From time to time, I will have an inquiry about why the Old Believers were justified in separating from the Church.

Was it one issue, or all of them put together?

Don’t Old Believers know the teachings and warnings about schism being the gravest of sins?

Rather than rail against the presuppositions embedded in these kinds of questions, I want to explore, as an answer, the very symbol of the Schism itself, and the symbol of Old Belief – the Sign of the Cross.

There are so many issues and perspectives from which one may explain fidelity to Old Belief – but the Sign of the Cross, in its prominence, serves well as a sole focus.

The Small Catechism of 1539, summarizes how the sign is made:

…The index and middle fingers—are stretched out to signify the mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is both perfect God and perfect man for our salvation.

After joining the fingers, place your hand first on your forehead, confessing that Christ is the one true and eternal Head…

Then place your hand on your stomach, confessing His descent to earth and His conception without seed in the pure womb of the God-bearer…

Then place your hand on your right shoulder, confessing that He sits at the right hand of God the Father, awaiting when His enemies are made His footstool.

Finally, place your hand on your left shoulder, signifying that He will come again to judge the world, granting eternal life to those on His right and eternal punishment to those on His left.

When crossing yourself with the sign of the cross, say this prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, finishing with Amen, and bowing down to God, asking that He deliver us from the standing on the left and grant us His blessing.¹pp. 41-42

That the sign is part of Apostolic Tradition – and not simply a pious expression, is made clear by St. Basil the Great:

Canon 91. Of the dogmas and teachings preserved by the Church, some are outlined in the Scriptures, while others are passed down to us from apostolic tradition in secrecy. Both are of equal significance for piety, and no one, even slightly familiar with ecclesiastical rules, will dispute this. Indeed, if we were to reject unwritten customs as insignificant, we would unwittingly distort the Gospel itself and render the preaching void. For example (I will first mention the most ordinary and common), who taught through Scripture that those who place their hope in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ should sign themselves with the sign of the cross?²https://agioskanon.starove.ru/otci/015.htm

An important point.

It is an expression of our hope in our Savior Jesus Christ. Christ. The Cross. They are so essentially connected, that it needs no explanation.

As referenced in the Small Catechism, the most significant prayer in the Apostolic faith – apart from the prayer that the Lord taught us directly in calling on our Father – is the prayer to Jesus Christ Himself – the so-called “Jesus Prayer”:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

This prayer is essentially linked to the sign of the Cross. In Old Belief, one does not make the sign without, at least mentally, having these words in their hearts, and at prayer, one cannot say this prayer aloud without making the sign.

Children are raised learning the dogmas of Christ – the truth of our salvation through Him, with the sign of the Cross.

So connected to the Cross is its sign – that Russia preserved the ancient practice of using a mat for prayer – that when a prostration is made (after making the sign of the Cross), the very fingers connected with that sign will not touch the ground. Behind this piety is the 73rd canon from the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which forbade any crosses from touching the ground.³Canon 73. Since the life-giving Cross has shown us salvation, we ought to exercise every care that due honor be rendered to that through which we were saved from the ancient fall. Therefore, offering veneration to it in thought, word, and feeling, we command that the figure of the Cross, which some have placed on the ground, be completely erased, so that the sign of our victory may not be dishonored by the trampling of those who walk upon it. Thus, from now on, we decree that those who place the figure of the Cross on the ground be excommunicated.

But, it is enough about the sign itself – and what it means, – is it ancient?

That this is so, is also so obvious it needs little help in presenting itself.

The well-loved Athonite Nikodemus the Hagiorite – the compiler of the well-known Philokalia, is also known for publishing the “Rudder” – the book of canons and rules. In the introduction, Nikodemus says:

The ancient Christians arranged their fingers differently [from modern Greeks] when making the sign of the cross, using only two fingers—the middle and index fingers—as described by St. Peter of Damascus (Philokalia, p. 642). According to him, the entire hand represents the one hypostasis of Christ, and the two fingers symbolize His two natures.⁴Nicodemus the Hagiorite, Pedalion: The Canons of the Orthodox Church, Vol. 4, Yekaterinburg, 2019, pp. 188, 194

The most obvious evidence is clear to the eyes. There is another written legacy of Apostolic Christianity beyond the written word – and this is the iconography of the Church, which from the earliest example, give prominence to the two-finger sign. Among the early icons, many hand gestures were used. These are briefly discussed in my article here.

What is not encountered in any of these signs, however, is the three-finger sign.

With one exception.

The three-finger sign was used, iconographically, as the hand formation of Judas Iscariot, as he reaches for the bread at the Supper – indicating his place as the betrayer. Old Believer polemics have frequently referred to the three-fingered sign as the “pinch of Judas”.

In 1654, Patriarch Nikon condemned the sign of the cross, introducing a heresy of his own, connecting its use and symbolism with the heresy of Nestorius:

If anyone makes the sign of the cross with two extended fingers—the index and middle fingers—and by them seeks to represent the Divinity and Humanity of the Son of God, he is in every way acting improperly and, rather, in opposition to the truth. For he would thereby depict two Sons: one born of the Father, and another born of the Mother, and thus confess two persons, as did Nestorius.⁵https://rpsc.ru/publications/bogoslovie/borba_s_dvoeperstiem/

Thirteen years later – when the representatives from the other Patriarchates arrived in Moscow, and a full council was convened in 1666 and 1667, the two-finger sign of the Cross was again condemned:

And make upon yourselves the sign of the honorable and life-giving Cross with the first three fingers of the right hand… But let the two others, called the little finger and the one next to it, remain bent and idle, according to the ancient tradition of the Holy Apostles and the Holy Fathers.⁶ibid.

The councils confirmed Nikon’s understanding and “corrections”, and added to them the anathemas and eternal curses upon all who continued to use the ancient sign:

But if anyone does not obey what is commanded by us and does not submit to the holy Eastern Church and this holy council, or begins to contradict and oppose us, such an opponent, by the authority given us from the All-holy and Life-giving Spirit – if he be of the sacred order – we depose and strip of all priestly function and subject to anathema; if he be of the lay order, we excommunicate and make him a stranger to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and subject him to curse and anathema as a heretic and disobedient, and cut him off from the Orthodox fellowship and flock and from the Church of God until he come to understanding and return to the truth by repentance.

And he who does not come to understanding and does not return to the truth by repentance but remains in his obstinacy until his end, let him be excommunicated even after death, and let his portion and his soul be with Judas the betrayer, with the Jews who crucified Christ, with Arius and the other accursed heretics. Let iron, stones, and wood be destroyed and decay, but let him remain unabsolved and undecayed, like a tympanum for ever and ever. Amen.⁷https://theoldbelievers.com/old-believer-work/history-of-old-belief/#Chapter_XII_The_Councils_of_1666_and_1667

The fierce hatred and permanence of these curses, and the fact that they were adopted by representatives from the other patriarchates was a catastrophic event for the faithful.

It meant an apostasy of apocalyptic proportions that demanded extreme interpretations to understand – it is the time of the Antichrist.

That the curse was of no effect was never questioned by Old Believers. But was there any effect beyond this?

In the 12th chapter of his great apologetic work, The Enlightener, St. Joseph of Volotsk, after citing multiple fathers who say the same, says:

God’s judgment does not follow a heretical curse, but the curse of heretics returns upon them. All heretics cursing Christians curse themselves. If anyone curses Abraham, he is cursed, as per the divine voice, “I will curse him that curseth thee” (Genesis 12:3); how much more, then, shall a heretic who rejects Christ, cursing a Christian, himself be cursed? Many heretics have cursed Christians, and God’s judgment did not follow, but they themselves were cursed. ⁸p. 275

Even into the 19th century, the notion that two-finger signers would be damned was still firmly entrenched. In one of the lives of Seraphim of Sarov, by Met. Seraphim (Chichagov), we see the interaction of a woman with the elder, inquiring about the state of her ancestors:

“Did any of your departed relatives pray with the two-finger cross?” the elder asked one of his spiritual daughters. The woman replied, “To my sorrow, all of them did.” “Though they may have been virtuous people,” said Fr. Seraphim, “they are bound [in hell -OB]: the holy Orthodox Church does not accept this cross.”⁹https://rpsc.ru/publications/bogoslovie/borba_s_dvoeperstiem/

Like these, there are countless others by the likes of Dimitry of Rostov, Theophan “the Recluse”, John of Kronstadt, and many others, some of such foul hatred that I would feel defiled for repeating them.

The assault on the sign of the Cross was extended in the councils of 1666/1667 by even anathematizing the phrase “Son of God” in the Jesus prayer, insisting that only “our God” is a proper Orthodox statement.¹⁰https://protopop-avvakum.ru/k-ya-kozhurin-czerkovnye-sobory-1666-1667-gg-kak-vodorazdel-russkoj-istorii/

Fortunately, both this insane condemnation, and the insistence that the two fingers in the three-fingered sign are “idle”, signifying nothing, were soon abandoned and ignored…

I must consider with a heart bent upon forgiveness and understanding that the Greek usage of the two-finger sign faded, for there is no evidence that the change was done either intentionally or with malice for what came before. Couple this with the fact that the representatives of the Eastern Patriarchs who attended the councils of 1666/1667 were the most unscrupulous of characters, denounced even by their own. (A very balanced assessment of these knaves may be read in the book Russia, Ritual, and Reform, by Paul Meyendorff of the Orthodox Church in America.)

But, for those who understood the sign, knew its significance, knew the dogmatic meaning, and lived with the understanding that the sign was itself part of the living, Apostolic Tradition – an outward symbol of the very truths of our faith – it was clear that the new sign was born of the heresy of condemning that very Tradition.

Reconciling with it was out of the question. By its very condemnation of the Apostolic sign as a heresy, Nikon had separated himself from that faith that had blessed his land for centuries, and created a new one – opposed to the piety of his fathers. The acquiescence of the Greeks only made matters more severe.

Indeed – it was never a question of resisting a lawful reform – but rather a question of preserving the faith and piety of our forefathers under the persecution of those who sought to destroy it.

And destroy it they did.

Soon after the disaster of 1667, Peter “the Great”, saw in the new Russian church an object worthy of no respect, and immediately undertook to reform it. The patriarchate was abolished and replaced by what came to be the “Synod”, whose role was subjugated to the state.

Subjugation itself became a theme of primary importance. Patriarch Ioachim of Moscow famously said after the schism:

I know neither the old faith nor the new, but whatever the authorities command, I am ready to do and obey them in all things.¹¹https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/bogoslovie/skrizhal-akty-soborov-1654-1655-1656-godov/9

In modern Orthodox culture – this new emphasis on obedience led to a fundamental change, starting in Optina, to the ancient monastic relationship of the monk and his disciple, expanding it to the unconnected laity.

Today it is not hard to find people who believe they need “blessings” not only for the most mundane of activities, but even for those things they are already required to do as Christians!

The emphasis on Freedom, in some ways a reaction, is one of the greatest Old Believer legacies! But today, one can see among certain Old Believer groups that a jealousy of this kind of spiritual power is being felt.

After the Councils, persecutions, imprisonments, tortures, executions, tongue and finger removals, forced-feeding of their sacraments, and more were imposed upon the faithful of the old ways. Obedience would be enforced with devilish cruelty.

The use of prayer rugs ceased almost immediately. With the connection to the Cross gone, what did it matter? In place of the rug, the practice arose of intentionally touching the very fingers used to make the sign of the Cross to the ground!

It remains to this day an ironic fact that this act of enhanced piety has embedded within it the mockery of the older piety and veneration of the Cross itself.

A constant reminder of a fall.

Instead of its natural connection to the Jesus Prayer, the sign of the Cross lost its Christological mate. Then began the practice wherein the only statements requiring the sign of the Cross was a trinitarian invocation. This also remains true today.

While I do not know of anyone who believes that the Holy Trinity died upon the Cross – to link so inseparably the two looks like a sad statement of theological sloppiness and carelessness. The Cross is a Christological symbol – not a Trinitarian one.

The apparent indifference to the sign’s meaning is also seen today in its use among clergy and hierarchs of the reformed Church – priests and bishops whose hands seem to get unbelievably heavy in making the sign so that their fingers never make it to their left shoulder. Indeed many do not even try, making quick gestures before their chest. As if the sign has gone beyond insignificance to actual annoyance.

Even in using the sign as a blessing – one sees the degradation of piety.

Lost are the actual words of blessing, (the very point). Lost is the act of tracing the sign upon the person asking for the blessing, often replaced by a quick swatting motion. Lost even is the very desire by the faithful for the actual blessing (prayer), who never receive it. But retained is the kissing of the hand! It has become a dead shell – a rite whose purpose and end is the rite itself.

While these offenses remain, there are some, yes, who strive for care. May God preserve them! But these are the exception, from my observations.

Further, it must be stated that today, the roots of the Orthodox reformation are almost completely unknown. Even among many priests of the Russian tradition are those who admittedly know nothing about the Schism, but could speak at length upon the most obscure theological disruptions in the first millennium whose relevance has been lost for over a thousand years, like the filioque.

I can say confidently, that many of the faithful today in the Nikonian church are a testament to the power and universal love and providence of God, who calls and blesses all who seek Him, wherever they are.

Those that burn with love for Christ, and seek to obey His commandments, are like our brothers, wherever they are!

We enjoy a perspective today that those in the past did not have – an appreciation of local differences that arose not out of denial or rejection, but naturally over time.

Indeed, the Western liturgical tradition had established itself as a completely unique system long before any schisms occurred and allow those of us from the Eastern tradition to look at their worship with a kind of admiration that our forefathers did not have the perspective (or the sources) to be able to do.

But, sad is the knowledge that one tradition was born, not out of an organic local difference, from the sincere love of Christ, but rather a spiteful, mean-spirited, and destructive rejection of a local faith – the Muscovite one.

I cannot look upon this benevolently, but must keep separated from it.

For this reason, while I cannot judge those who choose it, I personally cannot accept the path of the Edinoverie, those who are “permitted” to continue with the old ways under the new bosses.

While it was a welcome sign, and certainly positive, the lifting of the curses by Moscow in the 1970s was neither here nor there, for by the original act, Nikon and the councils bombed their bridge to the past and built a new path forward – one that in Russia led to an immediate overhaul of Muscovite piety, the Westernization of its hierarchy, its architecture, and its iconography.

The holy martyr Avvakum commented with his typical folksy bluntness on the new style of iconography, which was introduced with striking speed. He connected it with a coinciding loss of asceticism in the piety of the priesthood.

Speaking to an apparently bloated Nikonian priest (obesity is still a problem today that plagues the hierarchs and priests, of Old Believers in some cases also, – a problem that could not exist if the established rules of eating and fasting were observed), Avvakum said:

Look at that face, that belly, you cursed Nikonian—you’re so fat! How do you expect to fit through the heavenly gate?

Narrow is the way and strait, full of sorrow, that leads to life. The Kingdom of Heaven is for those who strive, not for the fat-bellied.

Look at the holy icons and see how the saints who pleased God are depicted by skilled iconographers: their faces, hands, feet, and all their features are thin and emaciated from fasting, labor, and all kinds of afflictions. But you have changed their likeness, painting them as you are yourselves: fat-bellied, fat-faced, with legs and arms like chair legs. And for every saint—God save you—you’ve smoothed out their wrinkles, the poor things. They didn’t think to do that in their lifetime, as you’ve made them!

