Old Believers

Introductory summary of origins

In 1652, Patriarch Nikon (1605–81; Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1652 to 1658) introduced a number of ritual and textual revisions with the aim of achieving uniformity between the practices of the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches. Nikon, having noticed discrepancies between Russian and Greek rites and texts, ordered an adjustment of the Russian rites to align with the Greek ones of his time. In doing so, according to the Old Believers, Nikon acted without adequate consultation with the clergy and without gathering a council. After the implementation of these revisions, the Church anathematized and suppressed—with the support of Muscovite state power—the prior liturgical rite itself, as well as those who were reluctant to pass to the revised rite.

Those who maintained fidelity to the existing rite endured severe persecutions from the end of the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century as "Schismatics" (Russian: раскольники raskol'niki). They became known as "Old Ritualists", a name introduced during the reign of Catherine the Great. They continued to call themselves simply "Orthodox Christians".

Reforms of Patriarch Nikon

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 from the other Orthodox churches. Later research was to vindicate the Muscovite service-books as belonging to a different Greek recension from that which was used by the Greeks at the time of Nikon. The unrevised Muscovite books proved to be older than the current Greek books, which had been revised over the centuries, were newer, and contained innovations. Nikon wanted to have the same rite in the Russian tsardom and in majority-ethnic Slavic lands (current territories of the Ukraine and Belarus), then part of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in order to attract local Orthodox rebels. Their rite was closer to the Greek than that in the Moscow duchy. Nikon did not want to adopt two different rites in the same church.

Supported by Tsar Alexis (r. 1645–1676), 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 in order 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.

The locum tenens for Patriarch Pitirim of Moscow convened the 1666 Great Moscow Synod, which brought Patriarch Macarios III Zaim of Antioch, Patriarch Paisius of Alexandria and many bishops to Moscow. Some scholars allege that the visiting patriarchs each received both 20,000 rubles in gold and furs for their participation. 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 messianic theory depicting Moscow as the Third Rome appeared weaker. Instead of the guardian of Orthodox faith, Moscow seemed an accumulation of serious liturgical mistakes.

Nevertheless, both Patriarch and Tsar wished to carry out their reforms, although their endeavours may have had as much or more political motivation as religious; several authors on this subject point out that Tsar Alexis, encouraged by his military success in the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) 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.

Main alterations introduced by Patriarch Nikon

The numerous changes in both texts and rites occupied approximately 400 pages. Old Believers present the following as the most crucial changes:

Today's readers might perceive these alterations as trivial, but the faithful of that time saw rituals and dogmas as strongly interconnected: church rituals had from the very beginning represented and symbolised doctrinal truth. The authorities imposed the reforms in an autocratic fashion, with no consultation of the subject people. Those who reacted against the Nikonian reforms would have objected as much to the manner of imposition as to the alterations. In addition, changes often were made arbitrarily in the texts. For example, wherever the books read 'Христосъ' [Christ], Nikon's assistants substituted 'Сынъ' [meaning the Son], and wherever they read 'Сынъ' they substituted 'Христосъ'. Another example is that wherever the books read 'Церковь' [meaning Church], Nikon substituted 'Храмъ' [meaning Temple] and vice versa.

According to a sympathetic source:

"The incorrectly realized book revision by Nikon, owing to its speed, its range, its foreignness of sources and its offending character was bound to provoke protest, given the seriously assimilated, not only national, but also genuine orthodox identity of the Russian people. The protest was indeed global: the episcopate, the clergy, both regular and monastic, the laity and the ordinary people."

Schism

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. The Old Believers fiercely rejected all innovations, and the most radical amongst them maintained that the official Church had fallen into the hands of the Antichrist. Under the guidance of Archpriest Avvakum Petrov (1620 or 1621 to 1682), who had become the leader of the Old Believers' movement, the Old Believers 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. 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

After 1685, a period of persecutions began, including both torture and executions. Many Old Believers fled Russia altogether, particularly for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the community exists to this day. Old Believers 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 in the Russian Far East. The 40,000-strong community of Lipovans still lives in neighboring Kiliya Raion (Vylkove) of Ukraine and Tulcea County of Romania in the Danube Delta. 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).

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 1825–55). The Russian synodal state church and the state authorities often saw Old Believers as dangerous elements and as a threat to the Russian state.

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 (as under Catherine the Great—reigned 1762–96) to refer to Old Believers as raskolniki (schismatics), a name they consider insulting. 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. Nevertheless, some restrictions for Old Believers continued: for example, they were forbidden from joining the civil service.

