OLD BELIEVER HISTORY

In order to fully understand the nature of Staroveri (Old Believer) society and the reasons behind the Oregon group's migrations, it is necessary to become acquainted with their basic history. Although Russia dates its conversion to Christianity from the year 988 A.D., the Orthodoxy did not begin to establish itself as a church in its own right until a few centuries had passed. Up until about 1440, Russia received much of the impetus for its faith and the operation of its church from the Byzantine Orthodoxy in Constantinople. In 1443 the Tsar declared the Russian metropolitanate independent of the Byzantines, and shortly thereafter a long era of reform among the clergy was initiated. Several councils were held to set matters straight among the clergy and laity, the most influential of these being the Stoglav (One hundred Chapters) of 1551, in which some 100 chapters of reformation were laid down with the provision that disobedience would result in transgressors being forever accursed. By 1589, the patriarch in Constaninople acknowledged the fact of Russian separation by himself declaring the Russian patriarch as separate and the See for that patriarch as being located in Moscow.

Despite these efforts and the recognition of the Russians as a third center of Christianity, by the beginning of the seventeeth century there was still a widely felt problem with the clergy. (Moscow as the third Rome was a popular theory at the time.) In the reign of Patriarch Joseph (1642-1652) there arose a reformist group of clergy whose aims included the restoration of the purity of the service books and stricter observance of various matters of spiritual discipline among the clergy generally. This movement was headed by the priest and confessor to the Tsar Stephan Vonifatiev, and the Archbishop of Novgorod Nikon. Even though the Russian metropolitanate had nominally been independent of the Byzantines for two centuries, many of the clergy had been educated in Greece, and Nikon was one of these. One of the splits which developed among the reformists concerned the extent to which the older Greek customs and rites should be adhered to in the new reforms.

Upon the death of Patriarch Joseph in 1652, Vonifatiev was lawfully elected Patriarch, but refused the position. The Tsar Alexei then put Nikon in his place, contrary to the Church Canons, which forbade the Tsar to have such influence over the appointment. Apparently no one actively contested the appointment and Nikon commenced his reign with several reformatory measures. In 1653, he sent a memorandum to the churches in the land which instructed them in various revisions of the services and the books. These reforms met with opposition from many of the clergy. Among the major points which were contested were: (1) how many fingers would be used to make the sign of the cross; (2) the spelling of Jesus' name; (3) whether "Alleluia" should be sung two or three times; (4) the retention of certain words and phrases in the Creed; (5) the number of hosts to be used in the liturgy; and (6) whether the priests should walk around the altar with or against the passage of the sun. These matters of ritual, seemingly unimportant in themselves, nevertheless were the embodiment of certain theological precepts and ideological alliances, and hence stirred considerable controversy upon their arrival. For example, the conservatives maintained that the sign of the cross with two fingers rather than three (the latter being the proposed reform) signified the dual nature of Christ, with the first finger representing the divine nature and the bent second being a symbol of Christ's descent to Earth for the salvation of humankind. They cited many old icons to support their position on this matter, in which some of the saints and Christ could be seen using the two-fingered sign. The three-fingered sign, on the other hand, was intended as an acknowledgment of the Trinity. But this was considered by the conservative dissenters to represent Greek heresy. To make matters worse, many of the clergy felt that strict observance of the most minute details of the dogmas and disciplines of the church were necessary to salvation. This was a direct result of the reformatory efforts of the group in Moscow.

Even so, the disputes might have been settled in the course of a few councils, had not Nikon pressed his hand too early and forcefully. He had his opponents flogged, exiled and even burned at the stake. Among the exiles was the arch-priest Avvakum, who had been one of the more prominent among the younger members of the reformatory circle in pre-Nikonian days and had spearheaded the conservative opposition to Nikon's edicts. He was eventually burned at the stake in 1682 and until then continued to serve as a spiritual leader for many of the dissenters. The result of these measures was such a storm of protest, that Nikon was himself forced to resign his office by 1658.

However, his compatriots continued to wield official power, and the persecutions went on in his absence. The Tsar was on the side of the would-be reformers and began to openly wage campaigns against the conservatives. After the Council of 1666, in which the Stoglav of 1551 was declared a forgery and heretical, the Solovetski Monks of the White Sea formed a bastion against the new tide of reform, and were promptly excommunicated and eventually replaced with monks from Moscow.

Because of actions like the above, some of the dissenters believed that the age of the Anti-Christ had come and that the end of the world was near. In the years 1666-1668 numerous fields throughout Western Russia were neglected while the faithful adorned themselves in burial clothes and awaited the end of the world in their cemeteries at night, singing hymns and sitting in wooden coffins. Others set buildings afire where they waited inside to be cleansed and to perish in the flames so that they might join Christ before the Judgment Day. Between these and the others who were burned to death by persecutors, it has been estimated that more than 20,000 Old Believers died between 1672 and 1691 alone.

Partly because most of the prominent conservative clergy perished early in the movement, and partly because there were not many others who were courageous enough to risk stepping into their places, the conservatives began to run out of higher-level clergy, particularly bishops. This posed a problem because without bishops, there could be no ordained priesthood. Without priests, most of the sacraments could not be administered and believers were faced with the prospect of not being able to marry or receive communion. There were two kinds of solutions to this problem. One was to accept fugitive priests from the ranks of the Nikonians, and groups which did this became known as the "Beglopopovtsy." Some of these groups in various regions even eventually obtained bishops of their own in the nineteenth century. The other solution was to reject the notion of a true priesthood and to form the community around a lay-priest. Perhaps the most famous example of such a community was the monastic order at Lake Vyg, headed by the Denisov Brothers. The Denisovs were responsible for several influential writings on the dissenting movement, and their community became an example for many others throughout Western Russia. These groups became known as the "Bezpopovtsy" (priestless).

From those days on to the Revolution of 1917, the Old Believer sects suffered varying amounts of persecution at the hands of henchmen either of the Orthodoxy or various Tsars. Under Catherine II, Paul and Alexander I, they were tolerated and thrived in some areas, but under Peter the Great and Nicholas I, they often had to flee to outer regions of Russia or to other countries to avoid death or imprisonment. During the last half of the nineteenth century, the position of the Orthodox Church softened with regard to the Old Believer question, and the 1909 Council made the first official conciliations by restoring a few of the decanonized saints which were among the Old Believer favorites and by 1929 the old anathemas had been officially removed. However, another potent socio-political force came in the Revolution of 1919 and, later, in Stalin's measures against religious adherents of all stripes.