RUSSIAN OLD BELIEF: Traditions, History, and Culture #

From the Baptism of Rus #

Old Belief is, by definition, inseparably linked to history. Old Believers have always been distinguished by a profound historical memory. For them, not only recently glorified Russian saints but also the biblical patriarchs and prophets were real, living people, forming an integral part of the Orthodox world.

In recounting the history of the Fall of the first humans, Protopope Avvakum wrote with remarkable empathy, as if addressing his contemporaries:

“Genesis again: ‘And Adam and Eve ate of the tree, from which God had commanded them not to eat, and they became naked.’ O dear ones! But there was no one to clothe them; the devil led them into trouble, and then stepped aside. The wicked master fed them and gave them drink, then shut them out of the house. The drunkard lies in the street, robbed, and no one takes pity.”

The historical memory of Old Belief was nourished not only by liturgical texts but also by Byzantine and Russian writings that consistently conveyed a unified Christian historical narrative.

Another enduring value for adherents of Old Belief was the family. It was within the family that a person’s religious views, spiritual foundations, and everyday culture were formed. Notably, prior to the seventeenth century, there was no distinct children’s literature in Russia. A child grew up surrounded by the heroes of oral folk genres—fairy tales, epics, and songs—but when learning to read, they began with serious, adult books—the Psalter and the Horologion—thus immersing themselves in the lofty models of Christian poetry and liturgy.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Old Believers gained the opportunity to develop freely, they attempted to adapt the existing Russian secondary education system to their needs. In 1912, the Old Believer Institute opened at Rogozhskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

In 1914, the director of the Institute, Alexander Stepanovich Rybakov, compiled the book The Old Faith: An Old Believer Anthology, designed to deepen Old Believers’ knowledge of their own history.

Nearly a century later, another well-illustrated book of a different genre was published: Old Belief: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (Moscow, 2005). It clarified essential doctrinal concepts and covered the main events of nearly three centuries of history. Following yet another tragic period in the history of Old Belief, this publication, like Rybakov’s anthology, had an innovative character.

The book now in the reader’s hands is also intended for both children and adults. It is an authorial work, consisting of brief historical essays that chronologically span more than a millennium—from the Baptism of Rus by Saint Prince Vladimir to the contemporary history of Old Belief.

This is not Dmitry Urushev’s first book. As a historian and religious scholar by education, he has a deep command of both the subject matter and the language.

The history of our country is presented here from an Old Believer perspective, based on the concept of the unchanging and continuous tradition of the Church. There is no polemical undertone in this book; rather, there is an objective view of actual events—of the true history of a significant part of Russian society, a part that remained faithful to the faith of its fathers and grandfathers, preserved their cultural heritage, and, by doing so, has given us, people of the twenty-first century, the opportunity to touch these pure sources of living Russian tradition.

— Elena Mikhailovna Yukhimenko,
Doctor of Philology, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation

The History of Russian Disobedience #

Dmitry Urushev has addressed his book on the history of Russian Old Belief primarily to the younger generation. Since the author is deeply engaged in the topic of Old Belief, he had no other choice in this regard. But writing such a book for young people is a rather bold decision. After all, it could well be titled The History of Russian Disobedience.

It is worth remembering that the Narodnik revolutionaries once revolted against the patriarchal triad of God, Tsar, and Father. Long before the nihilists of the nineteenth century, the Old Believers had already rebelled against the will of the Tsar, who had undertaken church reform. However, the rebellion of those who defended the old traditions was waged in the name of God and fidelity to their ancestors. Against loyalty to the secular ruler, they opposed the supreme authority of the lord; in disobedience to the earthly kingdom, they relied on the authority of God’s word. In this sense, the influence of this book on young minds aligns well with the political-pedagogical trends of the present time.