Clever ones! You’re cunning with the devil!

There’s nothing to discuss. A good person has nothing to hear from you: all you talk about is how to sell, how to buy, how to eat, how to drink, how to fornicate with women, how to grab children in the altar by their backsides. And I’m ashamed to mention the other things you do: I know all your evil cunning, you dogs, you harlots, you metropolitans, archbishops, Nikonians, you thieves, betrayers, new Russo-Germans!¹²ibid.

But all of this led – almost without anyone noticing, to a loss of respect from the top to the bottom of Russian society for its Church.

Gone were the days of Holy Russia. Forever.

The scar of this loss, more than anything else, made it possible for the horrors of the atheistic communist reign of terror in the 20th century, as Solzhenitsyn frequently pointed out.

But this wound was not only self-inflicted – it was intentional.

What Nikon and even more so, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, managed to achieve with their reforms, was to grasp the piety of their fathers, boulders before their paths to consolidated power over the Church, and to steal it away.

Pinch of Judas indeed.

It must be stated that much of what is said above, though it can be seen in its effects today, is impossible to lay at the feet of those in the reformed, modern Orthodox Church.

They know nothing about it! They bear none of the guilt.

Beyond this, it is not my place to judge anyone who is trying to follow Christ. It is more than enough to judge myself, and my own lacking, my own impiety, and my own ignorance.

In the vast majority of its prayers, liturgics, and doctrines, the Old Believers and the Nikonians are very close. But, among so many issues – the departure from the Old Faith involved a conscious denial of it.

Today, I have only focused on one element – the sign of the Cross, because it is the most prominent. While there are elements here that are polemical, I say them with humility and admitting I am no Christian example. I speak hypocritically.

And this is why I need the old faith.

The ire of Old Believer polemics, it is true, is focused almost entirely against that religion that is closest to it.

Quite distinct from the polemics in modern Orthodoxy, one must search for anti-Catholic polemics among Old Believers (though they certainly do exist – they are almost always confined to the issue of “pouring baptism”). This must be excused, for the Catholics did not curse our faith as a heresy – they did not damn us to hell for preserving it. They never said, through their proclamations and violence against our piety, “we hate your ways and have no part in them”.

This itself is the great heresy of the Nikonian origins!

Can anyone seriously say that the condemnation of the pious act of icon veneration (iconoclasm) was in any way worse or different in kind than the condemnation of the true sign of the cross? Iconoclasts at least had one of the Ten Commandments to cite in their defense, despite being wrong. All defenses of the three-finger sign, being of Apostolic origin, have long since been laughed off. You will not find a historian of the subject in the last 150 years who supports the assertions of Nikon and his councils.

While the Western Christians of Catholicism seem bound in the very essence of their faith to the seat of papal authority – for the old faith, it is not so.

You can destroy our churches, our altars. You can our destroy monasteries, our books. You can even destroy our priesthood, our hierarchies.

But to confess the true faith, and to follow the commandments of God, through the ways and traditions of our forefathers, is the responsibility of every individual.

My faith cannot fall with the betrayal of any or all of the bishops. Neither will the correct faith of a hierarchy save me if I am devoid of faith.

We will only answer for ourselves on doomsday.

Old Belief is a path of conscious preservation of a lived faith, passed on from the Byzantine fathers of old and preserved through Muscovite piety. By its continuity and antiquity, its validity and needful value is confirmed.

Old Belief is the faith of Holy Russia, not the faith of “enlightened” Russia.

It is not the Old Believers who broke away.

They remained…

This is why I cannot be anything but an Old Believer.

By Mikhail Olegovich Shakhov.

Already in the first decades after the Schism, the state authorities and the official Church acted together as persecutors of the zealots of the ancient piety. Old Belief then faced the necessity of defining its attitude toward the state and toward society. It had to formulate its social position.

The “Pomorian Answers” made their own laconic but very weighty contribution to this task. The principles outlined in the “Pomorian Answers” remain relevant even in our own day.

If we turn to the history of European sectarian and heretical movements, we can easily discover something. Many of them possessed a clearly expressed, theoretically and doctrinally substantiated anti-state, democratic-socialist orientation. In some sects, this reached the point of complete anarchism and the denial of any statehood whatsoever. A striking example is the Anabaptists in 16th-century Germany.

Relying on their own interpretation of Holy Scripture, the heretics preached material equality. The Anabaptists even preached intellectual equality—by destroying libraries. They rejected judicial proceedings, oaths, military service, and the estate structure of society.

After the anathemas of the Council of 1667, and under the influence of the ever-growing scale and cruelty of the repressions, the Old Believer thinkers were forced to abandon the hope of the tsar’s return to the true faith. The deviation of the highest civil and ecclesiastical authorities from the ancient piety—together with the cruel persecutions—confirmed them in one conviction. The last stronghold of Orthodoxy, the Third Rome, had fallen.

The governmental repressions acquired a special significance in the religious consciousness of the zealots of antiquity. They became a vivid confirmation of this thesis. They also became a stumbling block for their civic conscience.

Indeed, if the civil authority lost its right to former respect and lost all authority, then obedience to such authority was no longer entirely natural. Moreover, if the tsar was a servant or instrument of the Antichrist, then obedience to him would be a sin—a service to the Antichrist himself. Struggle and resistance to such a tsar would seem to be a God-pleasing deed.

However, the spiritual leaders of the Old Believers did not draw such a radical conclusion. They did not elevate the struggle against the state to the level of a religious doctrine. The defense of Old Belief against governmental persecutions was of a passive character. Even the most radically inclined Old Believers preferred not armed struggle, but flight to remote regions.

P.I. Melnikov wrote: “Can one fail to recognize the true dignity in the long-suffering patience of the Russian people, which is evident in our schismatics? Had this been in the West, long ago rivers of blood would have flowed—as they flowed during the Reformation or the Thirty Years’ War, the religious wars in England.”

Thus, in contrast to heresies that possessed a definite doctrine, concept, and theological justification for the transformation or abolition of the state, the Old Believer doctrine remained alien to the problems of the political restructuring of the state and society. It did not act as a carrier of the idea of the violent establishment of religious ideals of social justice.

It is indicative that Old Believer literature—whose total volume is enormous—completely ignores issues of state and social structure. All questions arising from the position of Old Belief within a state that is heterodox to it concerned the Old Believers only in one aspect: Is it possible under these conditions to preserve the “ancient piety”?

In all Old Believer writings there is one tendency, one coloring—religious. Not a single word against the life of the state. Not a single hint at the injustice of the social order. Not a single complaint about economic conditions. There are speeches about worldly well-being and mentions of public calamities—but exclusively in connection with religious causes.

Drawing on the theory drawn from Old Testament history—that the transgressions and impiety of the tsar bring down God’s punishment upon the entire people—Old Believer writers pointed to the cause of the sufferings being experienced and those that might yet come. They pointed not in the centralization of state power, not in the trampling of zemstvo rights, not in economic exploitation—but exclusively in the betrayal of the ancient piety.

I.F. Nilsky asserts that Old Believer writings accurately reflect the real interests and views of the Old Believers. The assumption that they did not speak fully openly out of fear of governmental persecution is completely unfounded. Therefore, the absence of social protest in Old Believer literature adequately expresses the absence among the Old Believers of interest in secular social problems.

As is well known, the “Pomorian Answers” were written precisely as answers to the questions of the Synodal missionary hieromonk Neofit. He sought to provoke the Old Believers into statements that could be qualified as an insult to the monarch and the official Church.

Neofit asked: “Does our pious sovereign the Emperor Peter the Great and Autocrat of All Russia, and the Most Holy Governing Synod, and all Orthodox Christians (i.e., the reformed Orthodox) truly and with firm hope have the hope of obtaining salvation, or do you reckon them as Orthodox or count them among some kind of heretics, those who have fallen away from the Eastern Church?” (question 52). And: “For what guilt do people now in the (new-rite) church not attain salvation, but perish?” (question 78).

In the “Pomorian Answers,” on the questions of whether Emperor Peter I, the Synod, and the followers of the new-rite church are Orthodox, it is repeatedly emphasized that the Old Believers do not consider themselves entitled to pass judgment on the piety of the sovereign and the authorities. Only the Lord Himself can judge who abides in the true faith and who will save his soul.

Doubting the Nikonian innovations, the Old Believers said: “We do not examine his Imperial Majesty’s Orthodoxy, but we willingly desire every good for his God-loving Majesty and we pray to the Lord God for it. (…) We do not despise the Most Holy Governing Synod, but we honor it reverently, and we do not revile the episcopal dignity with dishonorable words” (answer 52). And: “To judge others whether they are being saved or not, and for what guilt—this we do not dare, nor do we strive to write articles on this, for we utterly refuse to judge others” (answer 78).

Of course, one must take into account the forced evasiveness of the Old Believers answering the questions of the missionary who sought to convict them of disloyalty to the authorities. But the position taken by the Old Believers is principled. We do not judge other people—the authorities and clergy who have chosen their own path in religious life. We only strive ourselves to follow the patristic tradition and ask that we not be hindered in this.

Characterizing the social position that Old Belief consistently adhered to, two fundamental points must be highlighted:

— Do not judge the salvific quality, truth, or falsity of another faith. Do not judge the righteousness and piety of people of another faith. But preserve one’s own fidelity to Ancient Orthodoxy. Stand for one’s right to preserve the ancient piety.

— The second principle, formulated by the remarkable Old Believer thinker of the 20th century A.V. Antonov: “Old Belief is resistance to evil by non-violence.” In response to evil, to injustice, to discrimination, we do not rebel. We do not resort to violence. But we resist evil by doing good within the framework of law-abidingness. We build churches, engage in charity, preserve spiritual heritage. In a word, we build our own rather than destroy what is alien—even if it is unrighteous.

In the fair opinion of P.I. Melnikov—who specially studied the question of the socio-political moods of the Old Believers—even the most radically inclined Old Believer bezpopovtsy (priestless), who refused to pray for the tsar, in principle recognized the necessity of tsarist authority. They were alien to anti-monarchical and democratic aspirations.

Old Believer writers always proudly mentioned the origin from noble boyar and princely families of the boyarynya Morozova, Princess Urusova, the brothers Denisov (princes Myshetsky). On the contrary, the attempts of A.I. Herzen and V.N. Kelsiev to spread revolutionary-democratic propaganda among the Old Believers met with complete failure.

The Old Believer metropolitan Kirill, in his epistle to the Russian priestly Old Believers, warned them against all enemies and traitors to the tsar—“especially against the malicious atheists nesting in London and from there disturbing the European powers with their writings. Flee therefore from those accursed ones… for they are forerunners of the Antichrist, striving through anarchy to prepare the way for the son of perdition.”

The priestless (bezpopovtsy) soglasie (agreements)—which in the imagination of adherents of theories about a “peasant anti-church movement” appeared to represent an even more favorable environment for revolutionary work—in fact shunned contacts with “unfaithful” revolutionary propagandists no less than with Nikonian heretics. We have not succeeded in finding any information about the success of Narodnik propaganda attempts among the bezpopovtsy.

The Old Believers of the Preobrazhensky Almshouse presented to Emperor Alexander II, on April 17, 1863, in the Winter Palace, a most loyal address. It stated: “Great Sovereign! Many voices are raised to your throne: permit us also to speak our truth: Traitors and agitators sought to slander us before the whole world and to equate us with themselves. They lied about us. We preserve our rite, but we are your faithful subjects. We have always obeyed the powers that be. But to you, Tsar-Liberator, we are devoted with our hearts. In the novelties of your reign we hear our ancient ways. Upon you, Sovereign, rests the spirit of our virtuous Tsars. Not only in body, but in soul we are Russian people. Russia is our native mother; we are always ready to suffer and die for her. Our ancestors were Russian people, they labored on the Russian Land, and died for it. Shall we disgrace the memory of our fathers and grandfathers and of all Russian Christians from whom we received our blood? Enemies, plotting against your dominion, kindle rebellion in Poland and threaten us with war. Great Sovereign! The right hand of God exalted the dominion of your ancestors: it will grant the Tsar-Liberator victory over the ancient enemies and oppressors of the Russian Land, who tore the Russian people from their roots and violated their faith. Your throne and the Russian Land are not alien goods to us, but our own by blood. We shall not be slow to appear in their defense and will give for them all our possessions and our lives. May your dominion not diminish, but be magnified; may our ancestors not be put to shame in us; may our Russian antiquity rejoice in you. All our hopes are in you, and our devotion to your throne is unshakable. Reign long, Great Sovereign, to the glory of Russia and to the consolation of your faithful subjects!”

Alexander II replied to this address with the following words: “I am glad to hear from you and thank you for your sympathy with the common cause. They wanted to blacken you before me, but I did not believe it, and I am convinced that you are as faithful subjects as all the rest. You are my children, and I am your father, and I pray to God for you, just as I do for all who, like you, are close to my heart.”

Three hundred years after the writing of the “Pomorian Answers”, much in Russia has radically changed. The persecutions of Old Belief carried out by the state and the official Church have receded into the past. In our day Old Belief steadfastly preserves the Ancient Orthodox faith—without departing from the negative attitude toward the Nikonian reform that was laid down by the first defenders of Ancient Orthodoxy.

But in the modern world, when the preservation of traditional spiritual and moral values has acquired paramount importance for the preservation of Russia, the social position of Old Belief—its dialogue with Russian society and the state—must develop on the principles laid down in the “Pomorian Answers”: not to become a judge of people of another faith, but to preserve one’s own faith, showing respect and tolerance, finding the possibility of peaceful coexistence and service to the common good.

source

By Gleb Chistyakov.

The church reforms of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his son Peter Alekseevich concerned not only liturgical rites but also, more broadly, changes in the position of the Church within the state. Through the efforts of these two sovereigns, the official Church fell into complete dependence on secular authority, thereby establishing the ideology of caesaropapism, which had previously been unknown in Rus’.

On the Path to Caesaropapism

It is well known that one of the key figures responsible for the church schism of the 17th century, Patriarch Nikon (Nikita Minov), did not remain on the patriarchal throne for long. Ascending it in 1652, he set about implementing church reform with the utmost determination. However, within just a few years he lost interest in it, quarreled with the tsar and the bishops, and voluntarily left his post as early as 1658.

Yet even after his departure, the reforms—which had already caused considerable harm—did not cease. “A remarkable case in history,” reflects the contemporary philosopher Pavel Schelin, “the reformer is overthrown, yet the reforms continue.” In Schelin’s view, it was not so much Nikon as the tsar who was truly interested in church reform. Imperial ambitions and the drive toward absolutism were the main reasons the tsar persisted with the church reforms. These were carried out to the detriment of Russian culture, Russian self-awareness, and Russian tradition, with active involvement from Kievan-Mohyla scholars and Greek clergy whom Alexei Mikhailovich himself had brought close to the Moscow court.

It is commonly held that, weary of Patriarch Nikon’s importunity and love of power, the Russian tsar greeted his self-willed resignation with relief. Historians often treat this conflict as a mere incident or accident. However, when viewed from the outside, the quarrel between the patriarch and the tsar was not the cause but rather the pretext for profound changes in the relations between the Russian Church and the state. After Nikon’s departure from the patriarchal throne, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich not only sought to prevent his return but also aimed to restructure the political system so as to limit the Church’s independence and, as far as possible, place it under submission to the state.

