“Old Believers”: The History and Adequacy of the Term #

In recent decades, the meaning of the term “Old Believers” (староверы) has undergone a significant transformation in the public consciousness. Whereas just a few decades ago, society had a clear understanding that Old Believers were Old Ritualists (старообрядцы)—representatives of the most ancient and orthodox form of Christianity in Russia—today, this term is increasingly being adopted by neo-pagans to describe their own communities.

Let us consider the genealogy of the term. In Rus’ before the 17th century, our ancestors called themselves Christians, and more rarely Orthodox. Typically, the term Orthodox was used in Western Rus’, where the Orthodox lived alongside Catholics, Uniates, and Anabaptist Protestants. In other regions, where there were no non-Christians—or only Muslims or pagans for neighbors—the primary term used was Christians (pronounced as it has been preserved in hereditary Old Ritualist communities: khristiyáne).

But more often than not, our ancestors used another form of self-identification: Russians, Rusichi (ancient term for ethnic Russians). Until the famous Life of Avvakum, to be an Orthodox Christian meant to be Russian [1:332] [12:11]. The formation of the Great Russian ethnic identity was complex and multifaceted, but the role of the Orthodox Church was decisive in merging the Krivichi, Vyatichi, and Dregovichi into a single people [4:33].

In the western Russian lands, which were under the political influence of various European powers, Catholicism spread, and in the Little Russian territories from the 16th century onward, Uniatism took hold (from the Latin unio, meaning “union”)—a compromise wherein the faithful were dogmatically and ecclesiastically subject to the Pope of Rome, but their rites remained externally Orthodox. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, despite official religious tolerance, different faiths held different statuses: Catholics (and Uniates, considered essentially Catholics) held privileged positions, while the common folk were largely Orthodox. It was this common Orthodox populace that Polish aristocrats derisively referred to using a term that has since broadened in meaning: bydło—“cattle.”

One element of this social disparity was that the Orthodox in Poland lacked their own educational institutions. A future priest would often have to convert temporarily to Catholicism to receive a seminary education. Later, the Orthodox brotherhoods of Little Russia and Belarus established their own network of Orthodox schools—so-called fraternal schools—but their teaching staff also came from Catholic backgrounds and copied both the structure (and often the ideology) of Catholic institutions. This is vividly illustrated in Gogol’s brilliant story Viy.

Thus, the term Christian was ambiguous only on the western borders of Russian lands. In the 17th century, with the annexation of parts of Ukraine to Russia, a wave of career-seeking scholarly monks poured into Moscow. Avvakum repeatedly criticized the religious purity and moral character of these individuals, who offset their lack of virtue with education [22:151]. One such figure was Simeon of Polotsk (Sitnianovich), tutor to Peter the Great and the de facto author of the protocols of the Great Moscow Council of 1666–1667, which condemned the Old Believers as criminals.

This led to a multiplicity of meanings for the terms Christian and Orthodox. The term Orthodox came to be used by the spiritual heirs of old Muscovite piety (the future Circle of Zealots of Piety, from which the leaders of the Schism would emerge), by Western-influenced Church figures whose worldview was Catholic-leaning, and even by poorly educated Uniates who did not understand the dogmatic differences between the confessions.

With the beginning of Nikon’s “correction campaign,” it became clear that Orthodoxy in Russia now carried diverging meanings. The ideological program followed by Nikon was, in his mind, Orthodox [5:226]—he had in part borrowed it from the reforms of the Kiev Metropolitan Peter Mogila, who was deeply influenced by Catholic ideology, particularly in his vision of a powerful, politicized Church [21:64]. Yet the zealots of piety also called themselves Orthodox. Thus the question arose: which faith was the truer one?