Old Believer denominations

Although all Old Believers groups emerged as a result of opposition to the Nikonian reform, they do not constitute a single monolithic body. Despite the emphasis on invariable adherence to the pre-Nikonian traditions, the Old Believers feature a great diversity of groups that profess different interpretations of the church tradition and often are not in communion with each other (some groups even practise re-baptism before admitting a member of another group into their midst).

Since none of the bishops joined the Old Believers (except Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, who was put to death for this), apostolically ordained priests of the old rite would have soon become extinct. Two responses appeared to this dilemma: the Popovtsy (поповцы, "with priests") and the Bezpopovtsy ("priestless").

Popovtsy

The Popovtsy represented the more moderate conservative opposition, those who strove to continue religious and church life as it had existed before the reforms of Nikon. They recognized ordained priests from the new-style Russian Orthodox church who joined the Old Believers and who had denounced the Nikonian reforms. In 1846, they convinced Ambrose of Belaya Krinitsa (1791–1863), a Greek Orthodox bishop whom Turkish pressure had removed from his see at Sarajevo, to become an Old Believer and to consecrate three Russian Old Believer priests as bishops. In 1859, the number of Old Believer bishops in Russia reached ten and they established their own episcopate, the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy.

Not all popovtsy Old Believers recognized this hierarchy. Dissenters known as beglopopovtsy obtained their own hierarchy in the 1920s. The priestist Old Believers thus manifest as two churches which share the same beliefs, but which treat each other's hierarchy as illegitimate. Popovtsy have priests, bishops and all sacraments, including the eucharist.

Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy—The largest popovtsy denomination. One can refer to the Russian part of this denomination as the Belokrinitskoe Soglasie (the "Belokrinitsky Agreement") or as the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church.

Neokruzhniki (extinct)

Novozybkovskaya hierarchy or Russian Old-Orthodox Church

Beglopopovtsy (extinct, now the Russian Old-Orthodox Church)

Luzhkane, also known as Luzhkovskoe soglasie; in some places, they had no priests and so belonged to the Bezpopovtsy (extinct)

Bezpopovtsy

The Bezpopovtsy rejected "the World" where they believed the Antichrist reigned; they preached the imminent end of the world, asceticism, adherence to the old rituals and the old faith. More radical movements which already existed prior to the reforms of Nikon and where eschatological and anti-clerical sentiments were predominant, would join the bezpopovtsy Old believers. The Bezpopovtsy claimed that any priest or ordinary who has ever used the Nikonian Rites have forfeited apostolic succession. Therefore, the true church of Christ had ceased to exist on Earth, and they therefore renounced priests and all sacraments except baptism.

The Bezpopovtsy movement has many sub-groups. Bespopovtsy have no priests and no eucharist.

Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church or Danilovtsy (not to be confused with Pomors) originated in North Russia (East Karelia, Arkhangelsk Oblast). Initially they rejected marriage and prayer for the Tsar.

Novopomortsy, or "New Pomortsy": accept marriage

Staropomortsy, or "Old Pomortsy": reject marriage

Fedoseevtsy: "Society of Christian Old Believers of the Old Pomortsy Unmarried Confession" (1690s until present); deny marriage and practice cloister-style asceticism.

Filippians: Named after their founder, Filipp. They were repressed by the Russian Government and so, the Fillipovtsy started practicing self-immolation as a means for the "preservation of the faith".

Chasovennye (from chasovnya i.e. chapel), a Siberian branch. The Chasovennye initially had priests, but later decided to change to a priestless practice. Also known as Semeyskie (in the lands east of Lake Baikal).

Bezpopovtsy: minor groups

Apart from these major groups, many smaller groups have emerged and became extinct at various times since the end of the 17th century:

Aristovtsy (beginning of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries; extinct): from the name of the merchant Aristov;

Titlovtsy (extinct in the twentieth cent.): emerged from Fedoseevtsy, supported the use of the inscription "INRI" (titlo) upon the Orthodox cross , which other groups rejected;

Troparion confession (troparschiki): a group that commemorated the tsar in the hymns (troparia);

Daniel's confession of the "partially married" (danilovtsy polubrachnye);

Adamant confession (adamantovy): refused to use money and passports (as containing the seal of Antichrist);

Aaron's confession (aaronovtsy): second half of the 18th century, a spin-off of the Fillipovtsy.

