Old Believers

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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.

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 retained in marked contrast to urban society (peasants conserved the same style of dress until 1917). Old Believer men continued to wear untrimmed beards, embroidered shirts not tucked inside the trousers, and knee-long kaftan coats. 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.

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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

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.

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.

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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 of the 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.

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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 some of the "Old Things Passed 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 ("Wednesday-ers") claimed that Wednesday 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 Wednesday. The vozdykhantsi ("Sighers") sighed loudly and frequently during prayer meetings, to invoke the Holy Spirit.

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 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.

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Old Believer communities often appeared in remote or inaccessible 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. The Metropolinate of the ROORC claimed in 2018 that there are 2 million Old Believers of all accords worldwide.Sergey Taranets, [https://rpsc.ru/publications/history/chislennost_staroobriadcev_xxi/ Старообрядчество в Российской Федерации конца ХХ — начала ХХІ в.] rspc.ru. 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.[https://ruvera.ru/articles/staroobryadchestvo_rossii Старообрядчество в современной России]. ruvera.ru.

{{main article|Schism of the Russian Church}}

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Since the 1453 Fall of Constantinople, perceived as divine punishment for the Byzantine church's reunion with the Catholic Pope in 1439, the Russians deemed all foreign Orthodox as contaminated by heresy, and themselves as the sole bearers of true Christianity. In 1551, the Stoglav Synod even enshrined local practices like Crossing oneself with two fingers or reciting a double Alleluia, condemning the foreign customs of three fingers and a triple Alleluia.

With the end of the turbulent Time of Troubles in 1612, mass printing truly took root in Russia, motivating the church to produce standard service books – but also raising awareness to the immense variance between the liturgical manuscripts. Learned churchmen were assigned with identifying the "correct" versions. Woefully aware of the intellectual backwardness of their land when compared to the Greek or Ruthenian Orthodox scholars, they allowed the printing of some "western" works produced in Ukraine. Among them were apocalyptic miscellanies, written in response to the 1596 Union of Brest, under which most Ruthenian Orthodox bishops accepted the supremacy of the Pope. The Union was interpreted as the Great Apostasy, heralding the End of Days which was to come in 1666. As these works proved extremely popular, an apocalyptic fever gripped the nation. A radical sect headed by Elder Kapiton preached strict fasting habits, if not self-starvation, in preparation for the Eschaton.

In the 1640s, a party advocating religious reform arose within the church. Posthumously named the "Zealots of Piety", they deplored the ignorant and lax parish priesthood, and the wanton and quasi-paganic folkways of the common people, demanding educated clerics who would promote Christian devotion and morals. They sharply differentiated between the idyllic church of the true believers, composed of their followers, and the nominal church in reality. While the "Zealots" enjoyed support from the court, they were deeply unpopular. Those who served as secular priests, like Avvakum, and attempted to ban drinking, pagan festivals and fornication, were often lynched by crowds.

The young and deeply devout Czar Alexis, crowned in 1645, harbored an ambition of spreading Russian dominion over all the Orthodox in the world. Religious unity with them became desirable, after two centuries of relative isolationism. Alexis and his courtiers admired the intellectual prowess and ritual splendour of the Greek church, inviting Greek and Ruthenian scholars to Moscow. In 1652, Alexis appointed his confidant Nikon, a "Zealot", to serve as Patriarch. Obeying the Czar's wish, Nikon immediately began to "correct" Russian ritual to resemble the Greek. He ordered foreign scholars to rewrite the prayer books "according to the ancient manuscripts" – in fact they mainly used a 1602 edition of the Euchologion printed in Venice; neither Greeks nor Russians had a concept of historical development in the liturgy – and introduced various other amendments. He also proved authoritarian and capricious, alienating most of the "Zealots" to the point of bitter hatred. In 1658, his relationship with Alexis deteriorated, and he withdrew to a monastery, not performing the functions of his office but refusing to appoint an heir.

At first, the reforms apparently drew little opposition: Only prominent "Zealot" Ivan Neronov is conclusively recorded as voicing serious resistance in the early years. But around 1660, a circle of high-ranking churchmen, led by Archbishop Alexander of Vyatka, rose against the new rite. Their motives are not entirely clear. It seems that most turned against the reform only after quarrelling with Nikon. Archimandrite Spiridon served as their chief scholar and theologian, and with his associates produced a prolific set of writings. Apart from thoroughly critiquing the new rite and arguing for the old one, citing also the Stoglav council and noting that if Muscovite cutsom was erroneous than all the righteous saints of the past were condemned, they formulated a radical theology in support of their cause. Combining the "Zealots"' notion of a true church of the elect, the apocalypticism of the Ukrainian miscellanies, and the sanctification of Russian tradition, they argued that Nikon's reform constituted the Great Apostasy before the Day of Judgement in 1666. The elect who will be saved were those who shall reject the Antichrist (whom they speculated might be Nikon himself) by remaining loyal to true Christianity, that is the old rite. The anti-reform circle gained considerable influence among the church hierarchy and the Moscow nobility.

