CULTURE

Under the rule of Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovitch (1629-1676), the Russian-Orthodox church's liturgical texts and cultic practices were subjected to an inspection. It became clear that the liturgy deviated significantly from its Greek-Orthodox predecessors. A council of church elders, among them the later opponents Nikon and Avvakum, were to define an official canonization of the various ways of reading the church's writings in circulation at the time. The goal of their reform movement, the "zealots of piousness" was to revive the church, to eliminate laxities and lapses from the ritual and to do battle against religious syncretism in the countryside. After Nikon was elected patriarch in 1652, he carried through these reforms strictly according to the Greek-Orthodox scheme, which caused a great deal of resentment among his earlier collaborators.

His church reform split the Russian-Orthodox church into two groups, hence the name "raskol"; the first of these was the official state church, while the second was the group of "Old Believers" (starovery or staroobryady= "Old Ritualists") under the leadership of the Protopope Avvakum. The Old Believers were not against the revision of the church's writings in principle; instead, they were opposed to basing such revisions on later Greek texts. Their main criticism was aimed at the dominance of the Byzantine example over the tradition of the Russian national church.


Krasnyi ugolok in an Old Believer's dwelling

The most important change of the Nikonic Reform (Hauptmann 1963, p.86f.) were

- the textual revision of the cultic books: this change, for an example, affected the psalters, the part of the bible which was most familiar to the Russians

- crossing oneself with three fingers instead of with two fingers: the most important point for Avvakum

- the three-fold halleluliah instead of the two-fold halleluliah- writing Iisus instead of Isus- four metanias (falling to one's knees) instead of seventeen

- five prosphors (breads at communion) instead of seven- procession against the course of sun instead of with the course of the sun

- the four-ended (Greek) cross instead of the eight-ended cross

The vehement refusal of these reforms opposed the Old Believers to the official church and the power of the state. Through the Synod of 1666/7, all followers of the old rites were excommunicated and damned. The Old Believers fled to the most isolated areas of the country in order to escape persecution. Since a tsar who allowed such reforms could only be the Anti-Christ, the eschatological expections of the Old Believer led to many mass-suicides which cosisted of mass-immoliations in particular.

Since there were no bishops among to ordain priests, it was only a matter of time until the Old Believers split into groups which kept a clergy of some sort (popovtsy) and those who did not (bepopovtsy). Despite persecution and countless repressions, these groups have survived up into the present. Within the Soviet Union, the number of Old Believer was estimated around 2.5 million in 1987. There are also communities of Old Believers in Poland, Rumania, the USA and Canada.

In conclusion, one can say that the schism caused the deepest crisis of the Russian-Orthodox church. At the same time, it reflected the social changes of the time. The raskol also gave rise to the conflict between pro- and anti-Western forces in Russian intellectual history.

Regina Kraus