"Grandmother's confession" or the Self-baptized: practised self-baptism or the baptism by midwives (babushki), since a valid priesthood—in their opinion—had ceased to exist;

"Hole-worshippers" (dyrniki): relinquished the use of icons and prayed to the East through a hole in the wall;

Melchisedecs (in Moscow and in Bashkortostan): practised a peculiar lay "quasi-eucharistic" rite;

"Runaways" (beguny) or "Wanderers" (stranniki);

"Netovtsy" or Saviour's Confession: denied the possibility of celebrating sacraments and praying in churches; the name comes from the Russian net "no", since they have "no" sacraments, "no" churches, "no" priests, etc.

Edinovertsy

Edinovertsy (Russian: единоверцы, i.e. "people of the same faith"; collective, единоверчество): Agreed to become a part of the official Russian Orthodox Church while saving the old rites. First appearing in 1800, the Edinovertsy come under the omophorion of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate – Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, abbreviated as ROCOR – have come into communion under different circumstances and retain being old believers in the traditional context and retain the use of the pre-Nikonian rituals. They can be regarded as "Old Ritualists", but they do not count as "Old Believers" in the traditional context.

Background

As Sergey Zenkovsky points out in his standard work Russia's Old Believers, the Old Believer schism did not occur simply as a result of a few individuals with power and influence. The schism had complex causes, revealing historical processes and circumstances in 17th-century Russian society. Those who broke from the hierarchy of the official State Church had quite divergent views on church, faith, society, state power and social issues. Thus the collective term "Old Believers" groups together various movements within Russian society which actually had existed long before 1666–67. They shared a distrust of state power and of the episcopate, insisting upon the right of the people to arrange their own spiritual life, and expressing the ambition to aim for such control.

Both the popovtsy and bespopovtsy, although theologically and psychologically two different teachings, manifested spiritual, eschatological and mystical tendencies throughout Russian religious thought and church life. One can also emphasize the schism's position in the political and cultural background of its time: increasing Western influence, secularization, and attempts to subordinate the Church to the state. Nevertheless, the Old Believers sought above all to defend and preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith, embodied in the old rituals, which inspired many to strive against Patriarch Nikon's church reforms even unto death.

In the past the Old Believers' movement was often perceived as an obscure faith in rituals that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of ignorant people. Old Believers were accused of not being able to distinguish the important from the unimportant. To many people of that time, however, rituals expressed the very essence of their faith. Old Believers hold that the preservation of a certain "microclimate" that enables the salvation of one's soul requires not only living by the commandments of Christ, but also carefully preserving Church tradition, which contains the spiritual power and knowledge of past centuries, embodied in external forms.

The Old Believers reject the idea of contents a priori prevailing over form. To illustrate this issue, the renowned Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky (1841–1911) referred to poetry. He argued, that if one converts a poem into prose, the contents of the poem may remain intact, but the poem will lose its charm and emotional impact; moreover, the poem will essentially no longer exist. In the case of religious rituals, form and contents do not just form two separable, autonomous entities, but connect with each other through complex relationships, including theological, psychological, phenomenal, aesthetic and historic dimensions.

These aspects, in their turn, play a role in the perception of these rituals by the faithful and in their spiritual lives. Considering the fact that Church rituals from their very beginning were intertwined with doctrinal truth, changing these rituals may have a tremendous effect on religious conscience and a severe impact on the faithful.

Nevertheless, centuries of persecution and the nature of their origin have made some Old Believers culturally conservative. Some Old Believers consider any pre-Nikonian Orthodox Russian practice or artifact as exclusively theirs, denying that the Russian Orthodox Church has any claims upon a history before Patriarch Nikon.

However, Russian economic history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reveals the Old-Believer merchant families as more flexible and more open to innovations while creating factories and starting the first Russian industries.

Main differences between the Old Believers and post-Nikonian Russian Orthodoxy

Old Believers use two fingers while making the Sign of the Cross (the pointer finger straight, middle finger slightly bent) while new-style Orthodoxy uses three fingers for the sign of cross (three fingers (including the thumb) held together at point, two fingers folded). Old Ritualists generally say the Jesus Prayer with the Sign of the Cross, while New Ritualists use the Sign of the Cross as a Trinitarian symbol. This makes for a significant difference between the two branches of Russian Orthodoxy, and one of the most noticeable (see the picture of Boyarynya Feodosia Morozova above).

Old Believers reject any changes and emendations of liturgical texts and rituals introduced by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Thus they continue to use the previous Church Slavonic translation of the Greek texts, including the Psalter, striving to preserve intact the "pre-Nikonian" practices of the Russian Church.

