Old Believers

[The Prokeimenon!]

Hi all!
Can somebody explain the story of how the Old Believers in Russia came to be. I understand that there were some reforms that they objected to, but that's the extent of my knowlege.

I don't really need a 7-page post, just a simle explanation for a simple mind

Thanks!
Moses

 

[MariaRegina]

Hi all!
Can somebody explain the story of how the Old Believers in Russia came to be. I understand that there were some reforms that they objected to, but that's the extent of my knowlege.

I don't really need a 7-page post, just a simle explanation for a simple mind

Thanks!
Moses

Look in the index of THE ORTHODOX CHURCH by His Grace Kallistos (Timothy Ware).
He deals with the history of the Old Believers.

 

[Michael G]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers

The Old Believers (ru: старове́ры or старообря́дцы ) are a schismatic group of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1652, Patriarch Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church introduced a number of reforms aimed at centralizing his power and bringing Russian Orthodox ritual and doctrine in line with those of the Greek Orthodox Church. Old Believers rejected Nikon's reforms (see Raskol). They were heavily persecuted until the reign of Peter the Great, when they were instead treated as an extra source of tax revenue. They had no official toleration until 1905.

In 1971 the Russian Orthodox Church revoked the anathemas placed on the Old Believers in the 17th century, but most Old Believer communities have not returned to Communion with other Orthodox Christians.

Old Believer doctrine is identical to that of Eastern Orthodoxy. Differences for most Old Believer communities are in details of ritual practice, alone. However, centuries of persecution, and the nature of their foundation, has made them highly culturally conservative and mistrustful of anything they see as insufficiently Russian. Some Old Believers go so far as to consider any pre-Nikonian Orthodox Russian practice or artifact to be exclusively theirs, denying that the Russian Orthodox Church has any claims upon a history before Patriarch Nikon.

Approximately one million Old Believers remain today, some living in extremely isolated communities in places to which they fled centuries ago to avoid persecution. A few Old Believer parishes in the United States have entered communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

 

[Michael G]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Nikon

Nikon ( Ни́кон ) (1605-1681) was patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1652 to 1658. It was one of the most important periods in Church history as Nikon introduced many reforms, which eventually lead to a schism in the Church.

Nikon was born a peasant and rose through the ranks of the Church to eventually become its head. He was strong-willed and zealous and had great ambitions for reform. Russia was coming back into contact with other Orthodox Churches, as well as the churces of the rest of Europe, and Nikon wished to update the rituals of the Russian Church to match the others. Thus innovations such as crossing oneself with three fingers rather than two were made mandatory.

These reforms lead to great turmoil, however (see Raskol). Many Russian believers saw Nikon's reforms as a betrayal of the Russian Church. The reforms coincided with a great plague in 1654 and Russians were also greatly concerned about the upcoming year 1666 which many considered the year of the apocalypse. These Old Believers were declared to be criminals by the Tsar Alexei, but many of them still refused to conform.

Nikon's reforms were put to a general Church council. The reforms were upheld, but Nikon was not. It was ruled that his assertion that the Patriarch was the equal of the Tsar was heretical, and Nikon was deposed and sent into exile in a monastery of Northern Russia.

Note: Nikon was his monk name; his original name was Nikita Minov (Ники́та Мино́&#1074.

 

[Michael G]

Hmmm, sounds to me more like Fr. Vasily Vasilievich is an Old Believer and not a member of COROC??!! Maybe instead of asking if this would happen in 19th C Russia he should ask if this would happen in 17th C Russia? I think no! Is Outrage!

 

[Michael G]

Hi all!
Can somebody explain the story of how the Old Believers in Russia came to be. I understand that there were some reforms that they objected to, but that's the extent of my knowlege.

I don't really need a 7-page post, just a simle explanation for a simple mind

Thanks!
Moses

The Old Believers schismed from the Russian Church over the reforms that Patriarch Nikon brought to the Church. Nikon was trying to correct centuries of error which crept into the Russian Church and bring it back into practice with how the rest of Orthodoxy practiced. Unfortunately, some in the Russian Church thought that Nikon was trying to Westernize the Russian Church (as Peter the Great would attempt to do less than 100 years later) and thus they rejected his reforms. The reforms were simple ones such as blessing ones self with 3 fingers and not 2. This may seem trivial to us now, but the Old Believers thought that the change in blessing meant a change in the trinity. Their schism is also known as the Nikon Schism. Because of many centuries of being treated as second class citizens the Old Believers became staunch traditionalists. There are some Old Believer churches which are in communion with some ROCOR churches.

(A side note, probably of interest to me alone, you can tell an Icon written by an Old Believer or one with Old Believer sympathies because the blessing given by Christ or a Bishop uses 2 fingers instead of 3).

 

[Matrona]

(A side note, probably of interest to me alone, you can tell an Icon written by an Old Believer or one with Old Believer sympathies because the blessing given by Christ or a Bishop uses 2 fingers instead of 3).

On the contrary, I think that's really interesting! Thanks for posting all of this; I was curious about the Old Believers, too!

 

[ufonium2]

I heard before that some Old Believer churches do not have priests, and that in some churches the iconostasis is actually the back wall of the church, with nothing behind it. Is this true?

 

[The Prokeimenon!]

This is great info. Thanks! All my books are in boxes as we prepare to move, so any curiosity I have is coming strait to TAW .

What (besides the fingers) are some other reforms that they objected to? Had the Russian Church really fallen into error, or was it just small-t-tradition things?

Moses

 

[Sergius_Lucius]

I heard before that some Old Believer churches do not have priests, and that in some churches the iconostasis is actually the back wall of the church, with nothing behind it. Is this true?

Yes, there are popovtsy ("with priests") who kept priesthood and various kinds of bezpopovtsy ("priestless") which vary between themselves from those who have sacraments of Baptism, Confession and Marriage, performed by a layman to those who don't recognize sacraments at all.

What (besides the fingers) are some other reforms that they objected to? Had the Russian Church really fallen into error, or was it just small-t-tradition things?

Today Old Believers explain their objection against new form of blessing so: two fingers symbolize two nature of Christ, other three symbolize the Trinity. Making the sign of cross with two fingers symbolize crucifixion of God-man Christ, so the new form looks like if the whole Trinity was crucified. They don't have different form for priest's blessing as well.

Other differences with Old Believer's justifications are:

-Some changes in the Slavonic text of the Creed

Do you need any explanation why it is wrong to change the Creed?!!

-Spelling of name Jesus: old Isus vs new Iisus

Iisus is grecized pronunciation, Isus is original Russian.

-Old Double Alleluia ("Alleluia, Alleluia, Glory to Thee, God") vs new Triple Alleluia ("Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Glory to Thee, God")

"Glory to Thee, God" is itself translation of Alleluia, so in old form Alleluia is repeated 3 times, in honor of the Holy Trinity.

-Old clockwise procession around temple vs new counterclockwise [edited: I confused two words]

Old manner follows the course of the sun (East-South-West) and symbolize following Christ the Sun.

etc, etc...

and
-Accent in pronunciation of "unto ages of ages": old "vo veki vekov" vs new "vo veki vekov"

I don't know explanation for this.