Old Believers

For the political party in Latvia, see Old Believers (Latvia). For the album by Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons, see Old Believers (album).

Old Believers
староверы, старообрядцы
Two Old Believers from Nikolaevsk, Alaska, in traditional dress
Type	Russian Orthodoxy
Popovtsy	Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church Russian Old-Orthodox Church Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church Old-Orthodox Church of Ukraine Edinoverie
Bezpopovtsy	Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church Old-Pomorian (Fedoseean) Old-Orthodox Church
Region	15 to 20 countries
Language	Russian, Church Slavonic
Liturgy	Traditional Russian variation of Byzantine Rite
Founder	Anti-reform dissenters
Origin	early 1700s Tsardom of Russia
Separated from	Russian Orthodox Church
Other name(s)	Old Ritualists, Old Orthodox

Old Believers or Old Ritualists (Russian: староверы, starovery or старообрядцы, staroobryadtsy) is the common term for several religious groups, which maintain the old liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church, as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1657. The old rite and its followers were anathematized in 1667, and Old Belief gradually emerged from the resulting schism.

The antecedents of the movement regarded the reform as heralding the End of Days, and the Russian church and state as servants of the Antichrist. Fleeing persecution by the government, they settled in remote areas or escaped to the neighboring countries. Their communities were marked by strict morals and religious devotion, including various taboos meant to separate them from the outer world. They rejected the Westernization measures of Peter the Great, preserving traditional Russian culture, like long beards for men.

Lacking a central organization, the main division within Old Belief is between the relatively conservative popovtsy, or "priestly", who were willing to employ renegade priests from the state church, maintaining the liturgy and sacraments; and the more radical bezpopovtsy, or "priestless", who rejected the validity of "Nikonite" ordination, and had to dispense with priests and all sacraments performed by them, appointing lay leaders instead. Various polemics produced numerous subdivisions, known as "accords". Old Belief covers a spectrum ranging from the established and hierarchic "priestly" Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, to the anarchistic "priestless" Fugitives.

From the mid-18th century, under Catherine the Great, Old Believers gained nearly complete tolerance, and large urban centers emerged, the members of which had a leading role in Russian economy and society. Persecution and discrimination were renewed under Nicholas I from 1825 onward. Total freedom of religion and equal rights were granted only in 1905, followed by a brief golden age. In the beginning of the 20th century, demographers estimated the number of Old Believers to have been between 10 million and 20 million. The destruction wrought during the Stalin era decimated the communities, leaving few who adhered to old traditions, and a wave of refugees established new centers in the West. The movement enjoys a renewal in the post-Soviet states, and in the dawn of the 21th century, it is estimated that there are 2 to 3 million Old Believers, mostly in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Romania and the United States.

Belief and practice

Old Rite

While Old Belief is highly diverse, all its branches are defined above all else by the rejection of the liturgical and ritual reforms, enacted in the Russian Orthodox Church between 1652 and 1657, and by strict adherence to the Russian rite and traditions which preceded them. Instituted by Patriarch Nikon, the reforms were intended to eliminate all differences between the Russian use and that of the Greek Orthodox Churches: wherever a certain detail in local custom was found to diverge, it was corrected to resemble the parallel Greek one. The reform was not concerned with theology, and in this respect, there is no real difference between the Old Believers and the official Orthodox Church. They did touch upon numerous matters of form, totaling hundreds of pages in details.

Some of these changes are discernible, and easily distinguish Old Believers from the "Nikonian" rite, as they term it. The best known, which became a symbol of contention, is the manner of crossing oneself: pre-reform Russian custom, retained by Old Believers, is to fold together the thumb, ring and little fingers, while holding the index and middle fingers upright, known as "crossing with two fingers"; the "new" rite is to fold the thumb, index and ring fingers together , in "three fingers". Old Believers recognize only baptism by triple full immersion, and eschew baptism by pouring, which is acceptable in the new rite; the symbol of the cross is always the eight-pointed Orthodox cross, not any other variant; the Alleluia after the psalmody is recited twice, not thrice; and during the Divine Liturgy, seven prosphora are served rather than five. The procession around the church is directed clockwise, not counter-clockwise. Old Believers perform numerous bows and prostrations, using a prayer mat called podruchik, mostly abandoned in the new rite.

Old Believers spell the name of Christ in Russian with a single I and not two, as Isus and not Iisus. The phrase "ages of ages" is rendered in the dative, veki vekom, and not in the genitive veki vekov, as in the new rite. In the creed, the title "True", istinnago, precedes the words "Lord and Giver of Life", and the Kingdom "has no" (nest') rather than "shall have no (ne budet) end". Apart from those, there are countless liturgical and ritual differences, including the names of the saints and rulers mentioned during the Liturgy of Preparation, the wording of the Ektenia for the Dead, and so forth.

Breaking with the official Church over the reform, the movement ignores all the innovations and decisions of Russian Orthodoxy since the mid-17th century. New saints canonized since, like St. Seraphim of Sarov, are not venerated by Old Believers, who have adopted new saints of their own, like Archpriest Avvakum. In the field of religious music, Old Believers retain the monophonic, unison Znamenny chant, which has its own distinct notation style, and do not employ the Part song imported to Russia from the Greek churches. In the field of icon painting, Old Believer artists carefully preserved the otherworldly style of the medieval Orthodox icon, and eschewed Western-influenced realistic perspective or natural colours. Animalistic representations of certain saints, or certain styles of depicting Jesus, banned by the established church, continued to appear in the movement's icons. Old Believer clerical vestments do not include items of clothing that became fashionable since Nikon's time, like the Greek klobuk and kamilavka.