However, the history of Russian Old Belief is also the history of Russian rebellion. It is no coincidence that many popular uprisings were led by adherents of the Old Faith. This book contains chapters on the Streltsy rebellion, the Cossack uprisings led by Bulavin and Nekrasov, and the defense of the Solovetsky Monastery against the Tsar’s troops. Resistance to social injustice in Russia was often justified by extreme conservatism, which many interpret as mere obstinacy.

As Pushkin once said, “The government is the only European in Russia.” The same could be said about the history of Old Believer resistance. It would seem that Russian autocrats opened the country to new influences—Alexei Mikhailovich began with spiritual culture, while Peter the Great continued with technology and the creation of an imperial political system. Progress! But the Tsars were branded Antichrists, and the obstinate went to their deaths rather than shave their beards or drink coffee.

What lesson, then, can readers draw from these stories of the disobedience of millions of Russian believers? In the Bible—by which devout Old Believers strictly govern their conduct—such a phenomenon in an entire nation is called “stiff-neckedness.” This term is used both positively and negatively, just as everything in that complex Book is nuanced.

The people of Israel were called stiff-necked because they refused to accept Moses’ innovations, turning instead to the old, more familiar way of worship. Yet it was precisely for this quality—for their refusal to bow their necks at the command of rulers—that God assigned them a special mission.

Something similar happened with the Old Believers. Through three centuries of resistance against the imperial state machine, they preserved a spirit of freedom that had disappeared in the rest of serf-bound Russia, crushed by forced conformity. Paradoxically, it was the Old Believers—merchants and industrialists—who became the driving force of capitalist progress in Russia. Merchant progress, of course, carried its own contradictions, which Russian literature reflected in full measure.

In response to their defiance, the empire and its official Church subjected the Old Believers to harsh and persistent persecution. One is reminded of the Novgorod Republic, crushed by Moscow’s princes two centuries earlier. Both in the case of Lord Novgorod the Great and in the case of Old Believer enclaves in the Russian hinterlands, the autocracy clashed with an unsystematic freedom. Alongside official Russia, an alternative country of Old Believers emerged—also Russian, also Christian, but existing independently of the Tsar. This, perhaps, explains the relentless severity of their persecution.

Be that as it may, the history of Russian Old Belief is the chronicle of the largest and most consistent manifestation of religious dissent. Which, in our time, is already saying quite a lot.

— Andrey Lvovich Melnikov,
Candidate of Philology, Editor-in-Chief of NG-Religions, a supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta

From the Author #

Dedicated to my parents

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin once stated:
“The greatest spiritual and political upheaval of our planet is Christianity. Modern history is the history of Christianity.”

One could also assert that Russian history is the history of Orthodoxy.

Yet this history is incomprehensible and incomplete without the history of Old Belief. The tribulations of the Russian people in our own time cannot be understood without studying the church schism of the seventeenth century.

The Schism was one of the most pivotal events in Russian history. It explains everything that has happened to us from the days of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to the present. Even the misfortunes of modern times—the fall of the Russian Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the turmoil in Ukraine—were all predetermined in the mid-seventeenth century.

The causes of the First World War, the two revolutions of 1917, and the Second World War were also set in motion at that time. Their consequences—future revolutions and wars—still await Russia.

The true causes of all our people’s calamities are hidden in the depths of time, like the roots of a tree buried in the earth…

Many remember the poet Nikolai Semyonovich Tikhonov for his resounding ballads about the blue envelope and nails. But few know of his sorrowful lines, which for decades lay in the “grave of a desk”—his personal archive:

There is no Russia, no Europe, and no me,
There is nothing left within me.
Beasts shall be slain, men shall be executed,
And trees shall burn in the fire.
To doubt, to believe in our days—
To forgive, to justify—not to forgive.
We are fortunate that our roads are paved with stone,
For to walk upon flowers would be terrifying.

This poem is about the year 1917. Tikhonov expressed with remarkable precision what took place in that dark year—“Russia is no more.”