The first version of Orthodoxy was a modernized one, which equated the rites and many symbols of Russian Orthodoxy with those of co-religionists throughout the world. However, since these co-religionists had, in their time, become imbued with Neo-Greek liturgical and even ideological innovations, their ritual life differed significantly from that of the Russians, who had preserved the rites and rules handed down since the Baptism of Rus’. Some pre-schism Church figures noted instances of Greek rejection of Russian spirituality. For example, Arseny Sukhanov, who visited Mount Athos, described repeated burnings of Russian liturgical books by the Greeks and a conflict that nearly led to the murder of a Russian elder monk [19].

Accordingly, to bring the everyday liturgical life of the Russians in line with that of the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians, there were only two possibilities: either bring them into conformity with the ancient piety preserved in Rus’, or destroy all Old Russian spirituality in its emblematic and symbolic forms. This is why the Old Believers called the ideological program of the New Ritualists a “lawless new faith” [3:4]: Nikon’s reforms did not simply change the rites and rules—they effectively abolished them.

The second version of Orthodoxy was the ancient Russian confession, which preserved not only phonetic distinctives (like “Isus”) but also symbolic ones (the two-finger sign of the cross and many others). The supporters of this path were called zealots for ancient piety, adherents of the old faith—hence the term Old Believers. This term began to be used with the harsh differentiation between Old Ritualists and the renewed, state-supported Church, roughly in the 1690s.

The genealogy of the term Ancient Orthodoxy (древлеправославие) is more difficult to trace, but it was already in use in the 1750s, primarily among the priestless communities—namely the Pomortsy and the Fedoseevtsy.

Since the Great Moscow Council criminalized ancient piety [16:3], the Old Believers were first and foremost accused of refusing to unite with the modernized Church—the Nikonian Church. According to St. John Chrysostom, the sin of schism is more terrible than the sin of heresy, and is not washed away even by martyrdom. This aspect was skillfully exploited by Nikonian propagandists against the Old Believers: at the official level, they were branded with the derogatory label “schismatics” [18:11], a trend that continued into the 20th century.

As for the term Old Ritualists (старообрядцы), it emerged later and is attributed to Empress Catherine the Great. Betting on the demographic potential for building a great empire, Catherine sought to bring all Russians under her wing. As a German Lutheran, she did not understand the sharp division between the two versions of a single Orthodoxy. After studying the history of the question, Catherine came to the view that the differences between the New and Old Ritualists were merely ritual and secondary. Yet, as someone shaped by modern Protestant thinking, she failed to grasp the meaning of symbolic distinctions. At a famous extended session of the Senate and Synod, Catherine publicly declared that such archaic divisions were unthinkable in a modern state. She demonstratively crossed herself with two fingers and asked the Church hierarchy whether she was now a criminal—whether episcopal anathemas and criminal liability applied to her. It was then, in the name of unity in Russian society, that Catherine forbade the use of the offensive term schismatic, replacing it with the new label Old Ritualist [7:110]. Under the empress’s protection, the Old Believers began to actively resettle in Russia, developing the Volga region and laying the foundations for their future economic success.

Subsequent sovereigns either supported Catherine’s approach or deviated from it, and this was reflected in the terminology used. When rapprochement with the Old Believers was attempted, the term Old Ritualists was used. When they were seen as an alien, anti-state element (as under Nicholas I [15:5]), the term schismatic was used across the board. The popularization of this offensive term was so intense that even liberal representatives of the Russian intelligentsia used it, believing—mistakenly—that they were not imputing negative meaning [17:180].

The Old Believers themselves never considered—and do not consider—schismatic an accurate label. In polemics with representatives of the Synodal Church, they expressed the opposite position: the real schismatics were the New Ritualists, the Nikonians, since they had broken away from the fullness of Holy Tradition.

At times, the zealots of ancient piety did call themselves Old Believers—yet even this term, from their point of view, is not quite adequate. For Ancient Orthodoxy is not simply “old” or outdated, but eternal, timeless!

The term Old Ritualists (старообрядцы) began to be used by the zealots of ancient piety only at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, though they still preferred the term Ancient Orthodox (древлеправославные). However, since the main enclaves of Old Believers had formed and existed on the periphery of the Russian Empire or even beyond its borders, within their own communities the Old Believers continued to refer to themselves as their ancestors had: Orthodox, Christians, and Russians. The Russian diaspora abroad—especially in America—continues to preserve this custom to this day [11:35].