Old Believers only recognize performing baptism through three full immersions, in agreement with the Greek practice, but reject the validity of any baptismal rite performed otherwise (for example through pouring or sprinkling, as the Russian Orthodox Church has occasionally accepted since the 18th century).

Old Believers perform the Liturgy with seven prosphora, instead of five as in new-rite Russian Orthodoxy or a single large prosphoron, as sometimes done by the Greeks and Arabs.

Old Believers chant the alleluia verse after the psalmody two times rather than the three used in the Nikonian reforms.

Old Believers do not use polyphonic singing as the new-style Russian practice, but only monodic, unison singing. They also have their own musical notation: not with linear notation, but with special signs—kriuki or znamena ("hooks" or "banners"; see Znamenny Chant). Old Believers practise several different types of Znamenny Chant: Stolpov Chant, Great Znamenny Chant, Lesser Znamenny Chant, Putevoi Chant, Pomorsky Chant (or Khomov Chant), Demestvenny Chant, etc. In this respect it represents a tradition that parallels the use of Byzantine chant and neumatic notation.

Present situation

In 1971, the Moscow Patriarchate revoked the anathemas imposed on the Old Believers in the 17th century. In 1974, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia issued an ukase revoking the anathemas and asked forgiveness from the Old Believers for the wrongs done to them. Under their auspices, the first efforts to make the prayer and service books of the Old Believers available in English were made. Nevertheless, most Old Believer communities have not returned to Communion with the majority of Orthodox Christianity worldwide.

Estimates place the total number of Old Believers remaining as of 2006 at from 1 to 2 million, some living in extremely isolated communities in places to which they fled centuries ago to avoid persecution. One Old Believer parish in the United States, in Erie, Pennsylvania, has entered into communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, after a split in the congregation. The remainder have continued as Old Believers.

Old Believer churches in Russia currently have started restoration of their property, although Old Believers face many difficulties in claiming their restitution rights for their churches. Moscow has churches for all the most important Old Believer branches: Rogozhskaya Zastava (Popovtsy of the Belokrinitskaya hierarchy official center), a cathedral for the Novozybkovskaya hierarchy in Zamoskvorech'ye and Preobrazhenskaya Zastava where Pomortsy and Fedoseevtsy coexist.

Within the Old Believer world, only Pomortsy and Fedoseevtsy treat each other relatively well; none of the other denominations acknowledge each other. Ordinary Old Believers display some tendencies of intra-branch ecumenism, but these trends find sparse support among the official leaders of the congregations.

Modern-day Old Believers live all over the world, having fled Russia under tsarist persecution and after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Some Old Believers are still transient throughout various parts of the world today. Significant established Old Believer communities exist in the United States and Canada in Plamondon, Alberta; Woodburn, Oregon; Erie, Pennsylvania; Erskine, Minnesota and in various parts of Alaska including near Homer in the Fox River area villages of Voznesenka, Razdolna, and Kachemak Selo, Nikolaevsk, Beryozovka, Delta Junction, and Kodiak, Alaska (Larsen Bay area, and on Raspberry Island). Two flourishing communities also exist in Sydney, Australia and in the South Island of New Zealand. Communities also have been established in many parts of South America, including Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Argentina, where they moved after having found refuge in China between the 1920s and the 1950s.

Small hidden communities have been found in the Russian Far North (specifically remote areas of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Komi Republic) and various regions of Siberia, especially concentrated in the areas between the Altai Mountains and Tuva Republic. Perhaps the highest concentration of older established Old Believer communities, with foundations dating back hundreds of years, can be found concentrated in Eastern Siberia, specifically the Transbaikal region in desolate areas of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai. Others, like the Lykov family, fled later into the wild to avoid Communist persecution.

The Lipovans, who live in Romania's Danube Delta, are descendants of the Old Believers who left Russia in around 1740 to avoid religious persecutions.

Conservative Old Believer population stands at some 3,000 in Bolivia, while that in Alaska is estimated at 2,500.

In Estonia, there are 2,605 Old Believers according to the 2011 Census. They live mostly in villages from Mustvee to Omedu and from Nina to Varnja on the Western coast of Lake Peipus, and on Piirissaar Island.

Old Believer churches

Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy)

Lipovans

Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church (Pomortsy)

Russian Old-Orthodox Church (Novozybkovskaya Hierarchy)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy)

Union of Old Believer Parishes in Estonia