Already at the Council of 1666–1667, Alexei Mikhailovich attempted to place secular authority above spiritual authority. On January 14, 1667, the council participants were required to sign a lengthy conciliar act—prepared by the Greeks—deposing Nikon. In addition to condemning the former patriarch, the Greeks, who controlled the secretariat, surreptitiously inserted provisions requiring the Church’s subordination to the state. However, the participants saw through this inexcusable cunning. Metropolitan Paul of Krutitsy and Archbishop Hilarion of Ryazan refused to sign the act, objecting to its assertion of the primacy of secular power over ecclesiastical power. During the ensuing debate, Paul and Hilarion received support from other hierarchs, who presented excerpts from the writings of the Church Fathers on the superiority of the priesthood over the kingdom and refuted the arguments of the opposing side, represented by the presiding Greek Metropolitan Paisius Ligarides. The Greeks insisted that in Byzantium too the emperors governed the Church, deciding various issues, convening councils, and appointing or deposing patriarchs. After prolonged disputes, a formula was worked out expressing the principle of the symphony of priesthood and kingdom: “The tsar has precedence in civil affairs, and the patriarch in ecclesiastical affairs, so that in this way the harmony of the ecclesiastical institution may be preserved whole and unshaken forever.” The refusal of some Russian hierarchs to submit to the Greeks provoked extreme irritation in the tsar, and he insisted on penances against Bishop Paul and Bishop Hilarion.

Despite this failure, Alexei Mikhailovich de facto continued to decide ecclesiastical matters even after the Council of 1666–1667. For example, the Golovin redaction of the “Siberian Chronicle Compilation,” compiled on the orders of Governor Golovin in the 1680s, reports a decree from Alexei Mikhailovich: “In the year 7184 [1676], on February 19, there came the sovereign’s decree to the boyar and voivodes Peter Mikhailovich Saltykov and his associates concerning church schismatics who are found in schism: those people are to be interrogated and brought to trial three times. And if they do not repent, they are to be burned and their ashes scattered so that not even their bones remain. And those who are found to be of young age are to be forcibly brought to trial, punished, and if they do not convert, they are likewise to be burned.”

The Spiritual Regulation

What Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich could not establish legally was accomplished under his son, Peter Alekseevich Romanov. The main document of Peter’s church reform, the Spiritual Regulation (Dukhovny Reglament), was signed without objection in 1721 by 87 clergymen: 6 metropolitans, 1 archbishop, 12 bishops, 48 archimandrites, 15 hegumens, and 5 hieromonks.

The central idea of the Spiritual Regulation was not merely to proclaim the priority of secular authority, but to place the Church directly under state management—that is, classic caesaropapism: the power of secular authority, embodied in the emperor, over church institutions. Instead of church councils, a special spiritual ministry was created: “We establish the Spiritual College, that is, the Spiritual Conciliar Government, which, in accordance with the Regulation set forth here, shall manage all spiritual affairs in the All-Russian Church. And we command all Our faithful subjects, of every rank, spiritual and lay, to regard this as an important and powerful Government, and to seek from it the final resolution, decision, and judgment of spiritual affairs, to be content with its determinations, and to obey its orders in all things, under severe punishment for resistance and disobedience” (the “Spiritual College” was soon renamed the Holy Synod—note by the author). This body was subordinate to the emperor, who appointed its head (a secular official) and its members, the bishops of the synodal Church.

Bishops, upon assuming office, were required to take an oath of loyalty to the sovereign. The oath stated: “I, the undersigned, promise and swear by Almighty God, before His Holy Gospel, that I am obliged, and by duty I wish, and will in every way strive in the councils, judgments, and all affairs of this Spiritual Governing Assembly to seek always the truest truth and the truest righteousness, and to act in all things according to the statutes written in the Spiritual Regulation, and if any shall hereafter be determined by the agreement of this Spiritual Government and with the consent of His Imperial Majesty… I also confess with an oath that the ultimate Judge of this Spiritual College is Himself the All-Russian Monarch, Our Most Gracious Sovereign.”

As some theologians write, this oath contains several ideas that contradict Orthodoxy, bordering on heresy.

First, all who signed the Spiritual Regulation, as well as those who later took this oath, gravely sinned against God’s commandment—not to swear. In this oath they dared to swear by God Himself!

Second, it confesses the subordination of church affairs to secular laws and institutions: “I promise and swear by Almighty God, before His Holy Gospel, that… I will in the councils, judgments, and all affairs of this Spiritual Governing Assembly… act in all things according to the statutes written in the Spiritual Regulation, and if any shall hereafter be determined by the agreement of this Spiritual Government and with the consent of His Imperial Majesty.” Nothing is said in the oath about submission to the teaching of the Church and the holy fathers.

Third, the head of the church organization—and essentially of the earthly Church—is proclaimed to be the head of state: “I also confess with an oath that the ultimate Judge of this Spiritual College is Himself the All-Russian Monarch, Our Most Gracious Sovereign.”

All bishops were required to submit unquestioningly to the spiritual ministry: “Let every Bishop know, whatever his rank—whether a simple Bishop, or Archbishop, or Metropolitan—that he is subordinate to the Spiritual College as the supreme authority, and must obey its orders and be content with its determinations.”

In the synodal period, bishops themselves were appointed by the emperor, which completely contradicted the rules of the Ecumenical Councils. Emperors not only appointed bishops but could also unilaterally remove them from office, send them to imprisonment, and even subject them to civil execution.

New Theology and Legislation

Church historian A. S. Buevsky notes: “The Synod effectively renounced the consciousness of the church nature of its authority and reduced it to a state source, to the will of the monarch. All the Synod’s record-keeping for the following 200 years was conducted ‘by decree of His Imperial Majesty.’”

This theological position is reflected not only in the Spiritual Regulation but also in other documents of the era. For example, in the document The Truth of the Monarch’s Will (Pravda voli monarshey), devoted to the powers of the head of a monarchical state as seen by the adherents of Peter I.

Here is what it says: “The foundation of this power of his is the aforementioned, that the governing people divested themselves of their own will before him and gave him all power over themselves, and to this belong all civil and church rites, changes of customs, use of clothing, houses, buildings, ranks and ceremonies at feasts, weddings, funerals, and so on, and so on, and so on” [1].

In other words, the emperor had the right not only to control, appoint, or remove clergy, but also to interfere in the liturgical and ritual life of the Church.

The predominant role of the emperor in church affairs was reflected in state legislation. In the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire, edition of 1832, it was stated as follows:

Art. 42. The Emperor, as a Christian sovereign, is the supreme defender and guardian of the dogmas of the dominant faith and the overseer of orthodoxy and every holy order in the Church. In a note to this article it is said: “In this sense the Emperor, in the act on the succession to the throne of April 5, 1797, is named Head of the Church.”

Art. 43. In church administration the autocratic power acts through the Most Holy Governing Synod established by it.

Historian N. M. Karamzin, in his memorandum to the emperor On Ancient and Modern Russia, openly acknowledged the fall of the new-rite Church into complete dependence on the state:

“Peter declared himself head of the church, abolishing the patriarchate as dangerous to unlimited autocracy… From the time of Peter the clergy in Russia declined. Our primates became mere favorites of the tsars, and from the cathedras they uttered words of praise to them in biblical language… If the Sovereign presides where the chief dignitaries of the church sit, if he judges them, or rewards them with worldly honors and benefits, then the church submits to worldly power and loses its character, zeal for it weakens, and faith is lost” [2].

Influence of the Kievan Scholars

As in the time of Alexei Mikhailovich, under Peter I the main advisers on church matters were natives of Little Russia [Malorossiya], from the circles of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy—most notably Archbishop Theophan (Prokopovich) of Novgorod. Not only Russian but also foreign researchers note that the Kievan-Mohyla advisers to the tsars succeeded in skillfully formulating and advantageously presenting not only the theology of caesaropapism but the entire ideology of imperial grandeur and absolutism that came to dominate Russia from the beginning of the 18th century.

It is worth recalling that at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries, quite a few historical forgeries emerged from the pens of those same Kievan scholars. For example, Metropolitan Stephen (Yavorsky), a native of the Kievan Polish szlachta and locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, in collaboration with Tsar Peter, commissioned the fabrication of forged acts of a fictitious Council of Kiev in 1151 that supposedly condemned the two-fingered sign of the cross, processions clockwise (posolon), and other ancient Russian traditions. The authenticity of this false testimony was “confirmed” by Metropolitan Joasaph (Krakovsky) of Kiev and the Council of Kiev. On January 31, 1718, the “Acts against the Heretic Martin” were solemnly delivered to Moscow, where they were signed by twelve Russian hierarchs.

The Kievan clergy gained such great influence over the Russian Church that, from the time of Peter I onward, bishops began to ordain primarily natives of Little Russia. For centuries these continued the persecution of the old rite and prevented the revival of other genuinely Russian church traditions.

The Old Believers against Caesaropapism

The Old Believers condemned the ecclesiology of this new theology because it contradicted both the church and secular traditions of ancient Rus’. First, caesaropapism was more of a Byzantine-Greek tradition. Second, in Russia it took shape under the influence of European absolutism. Historians point out that Peter I was greatly impressed by the phrase “Cuius regio, ejus religio” (“Whose realm, his religion”), which entered the Augsburg Confession of 1555 and established the principle that the confession of faith in a state’s territory is determined by its monarch. While in England, Peter also became acquainted with the structure of the Anglican Church and was inspired by the fact that its head was the head of state. Thus, the absolutism that arrived in Rus’ as a result of the policies of Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter I in no way corresponded to the historical conceptions of the Russian people regarding the nature of the state and the Church.

In one Old Believer composition, concerning Peter’s church reform, it was said:

“And he [the emperor—author’s note] became the head of the Russian Church, seizing upon himself not only royal power but also episcopal and divine power, becoming an autocratic shepherd, a single headless head over all.”

In another Old Believer manuscript of the 18th century we read:

“When Peter ascended the throne of all Rus’… he began to exalt himself above all those called gods, that is, the anointed ones, and began to boast and glorify himself before all, persecuting and tormenting Orthodox Christians and spreading his new faith, and… even abolished the patriarchate so that he alone might rule, having no equal to himself, so that apart from him no affairs should be done, but all should have him alone as the most exalted head, the judge of the entire Church, and he took upon himself the patriarchal title and called himself ‘Father of the Fatherland and Head of the Russian Church’ and is autocratic, having no one equal to himself, having seized upon himself not only royal but also patriarchal power.”

In yet another, later Old Believer manuscript, it is stated:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ said: ‘No servant can serve two masters,’ but He also says: ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s’; therefore the tsar should only collect taxes and tributes; he should not interfere in spiritual affairs… Just as it is improper for bishops to enter into the management of troops, so the sovereign should not touch upon the faith…”

The Old Believer historian and polemicist F. E. Melnikov expressed himself even more categorically, calling this new teaching heresy:

“In order to practically defend all the aforementioned dogmas, as well as their other innovations, and to implement them in life, the new church was forced to establish and strengthen itself on yet another dogma without which all the other dogmas would have scattered like dust, like a temporary delusion upon Holy Rus’; perhaps they would not have had any place at all in the history of Russia. This is the dogma of caesaropapism—the new church’s bowing before royal power, even recognizing it as replacing Christ Himself.”

Afterword

Some church historians assert that after the revolutionary events of 1917, the canonical order was restored in the synodal Church and caesaropapism abolished itself. However, it is difficult to imagine that a habit formed over centuries could be so easily abandoned. For example, immediately after the establishment of Soviet power, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Russia (the Renovationist Synod) sought the patronage of the state. They urgently needed to strengthen their positions by using the levers of state pressure. A couple of years later, another part of the former synodal Church—the Tikhonite old-churchmen—also joined the state “roof.” Subsequently they even received the name “Sergians,” because the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), not only actively collaborated with the state, publicly declaring that churches were being closed at the request of believers, but also harshly applied ecclesiastical prohibitions with the aim of subsequently dealing with his own and the state’s opponents.

In one of the interviews, Metropolitan Sergius and other members of his Synod, including the future Patriarch Alexei (Simansky), declared:

“Yes, indeed, some churches are being closed. But this closing is not done on the initiative of the authorities, but at the wish of the population, and in some cases even by decision of the believers themselves.”

There the Synod also denied repressions against religious organizations:

“These reports do not correspond to reality in any degree. All this is pure invention, slander, completely unworthy of serious people. Individual clergymen are brought to account not for religious activity, but on charges of this or that anti-government action, and this, of course, occurs not in the form of any persecutions and cruelties, but in the ordinary form for all accused.”

In the early 1940s the Sergians managed to seize the initiative and obtain from the authorities (I. V. Stalin issued a personal order) the liquidation of the Renovationist Church, which contained no fewer than 40 bishops.

As some historians report, similar situations occurred in the relations among Old Believer accords. Old Believer historian S. S. Mikhailov writes:

“The Rogozhskoe Cemetery actively fought against the non-okrugniks throughout their history, beginning in the 1860s, and already in the Soviet period. As we see from the reports of the authorized representative of the Council for Religious Affairs for Moscow and the Moscow region, in the second half of the 1940s, when some Moscow-region Old Believer parishes closed during the persecutions of the 1930s–1941 were being revived or attempting to revive, the non-okrugnik communities encountered the policy both of the Soviet agency itself and of the Rogozhskoe Archdiocese, which, with the help of the authorities, settled scores with its opponents, not allowing their communities to register even after an apparent transition into its own fold” [3].

The representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) behaved no better; in the 20th century they glorified European dictators and sent them the most loyal messages.

After 1988, when atheism ceased to be the state ideology in the USSR and in the countries that emerged after its collapse, religious associations gained the opportunity to develop without state pressure. However, remnants of caesaropapism periodically continue to manifest themselves in modern church life, as many contemporary experts write.

For example, opinions are periodically expressed about the excessively close cooperation between the state and the church in Russia. At the same time, however, it is not noticed that in Ukraine the state intervenes even more actively in matters of religion. Some Ukrainian religious associations are created practically with a stroke of the pen by the head of state; others are abolished by similar decrees of secular authority. A similar situation is developing in the Baltic countries and even in Germany.

Nevertheless, there remains hope that the complete eradication of the ideology of caesaropapism awaits us in the not-too-distant future.

The truly Old Believer approach to the question is adherence to the Christian teaching of the Church, observance of the commandments, rejection of political activity, and distancing from politicized ideas. For if Old Belief, in one form or another, adopts the teaching of caesaropapism, it too will gradually turn into edinoverie-Sergianism and will differ from Nikonism only in the sign of the cross. It is no accident that in 1905 the Old Believers succeeded in achieving the establishment of freedom of religion in the Russian Empire, which allowed confessions to develop without state administration, official commands, and repressions. They should continue to follow this path.

Literature:

[1] Theophan Prokopovich. The Truth of the Monarch’s Will. 1722.
[2] Karamzin N. M. “On Ancient and Modern Russia,” quoted in A. V. Kartashev. Outlines of the History of the Russian Church, pp. 371–372.
[3] Mikhailov S. S. “Non-okrugnichestvo in Kolomna: The Question of the Continuity of the History of the Priestly Old Believer Communities of the City” // Forbidden Accord: The Non-okrugnik Movement in the History of the Old Believer Belokrinitsa Hierarchy: On the 160th Anniversary of the Publication of the “Encyclical Epistle”. Moscow: Pero Publishing House, 2024. Pp. 83–99.