After the proclamation of religious tolerance in Russia under Nicholas II in 1905, the “golden age” of Old Belief began, lasting until the Bolshevik coup. The Old Believers were granted equality with other ethnic and religious groups of the empire and were able to realize their enormous financial and economic potential. According to some sources, by 1917, 70% of all Russian capital was in the hands of a few Old Believer families [2:17]. Consequently, any further use of the term schismatic was no longer acceptable. The Old Believers could now openly declare their spiritual and ideological program without fear of punitive action from the state-aligned official church. In the works of such well-known Old Believer preachers and polemicists as F.E. Melnikov, I.A. Kirillov, Bishop Mikhail (Semyonov), and Bishop Innokenty (Usov), the self-designations Old Ritualists, those adhering to Old Ritualism, and the relatively new term Ancient Orthodox were actively used and popularized. Russian society was confronted with the reality of two versions of Orthodoxy existing within the country: Ancient Orthodoxy (thus, one based on tradition and antiquity) and Synodal Orthodoxy (serving specific structural functions within the apparatus of the state). Active church-building, publishing, and participation by Old Believers in political life became signs of the growing attention and respect toward Ancient Orthodoxy in Russian society. It remains unknown how this process might have concluded had the monarchy not collapsed in February 1917 and had the Bolsheviks not seized power that October.

The Bolsheviks, one of whose first decrees proclaimed the separation of Church and State, and of school from Church, made no essential distinction between Old and New Ritualism [9:105]. They pursued atheist propaganda and the confiscation of church valuables to stabilize the economy during the Civil War. Both Old and New Ritualists took part equally in resistance to the Communists. In the Cossack armies of Siberia and the Far East, the number of armed Old Believers was so large that positions for Old Ritualist chaplains were officially established [8].

We all know how this dramatic period ended. The Old Believers were either destroyed or forced into emigration, where they preserved their self-identification as Old Ritualists, Ancient Orthodox, and Christians. Those who remained and survived within the USSR were crushed by the totalitarian propaganda machine. Unlike the Moscow Patriarchate, which under Stalin received certain privileges, the Old Believers were not permitted to worship freely. Aggressive urbanization and industrialization led to unprecedented migration, the exodus of youth to the cities, and the absorption of all Soviet citizens into a unified Soviet way of life. As a result, the primary guardians of Ancient Orthodoxy in the USSR were often elderly men and women of little formal education, living in remote and inaccessible regions (e.g., the Lykov family [13] or the Far Eastern chasovennye, i.e., chapel communities).

Following the collapse of the USSR, a mass religious revival began. This included Old Believer communities, which received thousands of people—both hereditary Christians “returning to their roots” and new converts from outside cultural backgrounds. One sign of the transformation of the Old Believer environment was the emergence of Ancient Orthodoxy as the dominant form of self-identification. Even the foundational work of F.E. Melnikov, which brought thousands of faithful into the Church of Christ, was published under the title A Short History of the Ancient Orthodox (Old Ritualist) Church. In terms of frequency of usage, Ancient Orthodox took first place, Old Ritualists second, and Old Believers third. The label schismatics was, for a time, forgotten—until a new period of cooperation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the state began, and with it a new wave of hostility toward Old Believers. It was then that new anti–Old Believer figures such as N. Mikhailova [10] and D. Sysoyev [20] resurrected the term as a way of distancing themselves from the bearers of the fullness of Church tradition.

However, the religious revival of the 1990s was not exclusively Christian in nature. Even in the late 1970s, Russian neo-paganism began to take shape, positioning itself as a movement in opposition to state power. Bursting out of the underground in the late 1980s, it merged with nationalist organizations such as Alexander Barkashov’s Russian National Unity and later movements of the 1990s, modeled on and inspired by Western skinhead groups. Yet the movement was not entirely destructive or aggressive—at the other extreme was the so-called “alternative” wing, which sought to create a new worldview devoid of both Soviet and Christian elements. One such example is Vladimir Megre’s Ringing Cedars of Russia movement.