Traditionalism

The idealization and sanctification of the Russian past is an important pillar of Old Belief thought, buttressing their rejection of the reform. Old Muscovite culture was deeply religious and highly xenophobic, considering foreigners and foreign customs as barbarous and spiritually defiling. It was commonly believed that Russia was the sole bearer of authentic Christianity, after both Catholics and foreign Orthodox have fallen into heresy, Moscow being the Third and Last Rome. The 17th century Schism marked the gradual opening of Russia to European influence, the secularization of society and acceptance of foreign customs, with the state dismissing the notion of "Third Rome". Old Believer polemics tend to portray the Czars, church and people of pre-Schism Russia as living saintly lives of innocent devotion and simplicity, corrupted since and preserved only by themselves. The old rite, used by such illustrious figures, is therefore imbued with special holiness and nostalgia.

The movement rejected the westernization promoted since the time of Peter the Great. Old Believers cling to the Byzantine calendar, which he replaced by the Julian calendar. European clothing and hairstyles were frowned upon, and the old Russian garb was kept much more than in surrounding society. Old Believer men continued to wear untrimmed beards, embroidered shirts and knee-long kaftan coats, and women kept the sleeveless sarafan dresses and the kokoshnik head covering, wearing their hair in a single braid before marriage and covering it afterwards. Though there is great regional divergence, the basics are the same. Even when modern clothing became more widespread among the adherents, traditional dress was obligatory at least during church services. Today, old garments are worn daily mostly in the rural and isolated settlements in Eastern Europe, and in the immigrant, highly traditional communities in the West.

All communities abjure men shaving their beards and the smoking of tobacco, two old Russian taboos which ceased to observed widely during Peter's time. Many Old Believers also avoided potatoes, black tea, coffee and other foodstuffs imported in his reign, regarding them as "diabolical plants". Old Russian customs surrounding marriage, sex separation and other aspects of domestic life may be seen among rural Old Believers today. Suspicious of all new influences, the stricter sects of often avoided modern technology, and accommodated slowly to it. In the 1990s, an anthropologist who visited a community in Udmurtia noted that at first, it was not allowed to pray in a house that had electricity, later on electrical appliances had to be taken out and covered with cloth, and eventually the leader had a television set in his house. This traditionalism earned them both the reputation of primitive, backward obscurantists, and of authentic Russians preserving the essence of the nation's heritage.

Apocalypticism

The 17th century opponents of Nikon's reform, considered as founding fathers by Old Believers, were convinced that the new ritual was Satan's machination, heralding the Final Judgement, and they were living in the End Times. Those accepting the "Nikonian" rite were deprived of true Christianity, and the Russian church and state, and the world at large, were ruled by Antichrist.

This eschatological current is deeply ingrained in Old Belief thought. There are two strains concerning the nature of the Antichrist: the "material" doctrine, more in line with conventional Christian theology, held him to be a specific person, who will appear in a determined moment and will fulfill the criteria set by scripture. The "spiritual" doctrine understood him to be an allegory for an evil presence permeating the world. These two concepts were not necessarily exclusive, and communities and thinkers could be flexible in applying them. The "spiritual" Antichrist is associated with the more radical sects, enabling them to justify extreme religious positions, explained as emergency measures for Armageddon, without a time limit. The "material" theory allowed the moderates to conduct themselves pragmatically in the present, as no person could be identified as Antichrist; but during the most zealous phases in the movement's history, the title was indeed applied to a specific individual, mostly Nikon, Czar Alexis or Peter the Great.

The apocalyptic strain flowed in times of persecution, and ebbed at times of tolerance, but never perished. A willingness, or eagerness, to confront the corrupt world led to explosions of radicalism from time to time, most prominently to mass suicide, especially by self-immolation (quite often charismatic leaders murdered hesitant followers), conceived as martyrdom in the face of the Antichrist's dominion. A general distrust of the authorities permeates Old Belief, and the more radical sects forbade their members to serve in the army, carry official documents or even touch money, considered marked by the Antichrist's seal. In 1820, after half a century of official tolerance, a police search conducted in the respectable Old Believer merchants' quarter in Moscow, found a portrait of Czar Alexander I with horns, a tail and the number 666 on his forehead. In the 1980s, an anthropologist visiting a small Old Believer settlement in Canada, noted that residents were engaged in daily speculations concerning the identity of the Antichrist

Piety

Old Believers understood themselves to be God's elect, chosen to preserve true Christianity in a fallen world. They separated from society, often living in secluded settlement, and practiced a regimen of strict morals and devout religiosity. Some radical sects adopted convoluted monastic-like codes, and promoted celibacy and asceticism. Old Believer services are long and involve meticulous preparation, and the many feasts and fasts of the liturgical calendar are carefully observed. Religious education and involvement were far more intense among Old Believers than in the average official Church parish: children were schooled to be proficient in Church Slavonic, making them able to read scripture and the prayer books, and the laity had a more active and developed role.