From a hectograph of the Old Believers of the priestless zakonobrachnoye (lawful-marriage) soglasie [or agreement/faction] of the early 20th century.

The Beginning of the Church, Its Appearance and Composition as It Existed at the Time of Its Initial Establishment, and Its Past, Present, and Future Existence

The holy earthly Church Militant received its beginning from its Creator, the Lord God, in the persons of the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve.

Concerning this, the great teacher, the blessed Methodius, Bishop of Patara, says: “that the Church originated from Adam.” Thus, in the Scriptures, the very society and assembly of the faithful is often called the Church, in which those who are most perfect according to the degree of their progress constitute, as it were, one person and the body of the Church.

This Church is composed of sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number, as stated in the Song of Songs of Solomon, chapter 6, verse 8–9: “There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed; the queens and the concubines also, and they praised her.”

On this, the blessed Methodius, a teacher of the 3rd century, interprets as follows: “The sixty queens are those who, from the first-created [Adam] down to Noah, successively pleased God, because they had no need of prescriptions and laws for salvation, since the creation of the world in six days was still recent for them. They remembered how God created the world in six days, what happened in Paradise, how man, having received the commandment not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, fell, being seduced by the author of evil. Therefore, symbolically, these souls who, shortly after the creation of the world, successively cherished love for God and were, if one may so express it, almost offspring of the first age and close to the six-day creation—since they lived immediately after the six days of creation—are called sixty queens. For they enjoyed great honor, conversing with angels and often beholding God in waking vision, not in dreams. Consider what boldness Seth had before God, Abel, Enoch, Enos, Methuselah, Noah—the first lovers of righteousness and the first among the firstborn written in the heavens [Heb. 12:23], who inherited the kingdom as a kind of firstfruits of plants for salvation, as an early fruit offered to God.

The eighty concubines are those who lived after the Flood, namely, the succession of prophets. Their knowledge of God was more remote, and they needed another teaching that would serve them as a remedy. Therefore, the succession of prophets from the time of Abraham—on account of the significance of circumcision, in which the number eight is contained, and from which the Law also depends—is called eighty concubines, inasmuch as, before the betrothal of the Church to the Word, they were the first to receive the divine seeds and foretold the spiritual circumcision on the eighth day. Therefore, God entrusted to His Son to inspire the prophets with His future coming into life in the flesh, at which time the joy of the spiritual eighth day would be proclaimed.

The virgins are the ancient righteous ones, whose number is innumerable—the multitude of those who lived righteously under the guidance of the higher ones and who, in youthful zeal, diligently struggled against sin. But neither the queens, nor the concubines, nor the virgins are compared to the Church. For she, created and chosen above all of them, consisting and united from all the apostles, is the Bride surpassing all in the beauty of flourishing youth and virginity. Therefore, she is blessed and praised by the others, since she abundantly saw and heard what those desired to see even for a short time but did not see, and to hear but did not hear. “Blessed,” said the Lord to His disciples, “are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear; for truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it” [Matt. 13:16–17]. Therefore, the prophets bless the Church and marvel at her, because what they themselves were not vouchsafed to hear and see, she was deemed worthy of and became a partaker thereof. For there are sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number; but she alone is “my dove, my perfect one” [From the complete collection of the works of St. Methodius, Bishop and Martyr, a Father of the Church of the 3rd century. Translated from Greek. Printed in St. Petersburg, 1877, pages 27–29, 28–60–61, 64].

Secondly, in the Apocalypse, chapter 12, the same Church is described, which the Lord God showed to His beloved disciple John the Theologian as follows: “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days” [Rev. 12:1–6].

On this chapter, Andrew of Caesarea interprets that the woman is the Church, citing the words of the same blessed Methodius, who, in a discourse from the person of the virgin Procla, says: The woman giving birth in the presence of the hostile dragon is the Church. The woman appearing in heaven is our mother the Church, whose children will all come together to her after the resurrection, gathering to her from everywhere, according to the words of the prophet Isaiah [60:1–7]: “Arise, shine, O Jerusalem; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the arms.”

Interpretation: The Church, having attained the never-setting light and clothed in the radiance of the Word as in a garment, will rejoice. For with what other more precious or worthy adornment should a queen be adorned, who is clothed in light as in a garment, in order to become the Bride of the Lord, for which she was called by the Father? Come then, elevating your mind, behold this great woman, like bridal virgins, shining with pure and immaculate, whole and unfading beauty, in no way inferior to the radiance of light, clothed in light itself instead of garments, adorned on her head with shining stars instead of precious stones. For what is clothing to us is light to her; what is gold or a shining stone to us is stars to her—not such as are found in their visible places, but better and more brilliant, so that those here may be considered no more than their images and likenesses [Works of Methodius, page 69].

The Work of the Church: The Birth of Children in Baptism

Thus, at our faith and conversion, the Church stands before us as in the image of the moon, enduring the pangs of birth and regenerating the soulish into the spiritual until the fullness of the nations is reached; therefore, she is our mother. For just as a woman, having received the formless seed of her husband, in due time gives birth to a complete human being, so also the Church, continually conceiving those who flee to Christ and forming them according to the image and likeness of Christ, in due time makes them citizens of that blessed life. Therefore, she must necessarily be present at baptism as one giving birth to those purified by it. Hence, her action at baptism is also called the moon, because those being regenerated, being renewed, shine with a new brilliance, which is the new light; therefore, they are called the newly-illumined [From the same book, page 70].

In essence, all spiritual aspirations of humanity boil down to two main paths: the path of magic and the path of worshiping God.

The second one—worship of God—has an internal distinction: there is genuine worship, based on truth and revelation, and there is false worship, when people, considering themselves servants of the Most High, are in reality following human delusions.

The first path, despite all its variety, is built on one conviction: that through certain means, a person is capable of influencing higher powers and subjecting them to his will.

The mindset of people adhering to a magical worldview is revealed to us through the testimony of Holy Scripture.

The Philistines captured the Ark of God (1 Samuel 5) and God began to punish them (1 Samuel 6) with tumors on their bodies and mice devastating their land. The Philistine lords turned to their priests with the question: “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord?” (1 Samuel 6:2). Let us read this passage in full, 1 Samuel 6:2–4:

2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.” 3 So they said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty; but by all means return it to Him with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.” 4 Then they said, “What is the guilt offering which we shall return to Him?” They answered, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For the same plague was on all of you and on your lords.”

Why does the guilt offering take the form of tumors and mice? Because the idea of magism is that to influence a certain force, one must reproduce its image. The plague from God came in the form of tumors and mice, so they needed to depict this force by bringing a sacrifice to the God of Israel in order to influence His decision, 1 Samuel 6:5:

“Make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand from you, from your gods, and from your land.”

Another example of magical thinking can be found in the Book of the Prophet Daniel.

King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw a statue. God revealed this dream to Daniel, Daniel 2:31–35:

31 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”

And its meaning, Daniel 2:36–45:

36 “This is the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37 You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; 38 and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. 39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 45 Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

So, all these parts of the body represent kingdoms. Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold. But the time will come when his kingdom will be replaced by another—one of silver.

Nebuchadnezzar then makes a statue like the one he saw in the dream, but entirely of gold. Magical thinking is primitive: one must make what was seen in the vision, take all the designations from the interpretation of the vision, and perform a ritual to change the plans of the “higher powers.” And since the Babylonian Empire is the golden head, now the statue must be entirely golden so that the empire will be eternal, Daniel 3:1:

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

To bring the action to completion and give it power, the culmination of the ritual was universal worship of the statue by all peoples, Daniel 3:4–5:

4 Then a herald cried aloud: “To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, 5 that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.”

Thus, worshiping what has been made in miniature should influence the original. According to the magical worldview, now “gold” will not be replaced by “silver.”

Even in our time, a similar method is widely known—the voodoo doll. An image of the person one wishes to influence is made, and whatever is done to this image will happen to the person to whom it is “tied.”

Such thinking is not foreign to modern Christians either. To influence some decision of God, one must perform certain actions before His image. One needs to place more candles before an icon—and preferably ones rolled by the petitioner himself—then there will be more grace, and thus the request will be more effective. And it does not matter at all how you live, how you confess God. What matters is knowing the special ritual and performing it correctly: the right candle is needed, a memorized (but not understood) prayer is needed; in some communities, one must stand exactly opposite the icon, and only then…

All of this is closely intertwined with the theme of the “cult of ceremonialism.”

Sometimes Christians come with some personal problem and a request to “do something spiritual for us,” expecting that now thunder will roar, the heavens will open, and they will begin to levitate from an overflow of grace. But the true God is different from the magical conception. Consider 2 Kings 5:9–15:

9 Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’ 12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13 And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.”

The Syrian king Naaman was sick with leprosy, but having learned that there was a certain man of God, Elisha, he went to him.

Upon arrival, Elisha did not even come out to Naaman himself but sent a message through a servant that he should wash in the Jordan seven times. Naaman became angry at such advice, because there should have been some ritual, yet everything turned out so simple…

As was said earlier, for magical thinking, how you live does not matter—what matters is the ritual. A similar example of “influencing through the right words” is found in the New Testament, Acts 19:13–16:

13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” 16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

The demon replies: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” The fact that you know the names, some expressions, and actions, repeating them after the apostle Paul—has no significance. It does not matter what words you know; what matters is who you are in the eyes of God.

This passage clearly shows the failure of magic: even a demon needs to know who you are, not what names and actions you know.

Sceva was not actually a high priest but an impostor. From Acts 23 we know that during the time of the apostle Paul, the high priest was Ananias, and in no Jewish or general historical source does the name Sceva appear in the list of high priests. An interesting feature is highlighted in his commentary by the Venerable Bede (735), in his Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 19:

“Sceva” is translated as “barking little fox.” This animal, exceedingly skilled in cunning and deceit, symbolizes the Jews, pagans, and heretics who are always plotting against the Church of God and raising a clamor against Her.

It should also be emphasized here how deceptive this approach is: a person only thinks that he is mastering certain “forces,” whereas in reality they are subjugating him, creating an illusion of control. In truth, evil spirits can turn against the person himself.

One cannot overlook the “magic of special places.”

Some are simply convinced that if they go to a special holy place or even undertake a pilgrimage, then everything in life will surely work out and all their prayer requests will be fulfilled.

But let us turn again to Scripture. Does everything really depend on the place, or is this a magical delusion?

In the Book of Numbers, chapter 22, there is the account of how the pagan king Balak, through his messengers, asks the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. But God directly forbids him to go and curse Israel, because the people are blessed. Balaam informs the messengers of the prohibition. Balak sends more influential messengers with promises of rich rewards. Balaam nevertheless goes with Balak’s messengers, but each time he receives an indication from God, and an angel warns him to say only what the Lord directs. Thus, instead of cursing Israel, Balaam blesses it. The pagan king Balak does not understand what is happening, for he gave valuable gifts to the prophet and he went with him. Perhaps now the issue is the place? The ritual is not being performed in the right location?

The first place of the ritual, Numbers 22:39–41:

39 So Balaam went with Balak, and they came to Kirjath Huzoth. 40 Then Balak offered oxen and sheep, and he sent to Balaam and to the princes who were with him. 41 So it was, the next day, that Balak took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of Baal, that from there he might observe the extent of the people.

But instead of the expected curses, Balak hears blessings, Numbers 23:11–12:

11 Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed them altogether.” 12 So he answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord has put in my mouth?”

Now they move to another place, hoping that it will work there, Numbers 23:13–14:

13 And Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only the outer part of them, and shall not see them all; curse them for me from there.” 14 So he brought him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

And again nothing happened. Balaam continues to speak what God puts in his mouth, Numbers 23:25–26:

25 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all!” 26 So Balaam answered and said to Balak, “Did I not tell you, saying, ‘All that the Lord speaks, that I must do’?”

Balak changes the place again, Numbers 23:27–29:

27 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you can curse them for me from there.” 28 So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland. 29 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”

Just like the pagan king Balak, some Christians seek out “special, prayer-soaked places” where supposedly all their desires will come true, not realizing that everything depends not on the place, but on God. That is why He rejects sacrifices, to remind people of the importance of true knowledge of God (Hosea 6:6).

Worship must not turn into magic according to the principle: “stand here, read this, do that, and God will surely fulfill your desire.” When faith is built on understanding God’s teaching, awareness comes: God is not a magical spirit. True connection requires personal relationship with Him, not the performance of formal rituals. For even the sacraments, when approached with a “special” method, can easily become magic. Reading a forty-day memorial service for the health only by candlelight, being baptized specifically in a cold river, and similar inventions are entirely foreign to Christian teaching.

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Every year, some poor soul of unsound mind, calling himself an Old Believer, starts acting foolish in public. Either he wanders off into the taiga, or buries himself in the ground… Those lying scare-stories, once invented to oppose the schism, are eagerly reproduced by some modern writers who portray Old Believers as half-crazy religious fanatics. It works effectively on the gullible and those prone to losing their minds. But in reality, of course, it’s all nonsense. The kerzhak-Old Believer was healthy, sober, clean, hardworking, fruitful, thought clearly, and was exceptionally disinclined toward any foolishness.

They themselves were not surprised by it. It was only later, when they had all been completely wiped out, that people began to wonder. How could they live without shouting, without orders, just by themselves? How could they raise children without beatings? How could they sow bread and reap it without commands? And how did they even think with their peasant minds?!

And since no one could understand it, they all together accused the kerzhaks of conservatism, inertia, and stubborn adherence to outdated traditions. It’s laughable to even hear. What outdated tradition?! Cleanliness, family values, and the expediency of all life? Where in Russia, one wonders, did such a thing ever exist and then become outdated?

Are there still mysteries in the old faith? Yes, of course. Old Belief is an extremely complex historical and social phenomenon. I believe we are still very, very far from a true understanding of this “peasant faith.” And my reflections are deliberately narrowed thematically—this is an attempt to show the natural-scientific aspect of Old Belief. So please do not scold me for failing to cover this or that. Others will cover it. And I will try to present what I, a physicist, think.

Why is it immediately assumed to be an atheistic view? That is completely wrong.

As a natural scientist, I spent quite a long time engaged in experimental physics. That is, in dialogue with Nature, the only creation of the Almighty accessible to us. One and the same throughout the entire Universe, with uniform laws for the most distant galaxies. With infinite complexity in both the large and the small. Such pursuits quickly instill the understanding of how insignificantly weak the human mind is. And how ridiculous is the pride of those who believe they can convey their voice to the Creator, and that their way is the only reliable one…

In the beginning was… what? The WORD? No. In the beginning was the LOGOS (as in the Greek originals). And that, in precise translation, is LAW. (Compare: geo-logy, bio-logy…) And all that is accessible to man is to follow the thought of the Creator (Newton), to comprehend Nature. The laws of the Creator, whose complexity is infinite, unfold in the process of study, and there is nothing that could change them. The Creator is not a State Duma deputy; He did not create laws in order to violate them Himself.

From a physicist’s point of view, the peasant-kerzhak was my colleague: he was in constant dialogue with the Creator, with Nature; he was the same natural investigator as I. But peasants, deprived of access to education and without means of intellectual communication with society, could record the achievements of the mind only in their way of life.

