What is the Orthodox argument against the Old Believers?

[Kameaux]

On what grounds was there such a big dispute between those that supported Patriarch Nikon's reforms and those that opposed it, and why did both sides refuse to compromise? It seems odd that many Russian Orthodox chose to follow his reformations even though he was stripped of his authority by an official synod in 1666.

 

[Lukaris]

I think this is a problem in which the Byzantine political state of emperor & church failed by being brutal to poor, uninformed, & (in some cases) superstitious peasants. I do not claim to know much about this but on one side there are dirt poor peasants hung up on how to make the sign of the cross & on the other, authorities initiating technically valid revisions in which compassion must have been nonexistent. To add to the problem, the lack of wisdom in choosing to enact such reforms in the year 1666 is amazing.

 

[ArmyMatt]

and there were Old Believers who never broke away, and some who returned after a bit.

 

[E.C.]

Well, a simple part of it falls under the "this is the way we've always done it" mentality. The Slavs in general tend to be a bit resistant to any sort of change because they didn't receive the faith directly from the Apostles like the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Ethiopians, and others did. Instead they received it "second hand" so to say.

I think the real question is "why did Nikon implement the reforms in the first place". Unlike the schisms seen in Western Europe, like the Reformation, the Old Believer Schism wasn't over theology, but practice. Patriarch Nikon wanted the Russian Church to do things more like the Byzantines because, again, the Russians received the faith from the Byzantines. He felt that the Russian Church should be more like Constantinople.

 

[truefiction1]

Patriarch Nikon was overly ambitious and determined to have his vision of reform come to fruition regardless of any and all resistance from within the Church. The reforms themselves were good, but Nikon was probably not so good, being motivated by passion and influenced by evil spirits. For this reason he was deposed, while the reforms that were introduced through his efforts stuck.