis of available data, it may be proposed that certain features of the traditional religion of the Mordva were shaped under the influence of Zarathushtra's teachings.
As is well known, the foundation of Zarathushtra's teaching is belief in the existence of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Ahura Mazda is the Creator of the World, the source of Good and Light, of Order and Truth; Ahriman is the Destroyer of the World, the source of Evil, Darkness, Cold, and Corruption. The victory of Good in the world can be achieved through good thoughts, words, and deeds, and by venerating the elements — Air, Water, Earth, and especially Fire as the symbol of the life-force that the Creator breathed into the Universe.
After death, the soul of a person remains near the body for three days and then undergoes judgment on the Chinvat Bridge above a river of fire.
According to Zoroastrian tradition, a corpse is sacrally impure and possesses a defiling force spread by the demon Nasu, and therefore may not be burned, drowned, or buried in the earth, as this would cause pollution of the elements. For this reason, Zoroastrians observed special funerary rites involving the exposure of corpses in enclosed or open burial structures. Among the eastern Iranians, the tradition of building enclosed structures for the dead was maintained: the Alans built "houses of the dead" for this purpose; the Sogdians and Khwarezmians built ossuaries for the storage of bone-caskets.
Comparing Zarathushtra's teaching with the folk beliefs of the Mordva, one can find similarities between them.
According to the traditional Mordovian religion, the entire visible and invisible world was created by a single God. The Erzya called him Cham-Pas ("Supreme God"), the Moksha — Shkay ("Creator"). He has neither beginning nor end; He cannot be seen, and from Him proceeds only good. Opposing the Creator is Shaitan, who gave rise to evil spirits and constantly strives to corrupt every creation of God. The name for this negative being came to the Mordva from Islam.
Among the animals created by Cham-Pas, the dog deserves particular mention; it was considered a benevolent animal. A similar motif is present in the Good Faith (Zoroastrianism), where the dog is considered one of the creations of Ahura Mazda.
For the performance of prayers, the role of priests was filled on each occasion by several respected elders — ate-poksh-tey ("good people"). The priests were characterized by a special garment of white, as were the servants of Ahura Mazda. The Pravt ("head") — the senior among those presiding over the prayer — would during the ritual kindle a fire and light the sacred shtatol ("wax candle").
The Mordovians, like the Iranian Zoroastrians, buried the deceased three days after death. It was believed that for the first three days the soul of the departed remained nearby.
Shortly after death, the body of the deceased was washed. For this purpose, special individuals were invited — ekshilitsyat (Erzya), eshelaykht (Moksha) — "washers of the dead." The washers were usually elderly people. Young people were not supposed to engage in this, owing to the danger of defilement through contact with death. All these beliefs closely resemble those concerning the Zoroastrian servants of the dead — the nasasalars.
There are grounds to suppose that above-ground burial once existed among the Mordva. A reference to this appears in the tale "Dubolgo Pichay." Archival records indicate that the Mordovians would leave the deceased in a "house of the dead" — a small quadrangular log structure. Such burials are still encountered today in certain Mordovian settlements. Until recently, aerial burial was also practiced among the Mordva. Thus, among the Erzya of the villages of Sabayevo and Davydovo in Kochkurovsky District of Mordovia, the deceased in their coffins were hung in trees.
In the funerary rites of the Mordva, a clear motif of avoiding contact with death is evident — one that closely resembles the Zoroastrian practice. Wood shavings and offcuts from the coffin, the vessels used to wash the deceased, and the sweepings cleared from the izba after the body was carried out — all of this was considered sacrally impure and was therefore taken to a special place. Graveyard earth was likewise considered dangerous. Those returning from the cemetery after a funeral carefully cleaned the earth from their footwear. Upon returning from the cemetery, mourners washed their hands on the porch before entering the house and then visited the bathhouse. There was also a widespread belief in the purifying power of fire. Thus, in the village of Staraya Shentala in Shentalinsky District of Samara Region, a bonfire was lit in the yard during the memorial meal so that those present could be cleansed of their contact with death.
From the 16th century onward, Orthodoxy began to spread among the Mordva. The adherents of the traditional religion never succeeded in forming a centralized religious system or sacred texts — without which it is impossible to survive to any significant degree under the external pressure of other religions. The traditional religion began gradually to be forgotten. And although individual enthusiasts today are attempting to revive it, the absence of a written record of its teachings prevents its full restoration.
Unlike the folk religion — a cult that is strictly ethnic in character — the teaching of Asho Zarathushtra, while proclaiming similar values, succeeded in forming a religious system and surviving for more than 3,700 years even in a hostile environment, becoming a religion open to anyone who wishes to embrace it.