Old Believer communities had developed sets of ethics, emphasizing moderation, abstinence, sobriety, hard work and mutual help. Secular entertainment and other worldly distractions were frowned upon if not forbidden. The relatively tight-knit community, even in the urban centers, and the experience of being a persecuted minority fostered a strong sense of internal solidarity, and of alienation from society. Community rules were enforced by the elders, and those failing to obey were subjected to penance, sanctions and finally excommunication. In the stricter sects, marriage to an outsider entailed excommunication, and outsiders wishing to join had to be re-baptized, as their first baptism was considered invalid. Those returning from sojourns in the outside world had to purify themselves by fasting and praying, before being fully re-admitted. Separate dishes were kept for the use of visiting "pagans".

Old Believers possessed a vast array of prohibitions, with many variations from sect to sect, which reinforced their separateness from ordinary Russians and other outsiders. Some were rooted in tradition or deduced from scripture, others appeared spontaneously. Adherents usually practiced strict hygiene and bathed often, and avoided vodka – in many rural communities, it was customary to display a full bottle of vodka at home, to signal it was left untouched (milder alcoholic beverages, like Kvass and Bragha, are permitted). The stricter sects see liquids as particularly prone to defilement. In some, a drop from the baptismal font may require a chapel to be reconsecrated. They prohibit the eating of certain animals, and consider blood and bloodied meat as revolting and forbidden. These taboos ceased to be widely observed in Soviet times, and are maintained sparingly. In 1990s Udmurtia, in an otherwise flexible community, a person was excommunicated for watering a garden with a hose.

Subdivisions

Accords

Disavowing the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church's hierarchy, Old Belief never possessed a centralized organization of its own. The movement was a loose network of disparate communities, which held to a certain sense of solidarity and common identity as a minority within a hostile environment, but cooperated only sporadically, and had little contact with each other.

The basic unit within Old Belief is known as the "accord", soglasie, referring to any number of communities which recognize the same spiritual authority and accept its decrees. The unique identities, histories and practices of many accords complicate any description of Old Belief as a movement, leading some historians to concentrate on separate treatments for each. Some accords had hundreds of thousands of members across all Russia, while others were confined to a single village. The lack of hierarchy, and the extreme seriousness with which Old Believers handled religious polemics, led to countless internal rifts, creating new subdivisions, or to the emergence of moderate and radical wings within the same accord, which adopted differing practices while maintaining strenuous relations. Many accords disappeared altogether, especially during the Stalin era, and others barely survive: of 30 that existed in the early 20th century, only 10 were still extant in the Soviet Union by the 1960s. Some consolidated into officially registered churches, which operate at the present. The chief division within Old Belief, hearkening to the dawn of the movement, is between the popovtsy, "priestly", who employ priests; and the bezpopovtsy, "priestless", who do not.

The division of priestly and priestless was not necessarily definitive. The Chasovennye (Chapelers), the largest accord in Siberia and the Urals, were originally priestly, but failed to recruit clerics for a prolonged time during the early 19th century. Faced with no choice, they began conducting services like the priestless, though they do not consider themselves as such. The Luzhkovites, a priestly sect that was adamant in its isolationism and hostility to government and society (refusing to register births and carry documents), did principally adopt a priestless orientation. Old Believers communities in the West emerged from a mixture of refugees that lost their pre-Soviet affiliations, and were neither popovtsy nor bezpopovtsy in any strict sense. Among the Old Believers in Oregon and Alaska in the 1980s, many of the priestless' leaders decided to join a priestly denomination and to be ordained, leading to a local schism when some of their followers formed new communities.

Priestly

Main article: Popovtsy

The priestly (popovtsy) were generally the more conservative and moderate Old Believers. While regarding Nikon's reforms as a grave heresy, they did not believe the official church lost all divine grace or that its sacraments were null and void. No bishops supported their cause – priestly lore, seeking legitimacy, claimed that their movement was originally founded by Bishop Paul of Kolomna, an obscure figure who was supposedly executed by Nikon, and aggrandized in Old Believer hagiography. Lacking the means to ordain new priests, the popovtsy were content to accept unemployed or banished clerics from the official church, on condition that they abjure the reforms, undergo some form of "correction", mostly chrismation, and adopt the old rite. The priestly were thus able to maintain the full liturgy and much of the structure of pre-Schism church life. They were careful in applying the Antichrist doctrine to the present, and were seen by the authorities as less threatening. Their communities were relatively hierarchic, though the laity was nonetheless assertive and involved, often treating the "runaway" priests as mere employees.

Historical priestly accords include the Onufrites, who accepted some controversial letters written by Avvakum, containing unconventional theological statements, as legitimate; the Deaconites, who did not require their "runaway" priests to be chrismated (as preparing chrism without episcopal consecration is contrary to church canons), and accepted the four-pointed cross as legitimate, therefore swinging the thurible once horizontally and once vertically during services, and not twice horizontally as other sects; and the Sophontites, who chrismated priests, recognized only the eight-pointed cross, censing accordingly, and rejected Avvakum's controversial writings.

Since the mid-19th century, the priestly succeeded in recruiting bishops of their own, forming two separate Old Believer established hierarchies: the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy in 1846, and the Novozybkov Hierarchy in 1923. Another settlement for some priestly was provided in the form of edinoverie, "uniate faith": since 1800, the state church allowed Old Believer to rejoin it while keeping their rites, with various conditions. The edinoverie, that served mainly as a tool of the state to control Old Believers, never consisted of more than a small minority of them.