Peasant-Old Believers treated labor on the land with the same fervor and the same awe as prayer. In fact, it was a kind of prayer. The peasant comprehended the great Laws, tried to become a co-Creator, forming a family Universe. House, livestock, field—all of it was arranged in the image and likeness of God.

It is regrettable that the “cultured” part of Russian society looked upon the peasantry with contempt, upon their life—as darkness, backwardness, savagery, and folly.

“They, the demons, are swarming all around, you just don’t see them! At night they look for unwashed dishes, and all sorts of dirt. There they have full freedom, the demons. And they get married, and hold weddings, and give birth to little demons. And if you eat from such dishes, they’ll jump into your mouth and ruin you.” Well, replace the word “demons” with “microbes.” And think: these ideas arose no later than the 15th century. And the “dark, backward” schismatic woman who spoke these words somewhere in the 17th century was far ahead of all Europe, which had not yet created the science of hygiene. Our schismatics, in the time of Catherine II, knew how to resist even the plague, though they did not know the word “quarantine.”

I believe that the strongest alloy of natural-scientific, moral-ethical, organizational, and dogmatic principles was the result of a collective brainstorming, literally a national intellectual feat, later called the peasant faith, ancient Orthodoxy. More precisely, a part of it, and only in the form accessible to the intellect of the 17th century. Through the efforts of the ideologists of the schism, folk knowledge, as sociologists say, was verbalized and rationalized: turned into a coherent worldview. And at least in that form, the intellectual achievements of our ancestors became known to society. Without the schism, no one would have known.

A significant part of the cultural heritage of the kerzhaks has already been lost, since their way of life is lost, and the intellectual achievements of peasants are still valued at nothing. Because what is ordinary and familiar often seems simple…

Here’s such a simple phrase: the peasant sowed rye. What’s interesting about that?! Well, a peasant. Well, he sowed. And rye—who doesn’t know it? Yet in these three words there are two historical riddles. Let’s start with rye. More precisely, with winter rye. This plant played a huge role in the history of Russia. There is not a drop of exaggeration here.

Winter rye is a weed by origin, everywhere considered merely an ineradicable admixture in wheat. Rye survived in the most unfavorable years, when the main crop perished. And black rye bread was considered the bread of famine years. In the ancient Russian states, winter rye was sown only in the Novgorod lands, the coldest ones, where wheat simply did not ripen. It was precisely through the cultivation of rye that the great northern peasant—the Novgorod peasant—arose, creating what is called the fallow system of agriculture.

Sown in mid-August, rye rises with the autumn rains and sends its roots down to a depth of up to 1 meter; no weeds can trouble it anymore. Rye cleanses and ennobles the soil, coping even with such a villain of fields and gardens as couch grass. It is also important that rye seed does not need to be stored all winter long, protected from rotting, freezing, or rodents. Thus, rye is simply ideal for sowing on newly cultivated lands. It was precisely with rye that our peasant crossed the Urals and Siberia, laying the foundation for life across those vast expanses. Without their own bread, no one could have lived there. The Urals are the zone of the northernmost seed crop production in the world.

Rye, capable of growing even on the poorest and—what is very important—acidic soils (and that is exactly what we have), dramatically increases its yield when manure is applied. If you want a good harvest—keep livestock. Rye sharply boosts productivity when sown precisely at the right time. Not earlier and not later. “Prepare to die, but sow the rye,” the peasants used to say.

Since ripe rye sheds its grain very quickly, it is reaped in the waxy stage—that is, at incomplete ripeness. If cut too early, the grain will be thin, the yield lower, the germination poorer. If delayed—the grain will shatter. So rye is the highest peasant piloting skill; it demands mastery, responsibility, and enormous experience accumulated over generations. And also a certain level of prosperity. A poor man without a proper household will never get a good harvest. In our parts, only the kerzhaks—Old Believers—knew how to grow rye properly.

They also actively used what was called “roshcha,” that is, the same rye, immediately after harvesting moistened and sprouted in the dark. Wheat, right after harvesting, cannot be sprouted that way; it requires vernalization, that is, cold treatment. After all, wheat is supposed to sprout in spring, not in autumn! In this sense, rye is simply beyond competition.

It was rye, for centuries, that formed the basis of the economic independence of the kerzhaks. Roshcha was historically the first—and still unsurpassed—raw material for moonshine. The Vyatka ancestors of the Perm peasants were the creators, and later the main suppliers, of this raw material. The state monopoly on distilling in Russia would tighten or loosen from time to time, but the peasants were always with their own. In our Perm province, moreover, right next door was Udmurtia, where they always distilled their own kumyshka, no matter how many times it was forbidden. The benefit was twofold. First, there was always a market for rye. Second, being fierce abstainers, the kerzhaks themselves did not drink vodka or moonshine; instead they drank rye kvass and braga made from roshcha. These were everyday drinks, liquid bread.

Just think about it: a drink from sprouted grain—every single day! Modern science presents as a sensation that sprouting grain, its sprouts and roots, are enriched with biologically active substances; they are strongly recommended for children’s nutrition as well as for restorative diets. Yet the kerzhaks consumed this unique product—for centuries, every day… Is it not from here that the famous kerzhak fertility and seething vitality come?

Rye still fills its ears in our fields every summer, but most of the other elements of the traditional peasant way of life have now been lost. This includes, for example, such a subtle matter as the moral-psychological and organizational foundations of the Old Believer community. There was no shortage of astonishing things there.

An outsider, if allowed into a peasant izba, would see crowding: so little space in the house, yet so many people. The man himself with his wife, and the old woman, and however many children—four or maybe eight. Yet it was not crowded! And there is nothing surprising in that. After all, fingers on a hand are not crowded, are they? So too the family was not crowded. The house was the dwelling of a single many-headed being—the kerzhak family. Everyone had their place. Day and night, at prayer and at table. Just like fingers on a hand.

As soon as a child could stand on his own two feet from the cradle, they would put him in the round dance at a holiday. The little person would grab hold of his sisters and brothers, and from then on they could never be separated for the rest of his life. And there was work for everyone to do. And each one knew and saw for himself what needed doing. And if fate carried someone far from kin (to soldier’s service, for instance)—they would write a letter at the first opportunity. One is amazed today, reading those letters. Practically the entire letter consists of greetings and bows. “We bow to you, sister Maremyana, from our white face down to the damp earth…” And then more greetings and bows to all the family, from the old grandfather to the infant in the cradle. “And does our dear uncle Aleksey Filimonovich come to us? Give him my greeting too.”

In Russian artistic literature there has always been a certain perplexity: just where is folk wisdom located? Strangely enough, modern information technologies provide substantial help in understanding this. Namely, the concept of “distributed knowledge.” Modern computer networks are distributed databases—that is, a collection of relatively low-powered computers united into enormous systems. Our Russian intellectuals could never understand why no single peasant gives the impression of being a great sage, yet the wisdom of the people somehow exists?! And that is precisely the informational power of the network.

Look: in Russia the authorities persecuted Old Believers for centuries as best they could. The diaspora—whether in the Baltics, Canada, or Brazil—lived as it wished. In Russia, people of Old Believer origin form a constellation of brilliant names among merchants, entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists… The Ryabushinskys, the Morozovs, the Tretyakovs are well known. In our parts—masses of merchants, brilliant inventors at the Demidov factories, the very creators of the steam locomotive, the Cherepanov brothers, and so on.

The greatest economist, Nobel Prize laureate Vasiliy Vasilyevich Leontyev (lived in the USA from 1930. All his life he dreamed of making Russia happy, but Russia did not want it.) Grandfather—an Old Believer peasant; father already a St. Petersburg merchant.

Ivan Yefremov, the famous science-fiction writer, thinker, major paleontologist. His grandfather, Khariton Yefremov, from the Volga Old Believers, was taken into the Semenovsky regiment for his stature, ended up in St. Petersburg, and stayed there. Ivan’s father was already a respectable merchant. And Ivan, with all the kerzhak energy and indescribable giftedness, went off into completely different fields of activity.

Whom did the foreign Old Believer diaspora produce? Seemingly no one.

Collectivization destroyed the very foundations of traditional peasant life, including Old Believer life… The destruction of kerzhakdom will be understood for a long time yet. And it will not be understood until the minds of those who understand are cleansed of arrogance. Of the certainty that they themselves, educated people, are of course on a higher level of development compared to these bast-shoe toilers. That the hierarchical pyramid of one person’s subordination to another, and of many people to one—sometimes established by force, sometimes with blood—is the constantly progressing form of Russian life. Atomized by individualism and armed with personal freedom, Western society is seen as an utterly unattainable ideal. Whereas family concord and the community built upon it are archaic, antediluvian—in a word, primitive.

This arrogance has become so deeply rooted in the minds of domestic thinkers that neither centuries of economic success nor a people healthy in body, mind, and morals convince them. A people capable of instantly rising to the level of any intellectual achievement of humanity, mastering it, developing it, and adapting it to themselves. The doom of “archaism” raises no doubts in anyone. And the fact that in Russia it was finally destroyed is seen in such a context as a sad but inevitable affair. They say the old always perishes when it collides with the new.

In reality, what perished was a complex, subtle system of human relationships, centuries of social experience in self-government.

This structure was destroyed by something far cruder, primitively cannibalistic. Well, such things have happened in history before. And the fact that the village land has become depopulated, the people have gone wild, degenerated, and perished—there is nothing new in that either. There are many places on earth where only the wind blows sand across the ruins of vanished civilizations, and somewhere even the ruins are no longer known, buried deep under the sand.

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To Ivan, the first servant, a new son among the children of the Church, from which all are born through the font of holy baptism—in it you too desired to be baptized with holy baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

On the fact that the Orthodox faith leads to baptism voluntarily. Remember yourself that no torments, nor any threat, compelled you to this. But you yourself, of your own will, having seen that our Orthodox faith in Christ God is immaculate and pure, desired to be baptized and to be equal with us, Orthodox Christians.

On the time of baptism. And this happened to you not in infancy, but at a mature age, and not many years ago, but recently.

On the renunciation of Satan. And therefore you must and need to remember how you stretched out your hands and renounced Satan, and all his angels, and all his works.

On the renunciation of heresies. After that you renounced the heretics and heresies that distorted the Orthodox faith: from the accursed Formosus and the nasal Peter, and Martin Luther, and from the others who followed them, their teaching, and their works. From all of them you renounced.

On evil works. Now remember and do not forget what the satanic works are, from which you renounced: pride, haughtiness, falsehood, flattery, perjury, heresy, sorcery, deceit, envy, uncleanness, fornication, theft, robbery, and every malice, and impurity, and the rest.

On forgetting the heresies you formerly held. Of those evil heretics from whom you renounced at holy baptism, do not recall them; after the renunciation, do not heed their teaching. And do not return your thoughts to them anymore, and always avoid their heresies, so as to forget them. And if your former life comes to mind—how you lived in Poland, and here with your masters—and the teaching on faith of those heretics: Formosus and Peter and Martin—know that they are enemies of God and murderers of men. Such is the renunciation from those heretics and from their heresies.

On the promise to Christ at baptism. You must and need to remember how you, looking to the East, stretched out your hands and promised Christ to love Him, and to do His works, and always to fulfill His commandments and precepts, which the Lord God Jesus Christ Himself gave us in the Gospel, and as He commanded His holy disciples the apostles to teach. And how He confirmed this through the seven councils of the holy fathers.

Praise to the one who has been baptized. Know that you have done a good deed and, truly, you are now born; you have washed your body and cleansed your soul. You have left those who gave you birth and come to know the One who created you. You have fled from darkness and, having received light, drawn near to God.

On drawing near to God. Listen, remembering, and consider, understanding, by what means you have drawn near to God. Because you were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and have now given a promise to Christ through holy baptism, you are a servant of God and one promised to Christ. Do not depart from Him by your works, for the sake of your promise and for the sake of your deeds. And God will draw near to you, and you will be God’s.

How to gain a good name and inherit grace. If you want to be God’s, always keep God in your heart and act everywhere according to righteousness. Do not fight, do not steal, do not lie. Be humble and have love for every person. And in the house of your master be obedient and faithful in everything, good and not cunning, and not lazy in doing good. Thus you will acquire all that is good and inherit every grace.

On wisdom. If you want to seek wisdom and have good understanding, and to adorn your character, study books and the reading of divine words, and the teaching of His saints; and then you will see them, for the human soul is honored above the whole world. For the wealth of the whole world is perishable and mortal, but the soul is immortal.

On the soul. If you understand that your soul is immortal, then you will comprehend the true Orthodox faith, in which the prophets rejoiced, the apostles took pride, all the faithful rejoiced, the hierarchs were adorned, the martyrs were crowned.

On the right faith. Now the word is about it. And I tell you, such is this Orthodox faith, that in that faith people living on earth are united in love with the heavenly angels, conversing with them and glorifying and singing to God; and after the departure of their souls to God, they work great miracles: they give sight to the blind, heal the lame and paralyzed, restore the demon-possessed, and cure every infirmity and disease.

On the saints. Such, as I say, were among the hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Clement pope of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Peter, Alexis, and Jonah of Moscow; among the venerable fathers—Sergius of Radonezh, Cyril of Belozersk, Varlaam of Khutyn. And many such, their number and names only God knows.

On the food of the saints. Do not be surprised at this and do not think it is a lie, that by human prayer sight was granted to the blind and every infirmity and disease was healed. For their life too is not human, since they endure as though bodiless. Their food is bread and water, and they eat rarely and little. One eats every other day, another every two days, another every week, another every two weeks, and another eats nothing for forty days. And another does not eat bread, only grass and roots.

On the clothing of the saints. They also take no care for clothing; barefoot and naked they endure the heat of the sun and the frost of winter, and every wandering over the earth, over wood and over stone.

On the prayer of the saints. Their prayer to God is also always unceasing. Day and night they stand like an unshakable pillar. They sleep only a little on the ground. Such is the faith and love of the saints for God.

On the prayer of the laity. For us who live now, it is impossible to endure such labor; therefore the holy fathers established church rules for us. They also commanded prayer at home: according to each person’s strength they established and commanded to pray. And without the church rule and without home prayer it is impossible to be an Orthodox Christian, and it is not permitted.

On the church rule. The church rule consists of vespers with compline, matins with midnight office, the hours with the liturgy.

At what time what chant is to be sung. Listen, then, why the holy fathers established in the church when to sing what chant—vespers or compline, midnight office or matins, the hours or the liturgy, or a moleben—and understand this:

On vespers. Vespers is commanded to be sung because the Lord allowed us to pass the day from morning to evening in health. It also foretells and anticipates the evening.

On compline. Compline is commanded to be sung and to pray to God, that He may grant us to pass the night without fear and to perform the night prayers as the faithful.

On the midnight office. The midnight office is sung because at midnight God will come to judge the living and the dead, the righteous and the sinners, and to render to each according to his deeds.

On matins. Matins is commanded to be sung because in the deep morning, that is, very early, Christ our God rose from the dead and granted eternal life to all the faithful.

On the hours.

The first hour is to be sung to glorify Him who gave light, who created day and night, and who, by His great mercy, illumined us with the light of day.

The third hour is to be sung because at that hour the Lord sent from the Father His Holy Ghost upon His holy disciples and apostles, and then they began to speak in strange tongues.