In 1666, the exasperated Czar convened a general synod in Moscow to resolve the Nikon crisis and the controversy surrounding the new rite. At first, Alexis and his councilors sought consensus. The first sitting of Russian clerics, after deposing Nikon, voted to accept the "corrected" ritual without any reference to the traditional one. The intransigence of the anti-reformers angered Alexis. The second sitting, attended by foreign Eastern hierarchs, anathemized the old rite and its followers, declaring Russian custom as heretical. The members of the opposition, facing the sovereign's wrath, now buckled. Alexander himself, Neronov, Nikita Dobrynin, the late Spiridon's brother Efrem and most of their circle accepted the resolutions, denounced their former views and asked for forgiveness. Only four remained steadfast: Avvakum, Fyodor Ivanov, Epifany and Lazar. The latter three's tongues were cut out, and they were all exiled to Pustozersk, a penal colony in the Arctic circle.

The church and the state embarked upon a campaign to enforce the synod's resolutions. In fact, the authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, little sensed in many areas, was now extended there for the first time, clashing with local customs and popular religion. The church dispersed unauthorized monastic communities, forced the oft hereditary parish priests to be formally ordained, and banished local charismatic holy men and women. This was but a part of the rise of a centralized beureaucracy in Russia, eliminating various autonomies and traditional arrangements; in 1649, the peasantry was virtually enserfed under a new code of law, the Sobornoye Ulozheniye. As the people proved recalcitrant, The church believed that it faced a coordinated opposition movement, which it termed "the Schism" or raskol in Russian, and set out to suppress it, fueling tensions even further. Church authorities conflated various "schismatic" behaviours (including such trivial phenomena as people who barely attended church and were oblivious of the amendments) with principled rejection of the new liturgy. Religious concerns were inextricably intertwined with social ones: In 1670, malcoltent Stenka Razin led the greatest revolt in the history of the nation until then. Deposed priests and monks roamed the land, joining marauding bands of peasants fleeing enserfment and other destitutes, and served as their chaplains. The "Schism" gave rise not only to what would become Old Belief, but also to the Khlysty and other radical sectarians. The bitterness and despair, and the very tangible fear of torture and execution, inflamed the apocalyptic fervour so common since the 1640s, leading to mass suicide. In the generation after 1667, perhaps 20,000 died by self-immolation, sometimes thousands at a time.

File:Самосожигатели.jpg.]]

The doctrine of Spiridon's circle was perserved, due to the protection of several powerful Moscow noblewomen, led by boyarina Feodosia Morozova, an admirer of Avvakum. She sponsored a network of scholars, priests, monks and nuns who escaped state institutions. Led by the learned monk Avraami, scribes copied and edited the anti-reform polemics for the future. In Pustozersk, Avvakum and his fellow prisoners spent their incarceration in extensive debates about the proper conduct at the End of Days. Among other topics, they speculated about the nature of the Antichrist, whom some believed to be a spiritual presence and others a corporeal person. Morozova used her contacts to smuggle their writings out of jail, and these became authoritative sources for anti-reform activists. Avraami recalculated the date of the Eschaton, concluding that it will occur no later that in 1691. Other prominent members of the Moscow circle were nun Elena Khruscheva, who settled in Kaluga, and Abbot Dossifei, who traveled to the Don Cossacks. Avraami was burnt at the stake in 1672; Morozova, after having lost her influence at court, was starved to death in 1675.

Another center of resistance was the northern Solovetsky Monastery, where rejection of the new rite was connected with insistence on the traditional autonomy of the abbey. After they ceased praying for the Czar and elected Nikanor, an associate of Alexander, as abbot, the community was besieged. The defenders underwent considerable radicalization. As priests became scarce, lay members conducted Penance and other rites by themselves, justifying their actions by the belief that the state church was devoid of grace and ruled by the Antichrist. In 1676, the walls were breached. Those who escaped the massacre wandered the harsh northern regions of Russia, preaching unremittent hostility to the authorities.

On 14 April 1682, after Avvakum sent a harsh letter to Czar Feodor, the four Pustozersk prisoners were burnt at the stake. In June, following Feodor's death, the musketeers in Moscow rose in revolt, and anti-reform elements headed by Nikita Dobrynin emerged from the underground in support. He forced Regent Sophia to allow an open debate with Patriarch Joachim. The mutiny was crushed and Dobrynin executed, impressing upon the government an indelible connection between religious and political dissent. Sophia inaugurated the harshest persecution of nonconformists, ordering the execution of anyone preaching sedition. In 1686, a Don Cossack colonel named Lavrenteev led a local revolt, with anti-reformers serving as his priests. The rebels were suppressed by 1688, but the Don Cossacks remained one of most enduring centers of pre-Nikonite religion.