Bezpopovtsy

Main article: Bezpopovtsy

The priestless, or bezpopovtsy, were the radical wing of Old Belief. Having a stark and grim view of the world after the Schism, they regarded the official church as hopelessly corrupted by the Antichrist, losing any access to divine grace. Only those bishops and priests that were ordained prior to the reform, according to the old rite, were legitimate. Condemned to live without a priesthood, the priestless had to forgo five of the seven commonly recognized sacraments, remaining only with Baptism and Penance, that the canons allowed the laity to conduct. Marriage and even Eucharist were thus considered by the priestless as things "fallen away" in the End Times; polemics about marriage, celibacy and sex caused much uproar in future generations. The priestly never principally endorsed the loss of the sacraments and the priesthood, yearning for their restoration. Leadership was granted to lay leaders, known as nastavnik or nastoyatel. The priestless were especially prone to internal division and to radical religious creativity, and the role of the laity was exceptionally developed. Embracing the "spiritual" Antichrist doctrine, they were more hostile to the authorities and more distrustful of the outside world, re-baptizing converts who wished to join, and adopting harsh taboos concerning purity.

The major accords among the priestless included the Pomorians and the Theodosians. Both originated as monastic communities with strict codes which combined intense spirituality, hard labour and communal ownership of all property under abbot-like leaders. They preached isolation from the world of the Antichrist, distrust of the authorities, and celibacy, disagreeing originally on some finer points regarding couples who were married before joining. An ever-growing laity moderated their stances, allowing for non-sacramental marriage, family life and private property in most non-monastic communities. The Spasovites argued that Baptism and Confession, like the other sacraments, were bereft of grace under the Antichrist, and only God's mercy could provide salvation. They split into several offshoots based on their exact practices following that conclusion: the Self-Baptizers insisted that all members perform non-sacramental baptism for themselves, and the Unbaptized avoided the ceremony altogether, in any form.

There were numerous other smaller priestless accords, some barely documented. The Phillipian sect broke with the Pomorians as they became too lenient for their taste, rigidly preserving the anti-societal attitudes of the priestless, endorsing self-immolation, refusing to pray for the Emperor, and condemning European clothing. The Beguny (Fugitives, Runaways) were the most radical priestless in their estrangement from society: a minority of fully initiated Fugitives lived as itinerant hermits, not touching money or possessing official documents, supported by lay believers. Rather than unrealistic celibacy or non-sacramnetal marriage, they allowed loose sexual morals, performing deathbed baptism that absolved of all sins. The Melchizedekites allowed for their members to perform lay Eucharist, claiming that Melchizedek's offering of bread and wine to Abraham demonstrated that it was permitted. The sredniki ("Wednsday-ers") claimed that Wednsday was the correct and rightful Sunday, due to an error in the calendar supposedly made during Peter the Great's reign, observing the Lord's Day and other festivals on Wednsday. The vozdykhantsi ("Sighers") sighed loudly and frequently during prayer meetings, to invoke the Holy Spirit.

Present-day

At the early 21th century, the largest Old Believer organization is the priestly Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (ROORC), which claims a million parishioners. It has 200 parishes in Russia, and a few more more abroad, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Belarus, and two recent missionary endeavors in Uganda and Pakistan. Established in the 1850, when bishops of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy took posts in Russia, its headquarters is the Cathedral of the Intercession in Rogozhskoye Cemetery, Moscow, and its primate since 2005 is Metropolitan Cornelius Titov.

In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian diocese of the ROORC seceded and requested autocephaly, forming the Ukrainian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, which has 55 parishes and is headed by Archbishop Nikodim. Sharing the same hierarchy, the Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church in Romania, headquartered in Brăila with Metropolitan Leontie as its primate, claims 35,000 members in 49 parishes.

The second branch of priestly Old Belief is the Russian Old-Orthodox Church, the separate hierarchy of which was formed in 1923, when Bishop Nikola (who was a member of the regime-sponsored opposition to Patriarch Tikhon) seceded from the Russian Orthodox Church. It had 100 registered parishes in Russia in 2018. The primate is Patriarch Alexander.

The edinoverie was revived by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. As of 2021, there were 40 Old Believer parishes within the ROC. The Chair of the ROC commission for Old Believer parishes is Metropolitan Anthony.

The largest and oldest priestless denomination is the Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church (POOC), formally established in 1909, as a direct continuation of the old Pomorian accord which arose in the 1690s. Claiming 400,000 members, the POOC comprises seven national councils, with 200 parishes in Russia (less than half formally registered), 60 in Latvia, 27 in Lithuania, 15 in Estonia, 45 in Ukraine, 19 in Belarus and 4 in Poland. There are more in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Sweden and Finland. The chair of the united international council of the POOC since 2022 is Grigory Boyarov, the former nastavnik of the Pomorians in Vlinuis.

The small Old-Orthodox Theodosian Church, which united several established Theodosian communities, was formally registered in 2014. It had just 8 parishes in 2018, and is chaired by Konstantin Kozhev. Apart from that, there were scattered small communities of a few other priestless accords which surfaced in Russia in the 1990s, including the Phillipians, the Spasovites and the Fugitives.