The sixth hour is to be sung because at that hour our Lord Jesus Christ, of His own will, was crucified in the flesh for our sins. At that same hour Adam was created, and by the serpent’s deception he was deprived of his likeness. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ suffered in the flesh at that hour, to deliver us from death in sin.

The ninth hour is to be sung because at that hour the Lord gave up His spirit to the Father and suffered in the flesh on the cross, remaining God. He died in the flesh for the sake of those in Hades and destroyed the kingdom of Hades. And on the third day He rose and raised up with Himself all the faithful dead.

On the liturgy. The holy liturgy is celebrated—this is a great and ineffable mystery. Then angels invisibly serve together with the priests. Then, like our Lord Jesus Christ, the invisible Lamb is slain and given as food to the faithful, for deliverance and cleansing from sins. It is enough to speak of this here: in the proper place and at another time you will find writing about it. For now this is sufficient.

On molebens. Molebens are sung whenever anyone wishes, early or late, by day or by night, in the morning or in the evening, for there is no prohibition by time: just as wherever they meet a king, there they entreat him, so understand this.

On the church rule. Here is the word to you about the church rule. Attend to it and learn the good customs of true piety. And [listen to] teachings about morals and words, and about the good deeds of people. And about good servants, not evil ones.

On the church. Listen about the church itself—how to think of it, how to enter it, and how to stand in it. For our holy fathers called the Church of God an earthly Heaven and the Bride of Christ, and the House of God. Because God dwells here in it, and to Him all the faithful come here, and from Him they ask mercy and forgiveness of sins. And they receive it if they ask with undoubting faith.

Further on the church. Listen diligently to this and do not consider this church a mere house, for it is sprinkled with the blood of Christ and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Therefore let nothing unclean be in it: neither beast nor any other defilement may enter it. But if ever they enter through negligence or for some other reason, then the priest sprinkles it with holy water and prayer, so that it may remain clean and holy. Hear my words, for you are newly enlightened; you will not be able to understand all this yourself unless you hear it from someone. And for this reason I have now written to you a little about Christian customs, so that you may be faithful to them and come to know God within yourself. For good has been done to you, not evil.

On foreign faiths. There is indeed the Latin faith and the German faith, and the faith in which you once believed. But these faiths are incorrect and untrue, distorted by evil people, impious heretics. Therefore I have written to you about the Divinity Himself and about His Church, also about prayer to Him and about fasting. Attend to this.

On the temples of the unbelievers. There are indeed churches among the Latins and among the Germans, and in Poland. But they are not sanctified nor arranged as the holy fathers and the divine apostles commanded; rather, evil heretics have plundered and stripped all their church beauty and taken away all honor. They do not even consecrate the church, nor place a cross on it, nor bring holy icons into it, nor adorn it with them. And though they gather books of divine words in it, they do not honor them, and by this they dishonor it. In short, their church is entirely deprived of every church adornment. There is no voice in it to proclaim the true path with words. They do not sing stichera, nor chant canons, nor proclaim ikoi. Lamps, theotokia, and staurotheotokia are not proclaimed. Holy and sacred doxologies never occur in it.

On the Christian Church. Among us in Orthodox Christianity there is the holy, immaculate, apostolic Church, which is sanctified by divine and sacred-bearing men, adorned and perfected by the preachings of the holy apostles, and filled with every good thing. Therefore learn how to approach it, how to enter it, how to stand in it, and how to pray in it.

On approaching the church. Now learn this to guard against: when you approach the church, do not hasten to enter it. Stand outside at the doors and question your conscience—what happened to you in sleep or waking, from demonic disturbance, fantasy, and deception—and whether, while going, you thought of any fornication or uncleanness. If so, then do not enter the church, but stand outside like Adam before the gates of Paradise, and know that the enemy separates you from the Church.

On the same. If you bear enmity or are greatly angry with someone, do not enter it either until the enmity subsides and your conscience is reconciled.

On the same. Even if you have guarded yourself from the uncleanness of demonic fantasy, still do not enter the church quickly. Bow three times, looking at the deesis, and say with the first bow: “God, be merciful…”, with the second: “God, cleanse…”, with the third: “Thou who hast created me…”. Then turn to all four sides and bow to the people standing here, saying to them: “Forgive me, fathers and brethren”, and so enter the church.

On entering the church. Entering the church with fear and trembling, recognize yourself as sinful and unworthy to enter it. For you enter the earthly Heaven, where you are to pray to your Creator and our God, and think as though you stand in Heaven. Think of nothing earthly, but only sigh, praying for your sins.

On standing in the church. Stand in one place, quietly and humbly; do not push anyone, do not crowd without extreme need. And having stood, also make three bows as I told you before, with the same words—“God, be merciful…”.

On bows. If there is no feast, not on Saturday nor on Sunday, make all bows to the ground; but on a feast, on Saturday, and on Sunday, make bows to the waist. Then say: “It is truly meet…”, all to the end, and a bow to the ground—even if on a feast, Saturday, or Sunday—then “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”, also with three bows as before.

On bows to people. Then bow to the four sides to the people standing around you and say to them the same as before: “Forgive me, fathers and brethren”. And bow to the waist, not to the ground.

On [spiritual] authority. If spiritual authority happens to be present anywhere, always bow to the ground before bowing to people and say: “Forgive me, holy father, and bless, and pray for me, a sinner”. Say this to yourself, not aloud.

On entering the church. Entering the church, as though finding Noah’s Ark, you have escaped the flood of sin. And stand worthily as in Heaven itself. And behold, you are joined to the Heavenly Powers.

On standing in the church. Stand meekly and humbly, turn your face to the image of Christ and make prayer to Him unceasingly, keeping it on your lips.

On the prayer to God. Say the prayer to Christ thus: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Say it to yourself, not aloud, for people.

On the prayer to the Cross. When you see the image of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord, say: “We bow to Thy Cross, O Master, and glorify Thy holy resurrection”, and bow to the Cross.

On the prayer to the Most Holy God-bearer. When you see the image of the Most Holy God-bearer, also direct your mind to her prototype, to our Lady the God-bearer herself. Say: “Most holy Lady Mistress God-bearer, have mercy on me and save me, and pray to Thy Son, our true God, that He may save and have mercy on me, a sinner.”

On the prayer to John the Forerunner. When you look at the image of John the Forerunner, direct your thoughts to him, saying: “Holy John, prophet and forerunner, baptist of the Lord, pray to Christ our Savior God that He may save and have mercy on us sinners.”

On the saints. When you look at the image of any saint, say: “Holy [prophet or apostle or other saint named] of God, pray to Christ our God that He may save and have mercy on me, a sinner.”

On the prayer of the saints to God. For all the saints pray to God for us, and God has mercy and saves us through His saints, always being merciful to their prayers for sinners.

On prayer where there is no image. Understand this also: if you have special faith in any saint or particularly honor his memory, even if you do not see his image, still call upon him to pray to God and invoke him as your helper by his holy name. And so God will help you in sorrows and illnesses and in every trouble.

On faith in the saints. Even if you sin in something, but fervently believe in some saint. Also call upon the Most Pure Mother of God herself everywhere, to entreat Her Son and our God—even if you do not see Her image. Likewise make prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself always and everywhere. Not only in church, but on the way, at home, in bed, as I told you before.

On standing in the church. When you have already taken your place in the church, do not look around here and there; do not even leave your place, remember the place where you stand, do not move to another unless by extreme need or because of crowding or to honor some person. And then firmly take hold of your laziness: do not move one foot from the other, do not lean against the wall or pillar. If you see someone doing something incorrectly, do not condemn him, for he is unlearned. And if you yourself correct yourself, do not be proud, for God does not love pride. Do not let your body relax, nor give yourself to the vanity of this world; only listen to the singing and attend to the reading. And if you hear some word and cannot understand it, ask those who know after the service.

On what kinds of bows there are. Understand what I wrote to you earlier: what the church is, why to go there, and how to stand in it. Now listen to these words of mine. There are three bows with names: the first is called the ordinary bow, that is, from the chest to the navel; the second is the middle bow, that is, to the waist; the third bow is the great one, that is, to the ground. When it happens to make prostrations to the ground, do not strike your head against the church floor or the ground, nor in the house either. Bend your knees and lower your head low, but do not press it to the ground; rather lead both your hands together from the heart and place them neatly on the ground, without sticking out your elbows. And when you rise or bow, do not drag or stamp your feet. Also bend and raise your knees together. Learn this from those who know and be taught by the learned. About waist and chest bows, you should bow well—that I do not write to you.

On prostrations to the ground. Remember that at festal vespers, or vespers on Friday, or on Saturday, or on Sunday, there are no prostrations to the ground, only to the waist. At the dismissal, and also at the words “the very God-bearer [from It is truly meet]…”, there is always a prostration to the ground. Likewise on compline and at the zadostoinik there is a prostration to the ground; the others are to the waist.

On forgiveness. When there is the forgiveness, the priest says: “Christ the true…”, say to yourself: Amen. The priest bows to the people standing there, and you also bow to the ground with forgiveness. When the priest rises and says the commemoration, and then makes three prostrations to the ground before the royal doors, then you also bow three times to the ground, and at each bow say as usual, as I told you before: “God, be merciful…” and the rest. The priest says: “Bless, fathers and brethren”, and you also bow to him, and rising say to him: “May God forgive thee, honorable father”, and then bow to the ground, whatever the day may be, saying before him thus: “Forgive me, father…”, all to the end. And the priest answers: “By His grace…”. Do the same at the midnight office and at the dismissal. And after the hours before the liturgy, according to the same custom.

This is also called the threefold forgiveness, for every Christian as a confession of his sins. And remember this.

On bows at the liturgy. When you begin to hear the liturgy—and about the beginning it was told you before—now I will tell you how and where to bow. Make the beginning according to the custom told you, and stand with fear as before Christ our King Himself, and listen to the holy singing. When the priest comes out with the Gospel, bow saying: “Lord Jesus Christ…”. When they sing “Glory to Thee, O Lord”—a bow; after the Gospel—a bow. At the litany of supplication, at each petition three bows—for the tsar and tsaritsa and their children, and for the hierarch, and for the whole church clergy, and for all Christians. And if it seems too many to you, at least make one waist bow at each petition, and if there is no feast, it is good to make them to the ground. At the transfer, at the words “…may the Lord God remember…”, three prostrations to the ground. But on a feast, on Saturday, and on Sunday—one to the ground and two to the waist. At the “I believe…” cross yourself without a bow and listen. At the “It is truly meet…” and after “It is truly meet…” always prostrations to the ground—even on a feast, Saturday, and Sunday. After “Our Father…” a waist bow. At “With the fear of God…” always a bow, at “And now…” a bow. At “Blessed be the name…” three bows, and all the bows from “It is truly meet…” according to the day. At the dismissal after “It is truly meet…” a prostration to the ground, even on a feast. “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”. Then three bows as at the beginning, as I told you earlier, and so on. At compline and at the hours the bows are according to discernment, depending on the day—at the “Glories” in the Psalter and at the litanies, and at the Trisagion, and at “Our Father…”, and at “Come, let us worship…” three bows each, according to discernment, looking at the day. Remember all this and watch those who know.

On standing before the icons. Stand before the image of Christ and before the Most Pure One and His saints with all humility and self-abasement. And pray fervently, and hold undoubting faith in your heart.

On icons. For if any of the Orthodox stands before the image of Christ or the God-bearer with faith and humility, he will receive what he asks. Because where the image is, there is the grace of Him who is depicted.

On a sign from an image. I know from writings of such a man who, looking at the image of the Most Pure God-bearer, saw a human face unspeakably shining, so that he could not call it human, but the light from that face shone beyond human understanding.

On miracles from icons. Likewise from writings I found about miracles from the image of the God-bearer: sometimes a voice comes from the image of Christ, likewise from the image of the God-bearer; sometimes tears, sometimes fragrant myrrh flows from dry wood. And of those miracles there is an countless multitude. For those who pray with faith the blind received sight, the lame walked, the paralyzed were healed, the demon-possessed were made chaste, and those suffering every disease were cured.

Understand rightly: I do not tell you that the image does this, but the Prototype Himself, He whose image it is. He Himself acts through His image for the sake of the faith of the one praying. Understand and comprehend this.

On molebens. When they sing a moleben in church or at home, then one should strive to stand with all heartfelt contrition and pray and ask, for that prayer is called supplication and thanksgiving. Therefore I spoke to you before about the same: a moleben is sung at any time, late and early. At each ode three bows, and you listen standing. When the priest sings “Save from troubles…” or “Preserve…” and bows three times, you also bow with the priest, depending on the day, as I told you before. When the Gospel is read, also bow before and after.

On hearing the Gospel. Hear it with understanding and attend diligently: this is the word of Christ’s most pure lips, by whom all things were created. By Him we also live and die, which means we depart to Him.

On how to venerate the Gospel. When you want to venerate the Gospel, then with all your soul and conscience consider whether you are worthy, and that there be no uncleanness in your body or your clothes. Also leave all evil and cunning thoughts and understand why you venerate it. For when Moses received the law from God and gave it to the Israelites, they, having heard, said: we will do as God told us and showed us. Likewise here understand and submit to the word of God and promise to do as you heard in the Gospel. Venerate the Gospel: to the crucifixion that is in the middle of the Gospel [on the cover]; kiss the evangelist that is below on the right side, but do not kiss the crucifixion. And going back to your place, bow to the priest who read the Gospel and say: “I believe, O Lord, in the holy Gospel; Christ God, help me and save my soul”, and read the Jesus prayer.

On “It is truly meet…” at molebens. When they sing “It is truly meet…” or “Mistress…”, always a prostration to the ground. And crush your heart with humility. It is good if someone weeps then.

On the litany. When they say the litany, that is, when the priest or deacon prays, you also pray for the petitions, as I told you: for the tsar and for the patriarch, and for all Christendom.

On the censer. When the priest or deacon brings the censer with incense, spread your hands as though receiving the spirit of life, and say the Jesus prayer, for this is called the censing of the life of good deeds. Thus also prayer ascends to God. Of this David writes in the psalms: “Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee; the lifting up of my hands…”

Dismissal. And at the dismissal, when you approach the cross, examine your conscience to see if you are worthy. And when the priest blesses you with the cross, kiss the foot of the cross, that is, the hand of the priest holding the cross. And returning to your place, bow to the priest. To the cross say: “I believe, O Lord, and worship Thy life-giving Cross, for on it Thou hast wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.” And so, waiting until they sing the dismissal, you go to the house of your master in peace. And always guard against leaving the church singing before the dismissal, except only in extreme need or when your master sends. Also keep the beginning of the singing.

On the spiritual father. Honor priests everywhere, but above all your own spiritual father. If you have no spiritual father, choose and call one, and do not live without him. For it is written in our Christian law: whoever lives in the world and has no spiritual father is not a Christian. And again: woe to that man living in the world if he dies without having a spiritual father. It would have been better for him not to have been born.

On the rank of priesthood. Great is the priestly rank, for it is the apostolic inheritance. Because to them is given authority from God over human souls, which they can bind and loose. Therefore many names are given to the priestly rank: Purifier; Mediator to God; Light of the world; Salt of the earth; Guide to the lost; Teacher of the unwise; Watchman and Shepherd of the rational sheep of Christ’s flock; Hidden House; Priest of the offering; Spiritual Trumpet; Source of living water; Mouth of God giving peace to the world; Helmsman; Eye of the church; Keeper of the door of birth and the rest. And you, knowing this, do not live without him.