Apart from suicide, revolt or banditry, another path open to the dissenters was flight, and specifically, the formation of hidden monastic communities in the remotest regions of the country. In 1670s and 1680s, a cluster of sketes and hermitages appeared around Starodub on the Polish border, and in the nearby island of Vetka. The recluses were members of Moscow's religious elite, often linked with Morozova's circle, and carrying pre-reform artifacts. Another concentration of sketes emerged in Kerzhenets, in the forested regions near Nizhny Novgorod, and may have been populated with Neronov's local followers. A third cluster, consisting almost solely of hermitages, and occupied by Solovetsky survivors and their disciples, appeared in Karelia.

File:Map of Old Believer Settlements of Moscow Governorate in 1871.jpg, 1871]]

In 1762, Catherine the Great passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practise their faith openly without interference.{{cite book |last=Raeff |first=Marc |author-link=Marc Raeff |title=Catherine the Great: A Profile |year=1972 |publisher=Hill & Wang |isbn= |oclc= |page=294 }} 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.{{cite web |last=Atorin |first=R. Y. |title=Исторические предпосылки закона «Об укреплении начал веротерпимости» 1905 года и расцвет старообрядчества |trans-title=Historical background of the law "On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance" of 1905 and the flourishing of the Old Believers |url=http://rpsc.ru/publications/history/atorin_manifest_1905/ |date=15 July 2018 |publisher=The Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church |page= |access-date=21 April 2025 |language=ru |archive-date=25 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225093842/http://rpsc.ru/publications/history/atorin_manifest_1905/ |url-status=live }}

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.

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.{{cite journal |last=Shimotomai |first=Nobuo |date=2014 |title=Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers |journal=Japanese Slavic and East European Studies |volume=35 |issue= |pages=23–43 |doi= 10.5823/jsees.35.0_23|jstor= |url=https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsees/35/0/35_23/_pdf |archive-date=3 December 2024 |access-date=25 November 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241203023701/https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsees/35/0/35_23/_pdf |url-status=live }}

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 US and Australia.{{cite web |last1=Morris |first1=Richard |last2=Morris |first2=Tamara |last3=Osipovich |first3=Tatiana |title=History of the Old Believers in Oregon |url=https://oldbelievers.uoregon.edu/history-of-old-believers-in-oregon/ |date= |website=Old Believers in North America: Online Web Bibliography |publisher=University of Oregon Libraries |page= |access-date=21 April 2025 |archive-date=6 December 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241206232020/https://oldbelievers.uoregon.edu/history-of-old-believers-in-oregon/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last=Peterson |first=Ronald E. |title=Teacher Guide for Old Believers |url=https://www.folkstreams.net/contexts/teacher-guide-for-old-believers |date=1981 |publisher=Folkstreams |access-date=21 April 2025 }}

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.{{cite web |title=Religious Flight and Migration: Old Believers |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/meeting-of-frontiers/articles-and-essays/colonization/religious-flight-and-migration-old-believers/ |date=2000 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=21 April 2025 }}

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{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |others=Translated and edited by German Ciuba, Pimen Simon, Theodore Jorewiec |title=Old Orthodox Prayer Book |year=2001 |edition=2nd |publisher=Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ (Old Rite) |location=Erie, PA |isbn=9780961706210 |oclc= }}
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• {{cite book |last=Dmitrievskij |first=A. A. |title=Исправление книг при патриархе Никоне и последующих патриархах |trans-title=The correction of books under Patriarch Nikon and Patriarchs after him |year=2004 |publisher=Languages of Slavic Culture |isbn=9785944571304 |oclc= |language=ru }}
• {{cite journal |last=Pokrovsii |first=N. N. |date=1971 |title=Western Siberian Scriptoria and Binderies: Ancient Traditions Among the Old Believers |journal=The Book Collector |volume=20 |issue= |pages=19–32 |doi= |jstor= }}
• {{cite thesis |last=Scherr |first=Stefanie |year=2013 |title='As soon as we got here we lost everything': the migration memories and religious lives of the old believers in Australia |doi=10.25916/sut.26285224.v1 |degree=PhD |location= |publisher=Swinburne University of Technology }}
• {{cite book |last1=Smith Rumsey |first1=Abby |last2=Budaragin |first2=Vladimir |title=Living Traditions of Russian Faith: Books & Manuscripts of the Old Believers |year=1990 |publisher=Library of Congress |isbn=9780844407104 |lccn=90020114 }}
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{{refend}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}
• [http://rpsc.ru/ Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church] (in Russian)
• [http://www.starover.lt/ Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church of Lithuania] (in Russian)
• [http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/oldbelievers/index.html Old Believers in North America — a bibliography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302180223/http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/oldbelievers/index.html |date=2 March 2012 }}

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Category:17th-century establishments in Russia

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