Distribution

Old Believer communities often appeared in remote or inaccesible areas of Russia, as far as possible from the reach of the church and secular authorities, and from an early stage they tended to flee abroad. The original great centres were in the Kerzhenets basin near Nizhny Novgorod, the cities of Starodub on the Polish-Lithuanian border and Vetka just beyond it, the Don Cossacks' lands, and the harsh and frozen northern province of Karelia.

Flights from persecution, organized expulsions or government concessions, granting relative freedom in areas the Czars were keen to develop, led the Old Believers even farther. New concentrations arose in the industrial hubs of the Urals, Siberia, southern Russia, and outside of it in the modern-day Baltic states and Romania. Since the latter half of the 18th century, a time of tolerance for Old Belivers, large urban communities emerged in all major cities of the Russian Empire. In Moscow, tens of thousands of priestly congregants were concentrated around the Rogozhskoye Cemetery compound, which virtually became the national headquarters of their movement, and an equally large priestless hub arose in the form of the Theodosian-led Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery. The Guslitsa region near Moscow was densely populated by priestly believers. The Grebenstchikov House of Prayer, Riga is the largest continuously-operating Old Rite chapel in the world.

In the 1897 Russian Empire census, the regions with the highest concentration of Old Believers were the Bogorodsky Uyezd (Guslitsa) of Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, the Perm in the Urals, Saratov and the Samara governorates and the Don Host Oblast in the south, the Pskov and Novgorod in northern Russia, the northern Vitebsk area (Daugavpils county, Ludza county and Rēzekne county) in modern-day Latvia, and the Amur and Transbaikal in Siberia.

Some Old Believer communities, especially among non-Russian people, developed distinct ethnic features, with their own unique folklore, culture and traditions. The Lipovans of Romania and Moldova, whose ancestors fled Russia in the mid-18th century and settled in the Danube delta, are a recognized national minority. The Kerzhaks, the Kamenschiks of the Altai Mountains, and the Semeiskie of Transbaikal, several ethnic groups from among the veteran settlers of Siberia, are all descended from Old Believers who either escaped or were expelled to the Russian Far East. The Nekrasov Cossacks, an Old Rite community of Don cossacks, fled Russia and settled first in Bulgaria and then in Turkey, maintaining the traditions of their people. They were repatriated to Russia or immigrated to the West in the 20th century. During the Soviet period, a wave of immigrants escaping from Siberia and the Urals moved to Northern and Southern America and to Australia, forming highly traditional settlements in the West.

There are no reliable statistics concerning Old Believer population. Numbers, derived from Old Believer leaders' estimates, surveys and censues, may vary greatly, and there far less regular churchgoers than total members, who maintain some ties to the community. Estimates made in the 2010s cite 55,000 Old Believers in Latvia; 45,000 in Lithuania; and 15,000 (but only 3,000 regularly attending services) in Estonia. In Romania, the local leadership stated it had some 35,000 members. There are tens of thousands of Old Believers in Ukraine and Belarus. In Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan there several thousands in numerous small settlements. In Poland and Bulgaria there are several hundreds each. In Canada there are several small settlements in Alberta, and in the United States, Old Believers reside mainly in Oregon (one estimate was that there were more than 10,000 around Woodburn), Alaska and in Erie, Pennsylvania. Some 3,000 Old Believers reside in Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina. Small communities are also present in Sydney, Australia, and in South Island, New Zealand.

In Russia, a 2012 survey determined that there were about 400,000 self-professed Old Believers, with the highest concentrations being in the Smolensk Oblast, Perm Krai, Altai, Mari El, Komi Republic, Udmurtia and Mordovia, as well as the central Leningrad and Moscow districts. In 2017, the vice-chair of the Pomorian Church deduced that based on the average size of communities and the total number of parishes in Russia (about 800), a reasonable estimate concerning the number of Old Believers who maintain some ties to the faith in the country would be between 800,000 and 1,300,000.

History

Origins of reform

During the reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich (r. 1645–1676), the young tsar and his confessor, Stefan Vonifatiev, sponsored a group, mainly composed of non-monastic clergy and known as the Zealots of Piety. These included the archpriest Avvakum as a founder-member, as well as the future patriarch Nikon, who joined in 1649. Their original aim was to revitalise the parishes through effective preaching, the orderly celebration of the liturgy, and enforcement of the church's moral teachings. To ensure that the liturgy was celebrated correctly, its original and authentic form had to be established, but the way that Nikon did this caused disputes between him and other reformers.^[1]

In 1646, Nikon first met Tsar Aleksei, who immediately appointed him archimandrite of the Novospassky monastery in Moscow. In 1649, Nikon was consecrated as the Metropolitan of Novgorod and, in 1652, he became Patriarch of Moscow.^[2] During his time in Novgorod, Nikon began to develop his view that the responsibility for the spiritual health of Russia lay with senior church leaders, not the tsar. When he became patriarch, he started to reorganise the church's administration so it was wholly under his own control.^[3]

In 1649, a Greek delegation, headed by Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem, arrived in Moscow and tried to convince the tsar and Nikon that current Greek liturgical practices were authentically Orthodox and that Russian usages that differed from them were local innovations. This led to a heated debate between the visiting Greeks and many Russian clerics who believed that, by accepting the decrees of the Council of Florence, the Greek patriarchate had compromised its authority and forfeited any right to dictate to Russia on liturgical matters.^[4] Tsar Aleksei, Nikon and some of the Zealots of Piety decided that the best way to revitalise the Russian church was to conform with the usages of the Greek church and accept the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople.^[3]