On the remission of sins. If you have sinned or will sin in anything before God, and coming to your spiritual father you confess, he will be your mediator to God and will loose the sins that bind you. And without him no one can free himself. Even if you intend to do good deeds, first receive blessing from him, as though receiving a charter and seal from the ruling king and taking up arms.

On the priestly blessing. Receive the blessing as honor and joy. It is the crosswise overshadowing of his hand with the cross upon your forehead, upon your chest, then upon the right shoulder and the left. Having received the blessing, kiss his hand. And if he does not give his hand, entreat him to give it to you to kiss. Did I not tell you that great is the Cross, and great is the power of the Life-giving Cross, by which you also shield yourself.

On the cross we wear. It is not without reason, but full of great mystery: when you fold the thumb, called the finger, with the two smaller ones, the last and the penultimate, this signifies the image of the mystery and the pre-eternal essence of the indivisible Trinity: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And when you fold the middle finger with the index finger bent, it signifies the two natures in one person, Divinity and Humanity; therefore they are placed on the forehead and brought down to the chest and to the navel, and this signifies that God the Word descended to earth and was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and lived with men on earth, and suffered for us and for our salvation; the placing on the right shoulder signifies that He ascended into the heavens and sat at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come a second time to earth to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his deeds. It also points to the Kingdom of Heaven for those who in the day of the Dread Judgment will stand on the right; and when you move your hand to the left shoulder, this shows that sinners will stand on the left and be sent into eternal torment. Having made the sign of the cross, straighten your hand and so bow.

On the imperfect cross. Therefore watch yourself that all is depicted correctly. First the Trinity, also the two natures, the descent, and the placing of the hand on the forehead and lowering to the chest. If anyone does not depict this correctly, he does not confess the indivisible Trinity. Also the placing on the forehead and to the navel. The body signifies the image of God, and the navel signifies the footstool of the Lord, the head of Adam. If anyone does not show this earnestly, he does not confess the incarnation of God the Word. Also, if anyone by laziness and negligence does not bring his hand to the right shoulder or the left, he does not confess the indivisible Trinity and the Judge of the living and the dead. Therefore beware and do not grow lazy in bringing your hand to the right shoulder and to the left.

On the same. Remember and do not forget the cross. That you cross not your clothing but your body: for this you are overshadowed with the cross. Apply your hand distinctly so that your body clearly feels it.

From the perfect cross the demons tremble. If anyone makes the cross and depicts it as the holy apostles and holy fathers bequeathed, the demons greatly fear and tremble at him and flee far from him. But whoever depicts it not as it should be, the demons rejoice at him and entice him with every temptation. Such is the sign of the Life-bearing Cross of the Lord.

Why we bow to the Cross. When you bow, this signifies Adam’s transgression and the accomplishment of repentance, and the raising up to the original incorruption. From this also man bows to man, because in him is the image of God, and according to the image of God he was created.

On the neck cross. Listen about the cross that you wear on your shoulders: remember your agreement between you and Christ Himself. When you came out of the font of Baptism, then you promised to be a servant of Christ and bowed to His Crucifixion, that is, to Christ’s Cross, and were signed with it, and received the cross from the priest’s hands, and hung it on your shoulders, and so accepted Christ’s covenant. And you promised Christ to follow this covenant according to the Gospel, as it is written: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me; he is not worthy of me.” You took the Cross, promised to follow Christ. Remember then to bear on your body the image of Christ’s Cross, on which He of His own will suffered for our salvation. Here is God’s covenant to you, here is the sign of Christ the King. Here is the banner of the heavenly hosts. By it they will know that thou art a servant of Christ. And if anyone asks you—“What is this?”—tell him as it is written: “I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” And when someone says to you: “Who commanded this, and where is it written?”—tell him that the Lord commanded to bear the Cross. When He went to voluntary suffering, He bequeathed to us who believed in Him to bear the Cross, as the divine apostle Luke says: “They took one Simon of Cyrene, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.” Then also the wise thief through the cross entered Paradise. And if anyone blasphemes the cross, depart from him quickly, and know that he is an unbeliever. For when people inquire much about divine things, they have pride in their heart. And God departs from such a one, and he goes down to hell, for he tries to know what is above him, but does not keep what is given to him.

On offerings to the church. Listen about when you bring what offering to the church of God. From yourself—what you have—a candle or prosphora, or something else from your possessions. For the gathering for prayerful service—either kutia or incense. Or for the divine service for the Divine Mysteries—grape wine, or a book for the enlightenment of the Divine Church, or something else. And all this is great good.

That what you bring be your own, not another’s. You should take care that whatever offering from us be honest, that is, gained by your own labor, not stolen by you, not obtained by any cunning.

That it be new, not old. That it be new, not old; the best, not the last or spoiled; that it be offered from love, without noise and without publicity—for God loves a cheerful giver in quietness.

Not to take anything from the church, since all is royal. See that you take nothing from the church to the house: neither church vessels, nor priestly vestments, nor candles lit in the church for your own need, for these are dedicated to God.

On the canon. When you receive communion or when you sing a canon for health or for repose, remember that you be worthy.

On the prosphora. When you consume the prosphora, taking it from the priest after the liturgy, remember how to use it: with all caution, standing not sitting; and spread a clean cloth, and consume over it. Or over the table, or over something clean, so that by your negligence crumbs do not fall and be trampled. That bread is holy, and remember how you should consume the prosphora. And it would be good for you before it on that day to sing the whole church rule, and so taking eat it. Also beware of defilement before that day.

On feasts. The feasts of Christ and of the God-bearer, and of the holy apostles, and martyrs, and hierarchs celebrate with a pure soul and undefiled conscience, with righteousness and love to God and to men. Not with malice and cunning, not with rudeness and gluttony, not with drunkenness. And do not mock.

End of the tale on the church rule. Here is to you in brief a certain tale on what is most necessary for people living in the world. If you learn this, you yourself will understand more than this, for by this writing I have given you the small and necessary, as to a newborn infant.

Beginning of the word on the home rule. Listen about the home rule: how you, rising early from your bed, should pray to God.

On rising from sleep. When you wake, cross your face three times with the Jesus prayer, and so rise. And do what is usual, and wash with water.

On prayer. Stand in the house before the image of Jesus Christ, and standing say first of all: “Bless, Father.” Then always bow three times to the ground and at each bow say: 1. “God, be merciful…”, 2. “O Lord who created me…”, 3. “Without number have I sinned…”. Then say, standing before the image: “Glory to Thee, O our God, glory to Thee, Source of life, glory to Thee. To Thee glory is due forever, amen.” Then “Through the prayers of our holy fathers…”, “O Heavenly King…”, the Trisagion three times with the usual bows, and for whoever wishes, prostrations to the ground are not forbidden, depending on the day. After “Our Father…”—“Lord, have mercy” 12 times; then “Glory…, and now…” and “Come, let us worship…”; if you know it, read “Having risen from sleep…” [and if not, omit it for your ignorance, later you will learn and read]. After “Come, let us worship…” the 50th psalm, and “I believe in one God…”. And then 100 Jesus prayers and 12 bows with the Jesus prayer. Then “It is truly meet…”, as I taught you before. Then “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”, “Through the prayers of Thy most pure Mother and all the saints…”. And then with prayer bow for the sovereign tsar and for your master, and for your mistress, and then for whomever you wish. Learn: here is your morning rule, for every day, rising from sleep.

On prayer before the meal. After that, the second rule: when you want to taste bread, by no means do this simply and silently, like an unbeliever, godless and ungrateful. But do everything according to the Christian law. Read “Our Father” all to the end, then “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”. Then read the Jesus prayer and cross your face. And eat the bread and other food with which Christ feeds us.

On sitting at table. Take care not to sit down at table in agitation and to begin eating with thanksgiving whatever is set before you. Do not reproach anyone in anything. Do not play with food, do not laugh; beware lest some crumb stick in your throat and you choke, for this often happens. Also at the meal think of no evil deeds, nothing cunning or unclean, for with food an evil and cunning thought enters. And such a thing brings destruction to soul and body. Remember also the food of Judas: it is written in the Gospel that with the bread Satan entered into Judas, and he betrayed the Lord to crucifixion.

On prayer after the meal. When you rise from the table, give glory to Him who fed you and say: “It is truly meet…”, all to the end, “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”. Then the Jesus prayer. And bow with prayer: for your master who feeds and clothes you and cares for you. And then bow to your master and mistress and say: “God save thee”; likewise to the others.

On drinking. If you begin to drink anything, do not hasten to pour it into your mouth, lest what you have already taken come out of you. But lean to the vessel and look whether there is any dirt or hair in it, lest it harm your health and trouble your stomach, and lest what was eaten come back out defiled, lest sudden illness weaken you. And when you see that the drink is clean, even then do not hasten to drink, but look at the image of the Savior and cross your face, and read the Jesus prayer, and say: “Bless, Father”. And then drink what you wished.

On supper. Listen about when you sit down to supper: do the same with prayer and thanksgiving. And read first of all: “The poor shall eat…”, then “Glory…, and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”. And so eat with humility and thanksgiving. And rising from the table, say: “Thou hast gladdened me, O Lord, in Thy creation…” and the rest, “Glory… and now…”, “Lord, have mercy” twice, “Lord, bless”.

On prayer before sleep. When, drawing near to sleep, you want to sleep, stretch out your hand and read the same rule that you read in the morning when rising from bed. At this time spiritual people pray much: some read compline with many canons, others the Psalter with bows and prayers, others various other prayers. For us and you that is enough. For God’s sake keep at least this. You will learn more than I have told you, and later you yourself will understand more.

On lying down on the bed. When after prayer you lie down on your bed, do not forget to pray. Cross your face: out of laziness three times, but without laziness many times. And remember your place in the grave, for thus you will lie in the grave. And at the general resurrection, at the sound of the archangel’s trumpet, you will rise as from sleep to the Judge of all your deeds. And receive according to your deeds—good or evil. For sleep is the likeness of death.

On awakening. When you wake after sleeping enough, or if you wake from some noise, or something appears to you in a dream, or frightened by dreams you wake somehow, then cross your face two or three times, or as many times as you wish, or read the Jesus prayer. For a man is often frightened by dreams in forgetfulness. But by prayer and the Life-giving Cross the human mind is quickly set right.

114. On rising. Also, rising from sleep, cross your face: as you lay down, so rise. And do as is written to you. Here is your instruction on home prayer.

On the Jesus prayer. And on the Jesus prayer, which should be made in every place. On the fear of terror. Listen: when you sleep or sit, and some terror seizes you, and cunning thoughts come instead of righteous ones—to do injustice, or to plot something unclean, or any evil deed—know that at that time the devil has drawn near to you and subjects you to his will, and wants to separate you from God and from His righteousness.

On good thought. Also know what happens when some gladness and joy comes to you, and some good thought, as for example to become like a holy man or a reverent person, and you want always to act according to righteousness and do good deeds—know that at that time an angel of God draws near to you, and guards you from the evil nets of the devil, and wants to draw you near and bring you to God, to whom you gave your vow. For though with your bodily eyes you do not see the invisible suffering and joy, your invisible soul sees the invisible and from that rejoices or is terrified. Understanding this, always read the Jesus prayer and shield yourself with the cross. For when you cross your face and read the Jesus prayer, then the devil flees from you, and evil and cunning thoughts flee, and the angel of the Lord who guards you draws near to you and puts all that is useful into your heart. And know this.

On entering any house. Do not enter any house in silence, but read the Jesus prayer and say “Amen”. And bow to the image standing there.

On work. When you begin to do anything: whether to pray, or to rise, or to lie down, or to take, or to strain, or to pour, or to cut, or to chop, or to break, or to crush, or to open, or to close, or whatever you begin to do, always say for every work: “Bless, Father”, and then the Jesus prayer.

On drinking. If ever you begin to prepare food and drink, you will sweeten them much by this. Having heard this, remember and do not forget. Do everything with prayer.

On the name of servant. Listen why you are called a servant, for you named yourself a servant. Understand also that your master is the one you serve; and remember what your master has become to you: for you were under the sword of death, tormented in prison in hunger and thirst, naked and sorrowful, not expecting to remain alive.

On the sovereign. Know the Jesus prayer and perfect yourself in fasting. And being perfected in all this, you will be able to be called a Christian.

On the reason. Know that you came not from good to bad, but from bad to good. Not from light to darkness, but from darkness to light. You were not defiled, but cleansed; you serve not a master who sheds blood, but one who hates bloodshed. Here is an incentive to understanding: think how to stand before your master and how to serve him. And how to live prudently with him.

Teaching to good. Keep righteousness for him in your mouth and faith in your heart. Sitting in place or being on the way, keep love for him. And what he has granted you, guard with great care. And beyond that, care for what has not been granted you: in his house and everywhere be faithful to him in small things, and you will be chief over great things.

On delicacies. Do not be enticed by temporary delicacies; refrain a little to gain eternal sweetness. Do not treat your master’s words with cunning and contempt—for he will see cunning in your words and judge that you are cunning in deeds also. For thought in a man comes from the heart, and this thought gives birth to the word. And by words a man is known—righteous or cunning. Therefore be simple in all things with your master, not cunning, and not only with your master but with good people also, and you will be honorable and loved by God. But if you act cunningly, you will prove evil to all and abominable to God, and you will perish eternally with a cruel death, not only in body but in soul.

On temptation. Beware lest a friend or companion tempt you with some cunning and evil word. For few are good, loving, and teaching; more lead to evil, turning from good. And many hate good and fear everything; and all wonder at such a one, but themselves do not wish to act according to righteousness, but perish in the despair of their madness. But you know that many will say to you: “Lie”. You, strongly armed with reason, say that lying is from the devil, for he is a lie and the father of lies. And they say to you: “Do this evil”. You consider diligently and do not do it. For those who do evil perish.

On theft. If anyone says to you: “I steal, and you steal”, flee from him and do not steal. For whoever steals perishes and is lost—remember the scourge of Aphonic. Likewise in every matter beware of what is unseemly; do not listen to those who tempt you. Guard against this and understand it, for you have the age of a grown man. Understand me who writes: I am a servant, the same as you.

On Christianity. Therefore I have shown you the law of brotherly love. And in my writing I have spoken only of some Christian customs. For as an infant you should receive soft food with diligence and learn with understanding, and from these small words gain great fruit by obedience of piety: the perfect divinity of divine radiance. And enlighten yourself with wisdom, adorn yourself with purity and chastity, and complete it with prayer and fasting. And from all this you will be able to be called a perfect Christian.

On fasts. Listen about fasting and the days of fasting. For the divine apostles and holy fathers, having established fasting, showed us great grace and union with God.

On Great Lent. For above all the holy fathers established that we fast the Great Lent, that is, the Forty Days, because our Lord Jesus Christ Himself fasted forty days. And then the seventh week, the week of His most honorable sufferings. Therefore every Christian in those days must fast with all fear and heartfelt contrition. For in those days our Master Jesus Christ for our sake accepted reproach, mockery, and humiliation endured. Therefore on such days an Orthodox Christian should by no means eat and drink to excess, nor rejoice in idleness, but as the holy fathers commanded, fast and pray.