The philosopher Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov put it even more bluntly:
“Russia vanished in two days. Three at most. It is astonishing how it collapsed all at once, completely, down to the smallest details. The kingdom was no more, the Church was no more, the army was no more, and the working class was no more. What remained? Strangely—literally nothing. Only a despicable people were left behind.”

Today, it is fashionable to lament “the Russia we lost”, the great empire that crumbled in 1917. Ah, what a country it was! The crisp break of a French baguette, ladies with lapdogs, gallant officers, gypsy choirs, Shustov cognac, and oysters.

But do these mourners know that Russia did not vanish in 1917, but much earlier—in the seventeenth century? What happened under Emperor Nicholas II was already foreordained in the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

The church reforms of that sovereign and the great Schism that followed were the beginning of the suicide of the Russian kingdom.

Under Alexei Mikhailovich, many liturgical rites and traditions were altered—crossing oneself, the order of baptism and the liturgy, all church chants and prayers. Not a single line in any sacred book remained unchanged—revised, and often incorrectly or mistakenly so. This brought about a profound calamity for our people.

One cannot but agree with the writer Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn:
“Forty years after barely surviving the Time of Troubles, the entire nation, still unhealed, was shaken to its very foundations—spiritually and in daily life—by the church schism. And never again—not for the next 300 years—did Orthodoxy in Russia recover its vital strength, the strength that had upheld the Russian spirit for more than half a millennium. The Schism echoed as our weakness even in the twentieth century.”

Just as drugs do not immediately kill a person but slowly destroy them, so too did the church reforms gradually weaken the Russian state—until they finally killed it.

After all, the reforms of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon affected not only worship, book printing, or iconography. They touched upon the very mindset of the people, their social views, and their worldview—what we would today call ideology.

The old Russian ideology—“Moscow is the Third Rome”—was cohesive and self-sufficient. The historian Nikolai Fedorovich Kapterev wrote of it:

“This is how the Russians came to view themselves—as a unique, God-chosen people. They were a kind of new Israel, within whom alone the true faith and genuine piety had been preserved, lost or distorted by all other nations. This new Israel was entrusted with a sacred treasure that had to be guarded with the utmost care. This was their primary historical mission, the guarantee of all their successes and prosperity. To lose this entrusted treasure would mean the destruction of true piety throughout the entire universe, the establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist on earth, and, for Israel itself, the inevitable downfall of its state.”

The new ideology of the Tsar and the Patriarch was corrupt and feeble. It was aptly expressed by the supporters of church reforms in their debate with Protopope Avvakum:

“Our Russian saints were foolish and ignorant men. Why should we believe them? They were uneducated and could not even read!"

Such an ideology fostered in our people a sense of their own inferiority and inadequacy. The message was clear: We Russians are ignorant and uncivilized. Six centuries of Christianity have taught us nothing. We must learn everything anew.

Under Tsar Peter I, this national uncertainty turned into widespread madness. From then on, it became perfectly acceptable to ridicule Russia. It was unclean, impoverished, backward. We had nothing of value. We had everything to learn.

And so, our ancestors began to learn obediently. Under Alexei Mikhailovich—from the Greeks, Little Russians, Belarusians, and Poles. Under Peter Alekseevich—from the Germans, Dutch, English, and Swedes.

But this was not true learning—it was more akin to mindless mimicry, an apish imitation.

The Greeks teach crossing oneself with three fingers? Very well, we shall cross ourselves thus.
The Little Russians teach a different way of painting icons? So be it, we shall paint them that way.
The Germans teach shaving beards? Gut, we shall shave.
The Dutch teach smoking tobacco? Alright, boys, light up!

The same thing is happening in our own time. Only now, we are not imitating Europeans, but Americans: jeans, hamburgers, chips, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, and Halloween.

In the Soviet Union, there was a concept called “the corrupting influence of the West.” Today, it may seem ridiculous and absurd. But in truth, this very influence explains many of the vices and misfortunes of modern Russia.