Nikonian Reform

The three-barred cross of the Russian Orthodox Church

By the middle of the 17th century, Greek and Russian Church officials, including Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, had noticed discrepancies between contemporary Russian and Greek usages. They reached the conclusion that the Russian Orthodox Church had, as a result of errors of incompetent copyists, developed rites and liturgical books of its own that had significantly deviated from the Greek originals. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church had become dissonant with the other Orthodox churches.^[5][6]

The unrevised Muscovite service-books derived from a different, and older, Greek recension than that which was used in the current Greek books, which had been revised over the centuries, and contained innovations. Nikon wanted to have the same rite in the Russian tsardom as those ethnically Slavic lands, then the territories of Ukraine and Belarus, that were then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, to attract local Orthodox rebels. Their rite was closer to the Greek than that in the Muscovite realm. Nikon did not accept the existence of two different rites in the same church.^[5][6]

Supported by Tsar Aleksei, Nikon carried out some preliminary liturgical reforms. In 1652, he convened a synod and exhorted the clergy on the need to compare Russian Typikon, Euchologion, and other liturgical books with their Greek counterparts. Monasteries from all over Russia received requests to send examples to Moscow to have them subjected to a comparative analysis. Such a task would have taken many years of conscientious research and could hardly have given an unambiguous result, given the complex development of the Russian liturgical texts over the previous centuries and the lack of textual historiographic techniques at the time.

Without waiting for the completion of any comparative analysis, Nikon overrode the decrees of the Stoglavy Synod and ordered the printing of new editions of the Russian psalter, missal, and a pamphlet justifying his liturgical changes.^[7] The new psalter and missal altered the most frequently used words and visible gestures in the liturgy, including the pronunciation of Christ's name and making the sign of the cross. In addition, the overbearing manner in which he forced the changes through turned Avvakum and others of the Zealots of Piety against him. Their protests led to their excommunication and exile and, in some cases, imprisonment or execution.^[7]

Supposed execution by burning of Paul of Kolomna in 1656, as depicted in a 19th-century anonymous Old Believer manuscript

It was not disputed by the reformers that the Russian texts should be corrected by reference to the most ancient Greek, but also Slavonic, manuscripts, although they also considered that many traditional Russian ceremonial practices were acceptable. In addition, the hastily published new editions of the service books contained internal inconsistencies, and had to be reprinted several times in quick succession. Rather than being revised according to ancient Slavonic and Greek manuscripts, the new liturgical editions had actually been translated from modern Greek editions printed in Catholic Venice.^[8]

The locum tenens for Patriarch Pitirim of Moscow convened the 1666 Great Moscow Synod, which brought Patriarch Macarius III Ibn al-Za'im of Antioch, Patriarch Paisios of Alexandria, and many bishops to Moscow. This council officially established the reforms and anathematized not only all those opposing the innovations but the old Russian books and rites themselves as well. As a side-effect of condemning the past of the Russian Orthodox Church and her traditions, the innovations appeared to weaken the messianic theory depicting Moscow as the Third Rome. Instead of the guardian of Orthodox faith, Moscow seemed an accumulation of serious liturgical mistakes.

It is argued that changing the wording of the eighth article of the Nicaean Creed was one of the very few alterations that could be seen as a genuine correction, rather than aligning the texts of Russian liturgical books and practices, customs and even vestments with the Greek versions that Nikon considered were universally applicable norms.^[9] Nikon also attacked Russian Church rituals as erroneous, and even in some cases heretical, in comparison with their contemporary Greek equivalents. This went beyond the recommendation of Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem, who suggested that differences in ritual did not of themselves indicate error, accepting the possibility that differences have developed over time. He urged Nikon to use discretion in attempting to enforce complete uniformity with Greek practice.^[10]

Nevertheless, both patriarch and tsar wished to carry out their reforms, although their endeavors may have had as much or more political motivation as religious; several authors on this subject point out that Tsar Aleksei, encouraged by his military success in the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) to conquer West Russian provinces and Ukraine, developed ambitions of becoming the liberator of the Orthodox areas which at that time formed part of the Ottoman Empire. They also mention the role of the Near-East patriarchs, who actively supported the idea of the Russian Tsar becoming the liberator of all Orthodox Christians and who suggested that Patriarch Nikon might become the new Patriarch of Constantinople.^[6]

Boyaryna Morozova showing two fingers, painting by Surikov – detail, sketch 04 from Tretyakov gallery

Today's readers might perceive the alterations of the Reform as trivial, but the faithful of that time saw rituals and dogmas as strongly interconnected: church rituals had from the beginning represented and symbolized doctrinal truth. The authorities imposed the reforms in an autocratic fashion, with no consultation of the subject people. Those who reacted against the Nikonite reforms would have objected as much to the manner of imposition as to the alterations.^[11]

Schism

A 6th-century icon, the Christ Pantocrator, depicting Christ giving a blessing. Two digits appear straightened, three folded. The Old Believers regard this as the proper way of making the sign of the Cross.