On the Fast of Peter. Likewise the fast in which we fast from the week of All Saints, called the fast of the divine apostles Peter and Paul. For the divine apostles rejoiced and celebrated Bright Resurrection until Ascension forty days and ten days after Christ’s Ascension until the day of the Descent of the Holy Ghost, which is called Pentecost. On that day, at the third hour, He sent to them the gift of the Holy Ghost. And therefore they celebrated and rejoiced for eight weeks. And thus the divine apostles bequeathed: it is fitting to rejoice in God’s gift, and after that to fast. And so they remained in fasting and prayer. And when they departed from Jerusalem to preach to the Gentiles, the faithful, imitating them as true teachers and enlighteners of our souls, fasted as each could. And the seven councils of the holy and divine fathers established to complete this fast on the holy day of the apostles Peter and Paul. Therefore it is called the Fast of Peter.

On the Dormition Fast. Likewise the fast of the Most Holy God-bearer for the sake of Her honorable Dormition, from the first day of August. For when She received news from Her Son and our Lord Jesus Christ of Her Dormition and ascension from earth to heaven, then for fifteen days She tasted no food, remaining all the time in fasting. For She was then preparing for departure, as the apostles prepared to depart from Jerusalem.

On the Nativity Fast. Which is called the Fast of Philip, forty days from the day of the holy apostle. The holy fathers at the holy Ecumenical Councils always and necessarily established to fast, that by pure life, fasting and prayer, and other good deeds, we prepare for the feast of Christ’s Nativity. And by this after labors they granted us glory and consolation. And from Nativity to Theophany there is no fasting, and no kneeling.

On Wednesday and Friday. Likewise understand about Wednesday and Friday. On these days we the faithful fast for this reason. On Wednesday the lawless Jews gathered in council, plotting to kill the Lord. And on Friday they crucified Him on the cross. Therefore the divine apostles and holy fathers appointed us to fast on these two days—Wednesday and Friday. On those days one should not rejoice and gorge oneself, but rather grieve and fast.

On fasting. True fasting is that of which Divine Scripture speaks: not only to abstain from food and drink, but to refrain from all evil and unseemly deeds and thoughts. To eat, drink, and rest is bodily. But to fast and refrain from all evil deeds and thoughts is spiritual. For a good man his possession increases from spiritual deeds, not bodily. For spiritual deeds lead upward and draw near to God, and abide eternally with man. Bodily deeds drag downward and deliver to eternal corruption.

On understanding. Having heard this, remember what you have read. Understand the writing, learn the Law of God. Attend to every good deed and thereby inherit all good. Attending to this my small writing, you will learn great understanding. To God Almighty give glory forever, amen.

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Among the fellow prisoners and co-sufferers of Archpriest Avvakum was this humble and guileless monk Epiphaniy. He was born in a certain village in the 1610s or 1620s. From childhood he was greatly devoted to fasting and prayer, and he loved reading holy books. In 1638, having become an orphan, he moved to a certain large city (most likely Moscow), and later, desiring the monastic struggle, he set off for the Solovetsky Monastery. Arriving at the glorious monastery of the Venerable Zosima and Savvatiy, he became a novice in 1645, and seven years later the venerable archimandrite Ilya tonsured him into monasticism, giving him the name Epiphaniy, which means “manifested.” And indeed, God manifested him as one of His holy favorites, granting him a miraculous end…

Seeing the diligence and God-fearing nature of the monk Epiphaniy, the monastery authorities wished to ordain him to the holy priesthood, but out of great humility he refused.

The monk Epiphaniy’s father and guide in the Gospel was the elder Martiriy, under whom Arseniy the Greek — a man who had repeatedly changed his faith and even renounced Christianity, considered an astrologer and sorcerer — had previously been “under correction.” It was Arseniy the Greek who became the support of Patriarch Nikon in carrying out the unfortunate reform: Nikon not only justified the apostate but even appointed him, a man ignorant of the Slavonic language, to direct the Moscow Printing Yard and make changes to the liturgical books. “Correct it, Arseniy, somehow — just not the old way!” was the command given by the “great sovereign patriarch Nikon.” And so the new “correctors” acted: instead of “yunoshi” (youths) they put “deti” (children), instead of “deti” they wrote “yunoshi,” they changed stresses in words, rearranged words, replaced them with synonyms, altered verb forms, and so on. They introduced more substantial, even meaningful distortions. They even changed the Orthodox Creed and the description of the Orthodox sign of the cross. They ordered the “Alleluia” to be sung four times in the Latin manner, contrary to the prohibition of the ancient holy fathers. They abolished many prostrations during the service… In short, not a single liturgical book, not a single rite, not even a single psalm remained without unnecessary or even blasphemous-sounding changes. The old, unaltered books were declared heretical and subject to removal from the churches.

It was precisely such “newly corrected” books that were sent from Moscow to Solovki in October 1657. The holy archimandrite Ilya did not serve according to them but ordered the literate elders first to study them and compare them with the ancient handwritten books in the monastery’s rich library. The elders’ verdict was this: the texts were not corrected but corrupted, and there was no need to replace the old books.

Disputes and strife began in the monastery. Some defenders of Nikon’s innovations appeared and began to rebel against the abbot. Grieved by these events, the monk Epiphaniy decided to go “into the desert” to live in silence there. He did this at the turn of 1657–1658, receiving a blessing for this new struggle from his mentor, the elder Martiriy. With him he took books, tools for carving (the monk practiced making wooden crosses, both pectoral and processional, as his handicraft), a copper-cast icon of the God-bearer, a censer, and everything necessary for the solitary life of a hermit. Father Epiphaniy’s path led to the Andom skete of the Venerable Evfrosin of Kurzha, located on an island in Kurzha Lake at the source of the Andoma River (now Vologda region). After living about a year with the venerable mentor, Epiphaniy asked for a blessing to intensify his struggle in the “farther desert” and went to Vidansky Island on the Suna River. In the Sunaretsky Trinity skete he lived seven years under the Venerable Father Kirill of Sunaretsky.

Throughout his entire monastic life, the holy Epiphaniy was repeatedly subjected to various attacks from the devil: sometimes ants tormented his flesh for many months, sometimes his cell burned down for no apparent reason, and other terrors came. He called upon the Lord Jesus and His Most Pure Mother for help; the copper icon of Her remained undamaged by the fire. The God-bearer Herself appeared to the venerable one and helped him. After his repose, the Venerable Evfrosin of Kurzha, with whom he had struggled together in the Andom skete, appeared to him in a vision. He was also granted a visit from the holy martyr-bishop Philip, the murdered Metropolitan of Moscow, whose relics were discovered in the Solovetsky Monastery in the presence of Father Epiphaniy.

In 1659 the recently deceased Solovetsky archimandrite Ilya also appeared to Father Epiphaniy and commanded him to write a work for Tsar Alexis, to demonstrate the wrongness of the church innovations and to call for a return “to the true Christian faith, the old one.” The elder set to work: he made excerpts from the Gospel, the Apostle, church canons, and other holy books that showed the complete untenability of Nikon’s church reform. Father Epiphaniy put much labor into compiling this petition-book, personally — despite weak eyesight — copying the rough drafts cleanly. The book was approved by the Venerable Kirill of Sunaretsky and the monk Varlaam, who lived nearby “in the desert.” They blessed the elder to go “to Moscow” and present his work to the tsar.

On the way to the capital, Father Epiphaniy decided to visit the Venerable Korniliy of Vyg, so that he too might approve his composition. Korniliy suggested that he stay with him for a time to refine the book. This stop lasted two years: at first they lived in a stone cave on the Vodla River, and later in a cell at Kyatkozero. Here the monk also wrote an autobiographical note—a draft of his future “Life.” This note became the preface to the petition.

Father Epiphaniy proposed to the elder Korniliy that they go “to Moscow” together to suffer “for the sake of piety,” but Korniliy received a divine notification to remain in the desert. Then the monk Epiphaniy resolved to fast and pray for six weeks in order to receive some “notification” from God; having received it, he joyfully set out for the suffering that lay ahead, carefully carrying with him his precious literary labor.

Arriving in the capital at the end of 1666, he became acquainted with the noblewoman Feodosia Prokofievna Morozova (the future venerable martyr Theodora) and the fool-for-Christ monk Abraham (the future venerable martyr) who lived in her house; the latter effectively led the ancient Orthodox Christian community in Moscow.

In the summer of 1667, Father Epiphaniy publicly presented his petition to the tsar on the square. The tsar passed it to the hierarchs assembled at the Great Moscow Council, which had been convened to curse the “old faith.” The hierarchs ordered the arrest of the “rebel,” and the monk Epiphaniy was seized. On July 17, the Nikonian hierarchs tried with exhortations and threats to incline the unyielding monk to “submission” to their heresy, but in vain, and he was cast back into prison. On August 5—a new unsuccessful attempt… On August 26, 1667, the apostate hierarchs sentenced Archpriest Avvakum, the monk Epiphaniy, the Romanov priest Lazar, and the Simbirsk priest Nikifor to lifelong exile in the far north, to the Pustozersk stockade. The next day, on Bolotnaya Square, Fathers Lazar and Epiphaniy were brought out and had their tongues cut out so they could no longer preach the “old faith.” Avvakum was left with his tongue, through the intercession of the tsaritsa…

The journey to Pustozersk was long and arduous. Only on December 12 did the prisoners arrive at the place of their prolonged suffering and future fiery execution. Father Nikifor was not brought there due to his death en route, but on April 2, 1668, the deacon Theodore of the Moscow Annunciation Cathedral was delivered, also with his tongue cut out.

Father Epiphaniy grieved greatly over the loss of his tongue, and through his prayers a miracle occurred: the tongue grew back in his mouth. The saint glorified God for this sign.

In strict confinement, the elder found consolation in prayer and handicraft. Over his life he made up to 600 wooden crosses, large and small. And when an eye ailment prevented him from continuing his craft, a wondrous visitor appeared to him with materials, tools, and an order for a large cross. Epiphaniy began to refuse, but the visitor insisted. And suddenly his sight returned to the sufferer!

Here, in the earthen prison, the monk became the spiritual father (hearing thoughts, according to the monastic custom) of Archpriest Avvakum and “compelled” him to write his autobiographical “Life.” The archpriest did not remain in debt: he compelled the elder himself to compose his own life story. These two “Lives” are precious testimonies to that sorrowful time and to the struggle of the Christian Old Believers.

The monk Epiphaniy, together with Archpriest Avvakum, wrote letters and books and secretly sent them to the Old Believers in Moscow and other places in Russia, hidden in little boxes that Father Epiphaniy made in the axe-handles of the musketeers guarding the holy sufferers—who secretly sympathized with them.

When the authorities learned of these letters, they intensified the regime for the Pustozersk prisoners. On April 14, 1670, by tsarist decree, the streltsy half-captain Ivan Elagin arrived at the stockade and again cut out the regrown tongues of the three sufferers (except Avvakum), and also maimed their right hands, cutting off either the whole hand (for Deacon Theodore) or the fingers. The sufferers were separated from one another and placed in earthen pit-prisons, where in inhuman conditions, exhausted by hunger and cold, they continued their struggle for the faith of Christ.

After the second execution, Father Epiphaniy grew faint in spirit and even wished that all the blood might flow out of his body through the wounds so as to accept death. But by God’s providence this did not happen, and the wounds healed extraordinarily quickly. And in a dream he had a vision of the Most Holy God-bearer, who showed him his two cut-out tongues floating in the air—the first and the second—and commanded him to choose one of them. He chose and placed it in his mouth, and awoke. And from then on his tongue began to grow back little by little, reaching up to his teeth again. And once more the monk began to glorify God aloud…

Tsar Alexis died. His successor Theodore, at the instigation of the new-rite clergy, gave the order to burn the four Pustozersk confessors in a wooden frame. In the desolate, treeless Pustozersk there were no spare logs, so some buildings had to be torn down to provide wood for the martyrs’ burning… The saints were led out to execution on April 14, 1682, on Great and Holy Friday—the day when the innocent Jesus Christ Himself accepted execution. The sufferers went joyfully to meet the Lord. Here is how a contemporary, recording the account of eyewitnesses, describes the events: “When they placed Father Epiphaniy and with him his three co-sufferers—Archpriest Avvakum, Priest Lazar, and Deacon Theodore—into one wooden frame… and covered the entire frame with pitch and birch bark and straw and pitch, and set it ablaze with fire. They all sang in unison within the frame: ‘Mistress, accept the prayer of Thy servants.’ The fire roared greatly and blazed up with a great flame into the air; they stood in the flame and finished singing that verse to the end, and bowed to the ground, and the flame enveloped them. All the people of the Pustozersk settlement standing around, and the soldiers, and certain God-loving men saw from the frame and from the flame—Father Monk Epiphaniy was lifted up into the air, as if borne by some divine power, upward to heaven, and became invisible. They pointed to one another, and some saw it while others did not. And when the frame burned down and the flame subsided, they found the bodies of the three sufferers unburned, only scorched—Archpriest Avvakum, Priest Lazar, and Deacon Theodore—and parts of their vestments were not consumed; but they found neither the body of Father Epiphaniy nor anything from his vestments, and they marveled at this. And those who had seen this most glorious miracle—of Father Epiphaniy being lifted up from the frame and flame into the air toward heaven—told of their vision, and they began to marvel at this most glorious mercy of God and glorified God, wondrous in His miracles, for even in these last times God glorifies and strengthens the ancient church piety. But some doubted, and after a little time had passed, to those who had not seen such a most glorious miracle and were doubting, and who were once walking along the road and conversing about this among themselves, the wondrous Father Epiphaniy appeared to them as if alive, traveling the road, and he made the Jesus Prayer and said to them: ‘Peace be unto you, children! Do not doubt concerning me; I did not burn in the frame, but I am alive, as it pleased our Master the Lord Jesus Christ, and tell this to your brethren, that they may not doubt concerning me, but magnify and glorify the Lord God, wondrous in His miracles, and be strengthened in ancient church piety.’ And having spoken, having made the Jesus Prayer, and given them peace, he became invisible. They rejoiced and glorified God, wondrous in His miracles…”

The memory of this great venerable martyr is celebrated on April 14 according to the church calendar (April 27 according to the civil calendar), together with his Pustozersk co-sufferers, on the day of their fiery end.

Troparion to the Holy Venerable Martyr Epiphaniy of Solovki, Tone 6 Faster and sufferer and wonderworker Epiphaniy, / who wast ascended by fiery flame unto the throne of the Lord, / ever pray to Him for us, / that we may be delivered from misfortunes and the assaults of the enemy, / and that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion, Tone 8 Having acquired a peaceful spirit, O venerable one, / thou wast ascended to the supramundane habitations, O Epiphaniy, / unto Christ God the Giver of myrrh; / ever pray to Him, O passion-bearer, / to grant peace to the world / and to save our souls.

Ikos In truth thou hast shown thyself to be aptly named, O our venerable father Epiphaniy, / for thou wast manifested by God as a wonderworker and martyr, / having acquired purity of soul and body / through fasting, prayer, and abstinence, / and lying upon the earth, and all-night vigils, / love of truth and almsgiving, / humility of mind and meekness of character; / an angel on earth thou didst appear, / a heavenly man. / Now standing before the throne of Christ God, / ever pray to Him / to grant peace to the world / and to save our souls.

-Written by Belokrinitsa priest Vadim Korovin

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