And strangely enough, it is not television or the internet that is to blame for the spread of Western influence, but rather Alexei Mikhailovich and Nikon. It is because of them that Russian youth, from their school days, are accustomed to tobacco, drugs, beer, vodka, loud music, and foolish films.

Had the Tsar and the Patriarch in the seventeenth century not slavishly fawned over everything foreign, today our homeland would be a mighty Christian nation.

The image of this unrealized Russia can still be glimpsed in Old Belief, in the Old Faith, in ancient Orthodoxy.

Old Believers are those Christians who did not accept the liturgical reforms and the subsequent transformation of Russian life. They remained faithful to the ancient Church traditions and the legacy of their fathers. It is about them that this book speaks.

Old Belief is a kind of Russian Atlantis.

It is like the legendary city of Kitezh, which sank to the bottom of Lake Svetloyar. Centuries pass, yet beneath the waters, the city continues its unchanged, ancient Russian way of life. And only those pure in heart can penetrate the mystery of Kitezh, hear the tolling of its bells, and see its golden-domed churches.

So too is Old Belief—a reflection of Holy Rus, a memory of the Third Rome, a dream of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Only one who remembers his roots and seeks the truth will find the Old Faith. To the Ivans who do not remember their kin and who scorn the past, the truth remains hidden.

Alas, history knows no subjunctive mood. Yet how tempting it is to dream of what Russia might have been had it remained Old Believer! Undoubtedly, it would have been one of the strongest world powers.

For Old Belief is not merely about ancient rites, the two-fingered sign of the cross, the three-barred (eight-pointed) cross, and beards. It is also about honesty, loyalty, sobriety, and diligence.

Solzhenitsyn rightly believed that if not for the reforms of the seventeenth century, “modern terrorism would not have been born in Russia, nor would Lenin’s revolution have come into the world through Russia. In an Old Believer Russia, it would have been impossible.”

Truly, this is the real Russia that we have lost. This is what should be mourned. This is what deserves our lament.

It is hard to believe, but a hundred years ago, no fewer than fifteen million Old Believers lived in Russia.

There was a time when entire regions were inhabited predominantly by Old Believers. The Soviet government, having devastated the Russian countryside, also devastated these regions. Where once stood prosperous peasant farms and Old Believer churches, now there is only desolation and neglect. Abandoned cemeteries and crumbling church ruins, overgrown with nettles and fireweed, are all that remain of once-thriving villages.

Once, even entire cities were populated mainly by Old Believers. Wealthy industrialists and merchants cared not only for filling their coffers but also for the salvation of their souls. That is why they built not only factories and shops but also the temples of God. The Soviet government showed no mercy to these merchants, nor to their enterprises and trade. They vanished into oblivion. And with them disappeared the fairs and markets, the banks and factories, the almshouses and churches.

Today, in some town—unnamed, Asian in its bleakness, dreary, dusty, and forgotten by all—the youth pass their evenings with a cigarette in their mouths and a beer in their hands. They do not recall that a hundred years ago, their town had several Old Believer churches, and that their great-great-grandparents once walked about in kaftans and sarafans, caps and headscarves. In those days, to see a man on the street with a cigarette or a bottle would have been unthinkable.

If the Russian land and the Russian people are not to perish, we must remember our roots, our ancestors who did not accept the innovations of Alexei Mikhailovich and Nikon. We must know who we are, whose blood runs in our veins.

The writer Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin once observed:
“Truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life.”
A strong historical memory and a firm knowledge of the past are the keys to our survival, our future.

No wonder Pushkin wrote:
“Respect for the past—this is the mark that distinguishes civilization from savagery.”
And he also wrote:
“Savagery, baseness, and ignorance do not respect the past, groveling only before the present.”

These words are especially important today, as our homeland endures difficult times.

The future of Russia, dear friends, depends on us. What will become of the Russian state and the Russian people in half a century? Will our language survive? Will our descendants continue to profess Christianity? Will they still read Pushkin?

That depends on how well we learn our history and what lessons we take from it.