Main article: Schism of the Russian Church

Opponents of the ecclesiastical reforms of Nikon emerged among all strata of the people and in relatively large numbers (see Raskol). However, after the deposition of Patriarch Nikon (1658), who presented too strong a challenge to the tsar's authority, a series of church councils officially endorsed Nikon's liturgical reforms.^[12]

The Old Believers fiercely rejected all innovations, and the most radical among them maintained that the official Church had fallen into the hands of the Antichrist. The Old Believers, under the leadership of Archpriest Avvakum Petrov (1620 or 1621 to 1682), publicly denounced and rejected all ecclesiastical reforms. The State church anathematized both the old rites and books and those who wished to stay loyal to them at the synod of 1666. From that moment, the Old Believers officially lacked all civil rights.^[12] The State had the most active Old Believers arrested, and executed several of them (including Archpriest Avvakum) some years later in 1682.

After the schism

"Samosozhigateli (those who burn themselves)" by Grigoriy Myasoyedov

A map of Old Believer settlements in Moscow Governorate, 1871

After 1685, a period of persecutions began, including both torture and executions. Government oppression could vary from relatively moderate, as under Peter the Great (reigned 1682–1725) (Old Believers had to pay double taxation and a separate tax for wearing a beard)—to intense, as under Tsar Nicholas I (reigned 1825–1855). The Russian synodal state church and the state authorities often saw Old Believers as dangerous elements and as a threat to the Russian state.

There were Old Believers who chose death rather than give up their faith. Collective suicides by fire continued from the 17th century into the 19th century. The Old Believers considered such self-immolations not as a suicide but as a martyr’s death and an act of protest. In 1678, in the Paleostrov self-immolation, one of the largest, on an island in Lake Onega over 2,700 people perished at the sight of soldiers and officials who were sent to stop the burnings. In total, there were over 100 officially registered self-immolations of the Old Believers.^[13]

Old Believers were driven by persecutions to the fringes of Russia and became the dominant denomination in many regions, including the Pomors of the Russian Far North, in the Kursk region, in the Ural Mountains, in Siberia, and the Russian Far East. Many Old Believers fled Russia altogether, particularly for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the community exists to this day. The 40,000-strong community of Lipovans still lives in Izmail Raion (Vylkove) of Ukraine and Tulcea County of Romania in the Danube Delta. In the Imperial Russian census of 1897, 2,204,596 people, about 1.75% of the population of the Russian Empire self-declared as Old Believers or other denominations split from the Russian Orthodox Church.^[14] By the 1910s, in the last Imperial Russian census just before the October Revolution, approximately ten percent of the population of the Russian Empire said that they belonged to one of the Old Believer branches (census data).^{[citation needed]}

Some Old Believers evaded state persecution by fleeing to the Altai Mountains, a mountainous region near the Russian border with Mongolia. The convents of the Pomorskii group were built there at the beginning of the 20th century with the financial support of Savva Morozov, a rich textile mill owner and a member of the Pomorskii community himself.^[15]

In 1762, Catherine the Great passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practise their faith openly without interference.^[16] In 1905, Tsar Nicholas II signed an act of religious freedom that ended the persecution of all religious minorities in Russia. The Old Believers gained the right to build churches, to ring church bells, to hold processions and to organize themselves. It became prohibited to refer to Old Believers as raskolniki (schismatics), as they were under Catherine the Great—reigned 1762–1796, a name they consider insulting.^[17]

People often refer to the period from 1905 until 1917 as "the Golden Age of the Old Faith". One can regard the Act of 1905 as emancipating the Old Believers, who had until then occupied an almost illegal position in Russian society. Some restrictions for Old Believers continued: for example, they were forbidden from joining the civil service.

Soviet period

The first Soviet government, appointed on 26 October 1917, included several prominent figures with the Old Believers background: Aleksei Rykov, the first Commissar on Internal Affairs, Vladimir Milyutin, Commissar for Agriculture, Alexander Shliapnikov, Commissar for Labor, and Viktor Nogin, Commissar for Trade and Industry. The Cabinet secretary was Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, a top Russian expert on the Old Believers and various sects. Bolsheviks regarded the Old Believers and sectarians as a kind of social protest, the opposition against the Tsarist regime.^[18]

Nevertheless, the October Revolution in 1917 and the Russian Civil War encouraged many Old Believers to flee military conscription and starvation. Many of them traveled to China and settled in Manchuria, others settled in Xinjiang. However, when the Communists came to power in China in 1948-49, both these groups of Old Believers were forced to emigrate again. Most families moved to Brazil and Argentina, some moved to the USA and Australia.^[19][20]

Religion in the Soviet Union was never officially outlawed, but religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. Persecution of religion intensified in the Stalin era. Between 1937 and 1940 the remnants of a few noteworthy Ural Old Believer monasteries secretly relocated to the remote lower Yenisei River area in Siberia, including the area of the Dubches River and its tributaries in Turukhansky District. However, in 1951 the Dubches secret Old Believer monasteries were spotted from the air by Soviet authorities and subsequently demolished. The Old Believers living there were arrested and all the buildings, icons, and books were burned. Thirty-three persons were convicted under Article 58-10, Part 2 and Article 58-11 of the Soviet Criminal Code and sentenced to terms of imprisonment in Gulag camps ranging from ten to twenty-five years. Two of them perished in imprisonment. After Stalin's death, the others were granted amnesty in 1954.^[15]