Crucially, most neo-pagan organizations never merged into a unified body but remained a non-hierarchical network of communities and clubs bound by a loose ideology, one of the few unifying elements of which was a consistent rejection of Christianity. These communities began to call themselves Old Believers (starovery)—as a protest against the thousand-year history of Russian Christianity and a deliberate return to pre-Christian pagan tradition.

Because so little information survives from that ancient pagan period, it remains largely unstudied by historians. The cultic practices of neo-pagan Old Believers rely heavily on imaginative reconstructions. Their core message is this: Christianity is foreign to the Russian spirit and represents a novel imposition upon it. The Old Believers, in “resurrecting” forms of worship to Perun and Dazhbog, claim to represent the autochthonous, indigenous Russian Faith. In this, they partly echo the reasoning of some 17th-century Old Believers, who rejected Nikon’s reforms solely because they were innovations that disrupted the historical integrity of the Russian spiritual tradition. The difference is that the Old Believers of the 17th century continued to confess the faith of their fathers, whereas the innovators of the 20th century constructed their religion from the works of historical fantasists like V.D. Ivanov [6] and the limited findings of patriotic-leaning historians like B.A. Rybakov [14].

Today’s neo-pagans, filling social media with advertisements for “ancestral homesteads,” “harmonious diets,” and “traditional child-rearing,” widely employ the label Old Believers (starovery). This often frees them from having to define the actual content of their faith, which remains dogmatically and liturgically ambiguous—for them, the most important thing is that their ideology is “older” than Christianity. This rhetorical posture allows them to ignore the falseness of foundational neo-pagan texts (such as the Slavic-Aryan Vedas), concealing their glaring inconsistencies and narrative holes behind the excuse of “a thousand years of Christian oppression that destroyed the true Russian faith.”

Today, nearly every major Russian city has communities of Rodnovers (Slavic neo-pagans), with their wooden kapishchas (temples) adorned with images of Slavic gods. Rodnover adherents are so active that they have, to borrow marketing terminology, virtually “hijacked the trend” in the use of the term Old Believers. A significant percentage of modern seekers of spirituality now approach Old Belief not as traditional Orthodox Christianity but as a form of neo-pagan Rodnovery, hoping to find beloved runes, charms, incantations, floral wreaths, and leaping over bonfires. Conversely, Rodnovers systematically attract segments of poorly educated Russians, capitalizing on the term Old Believers to do so.

Today there even exist “intermediate” or “hybrid” communities, such as the Russian Catacomb Church of the True Orthodox Christians (so-called “TOC” or catacombniks) led by Ambrosy Sivers. These groups combine Nazi rhetoric, aggressive xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and the veneration of Hitler with Old Ritualist symbolism—two-fingered signs of the cross, the name Isus, traditional vestments—and the name Old Believers. These communities have no canonical succession, but their self-identification and use of traditional symbols have had an unexpected effect in attracting poorly educated but romantically minded youth from nationalist circles.

Thus, we are faced with a fatal confusion. Today, the term Old Believers (starovery) may refer to Ancient Orthodox Christians, to neo-pagans, or even to dubious catacomb groups. There are even reports of the term Old Believers being used in the popular science-fiction computer game Warhammer. The term has become a homonym—and this might not be critical if not for the fact that attention is now being seized by alien, anti-Christian groups.

To resist such deception, one must first of all understand the genealogy of the term Old Belief and the proper context for its use. Secondly, it would be advisable for the Old Ritualists themselves, where possible, to refrain from using this now ambiguous term.

This article has been written to demonstrate that for Old Believers, their self-designation was never the defining factor; what matters is the Ancient Orthodox, traditionally Christian confession of faith—built on fidelity to the Church of Christ in all its symbolic integrity and a refusal to alter even one jot of it.

References #

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