References

1. Crummey 2008, pp. 313, 317
2. Crummey 2008, pp. 314–315
3. Crummey 2008, pp. 315–316
4. Meyendorff 1991, p. 42
5. Zenkovsky 2006
6. Kapterev, N. F., 1913, 1914.
7. Crummey 2008, p. 316
8. Meyendorff 1991, p. 45, 53–55
9. Meyendorff 1991, pp. 178–179
10. Meyendorff 1991, p. 48
11. Crummey 2008, p. 317
12. Crummey 2008, pp. 320–321
13. Manaev, Georgy (15 May 2020). "How Russia's Old Believers used to burn themselves alive". Gateway to Russia. TV-Novosti. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
14. "Демоскоп Weekly – Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". November 5, 2010. Archived from the original on November 5, 2010.
15. "Religious Flight and Migration: Old Believers". Library of Congress. 2000. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
16. Raeff, Marc (1972). Catherine the Great: A Profile. Hill & Wang. p. 294.
17. Atorin, R. Y. (15 July 2018). "Исторические предпосылки закона «Об укреплении начал веротерпимости» 1905 года и расцвет старообрядчества" [Historical background of the law "On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance" of 1905 and the flourishing of the Old Believers] (in Russian). The Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
18. Shimotomai, Nobuo (2014). "Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers". Japanese Slavic and East European Studies. 35: 23–43. Archived from the original on 2024-12-03. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
19. Morris, Richard; Morris, Tamara; Osipovich, Tatiana. "History of the Old Believers in Oregon". Old Believers in North America: Online Web Bibliography. University of Oregon Libraries. Archived from the original on 6 December 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
20. Peterson, Ronald E. (1981). "Teacher Guide for Old Believers". Folkstreams. Retrieved 21 April 2025.

Sources

• Angold, Michael, ed. (2008). Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511467554.
  • Crummey, Robert O. "Eastern Orthodoxy in Russia and Ukraine in the age of the Counter-Reformation". In Angold (2008).
  • Rock, Stella. "Russian piety and Orthodox culture 1380–1589". In Angold (2008).
• De Simone, Peter T. (2018). The Old Believers in Imperial Russia: Oppression, Opportunism and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781838609535.
• Kartašev, A. V. (1959). Очерки по истории русской церкви [Outlines of the history of the Russian church]. Vol. 2. YMCA Press. OCLC 53727000.
• Klyuchevsky, Vasily (1911). A History of Russia. Vol. 3. J. M. Dent. OCLC 733554458. IA historyofrussi03kliu.
• Melnikov, F. E. (1999). Краткая история древлеправославной (старообрядческой) церкви [Short History of the Old Orthodox (Old Ritualist) Church] (in Russian). Barnaul State Pedagogical Institute Publishing House. ISBN 9785882100123.
• Meyendorff, Paul (1991). Russia, Ritual, and Reform: The Liturgical Reforms of Nikon in the 17th Century. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410907.
• Paert, Irina (2003). Old Believers: Religious Dissent and Gender in Russia, 1760-1850. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719063221.
• Paert, Irina (2011). "Old Believers", in: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Wiley. pp. 418-420.
• Scheffel, David Z. (1991). In the Shadow of Antichrist: The Old Believers of Alberta. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0921149735.
• Smirnov, Petr C. (1988). "Antichrist in Old Believer Teaching", in: The Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union. Academic International Pres. pp. 28-35.
• Zenkovsky, Serge A. (2006). Русское старообрядчество [Russia's Old Believers]. Институт ДИ-ДИК. ISBN 9785933110125.

Further reading

• Old Orthodox Prayer Book. Translated and edited by German Ciuba, Pimen Simon, Theodore Jorewiec (2nd ed.). Erie, PA: Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ (Old Rite). 2001. ISBN 9780961706210.
• Crummey, Robert O. (1970). The Old Believers & The World Of Antichrist: The Vyg Community & The Russian State, 1694-1855. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299055608.
• Dmitrievskij, A. A. (2004). Исправление книг при патриархе Никоне и последующих патриархах [The correction of books under Patriarch Nikon and Patriarchs after him] (in Russian). Languages of Slavic Culture. ISBN 9785944571304.
• Pokrovsii, N. N. (1971). "Western Siberian Scriptoria and Binderies: Ancient Traditions Among the Old Believers". The Book Collector. 20: 19–32.
• Scherr, Stefanie (2013). 'As soon as we got here we lost everything': the migration memories and religious lives of the old believers in Australia (PhD thesis). Swinburne University of Technology. doi:10.25916/sut.26285224.v1.
• Smith Rumsey, Abby; Budaragin, Vladimir (1990). Living Traditions of Russian Faith: Books & Manuscripts of the Old Believers. Library of Congress. ISBN 9780844407104. LCCN 90020114.
• Zenkovsky, Serge A. (1956). "The Old Believer Avvakum". Indiana Slavic Studies. 1: 1–51.
• ———————— (1957). "The ideology of the Denisov brothers". Harvard Slavic Studies. 3: 49–66.
• ———————— (1957). "The Russian Schism". The Russian Review. 16: 37–58.

External links

• Media related to Old Believers at Wikimedia Commons
• Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (in Russian)
• Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church of Lithuania (in Russian)
• Old Believers in North America — a bibliography Archived 2012-03-02 at the Wayback Machine