February 27, 7534
Dimitry Urushev Bishop Pavel of Kolomna is one of the most significant figures in Russian spiritual history of the 17th century. Alas, he was not fortunate. His name failed to attract the attention of scholars. He remained in the shadow of his more famous contemporaries—Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Patriarch Nikon, and Archpriest Avvakum. Pavel and Nikon…
-Dimitry Urushev In rare books on 18th-century Russian literature, one seldom encounters the name of Simeon Denisov. Among the “enlightened men” like the poets Kantemir, Sumarokov, or Kheraskov, who sang in a European style of “the heart’s bitter sorrows,” there is little room for a northern hermit who, in an ancient style, recounted not “the…
-Dimitry Urushev Bishop Paul of Kolomna is one of the most significant figures in Russian spiritual history of the 17th century. Unfortunately, he has not been fortunate in attracting scholarly attention. His name has been overshadowed by more famous contemporaries—Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Patriarch Nikon, and Protopriest Avvakum. Paul and Nikon The memory of Bishop Paul…
Nothing in the human body has sparked such heated debates, divisions, and even bloodshed as the beard. Take, for example, the hand. No one demanded that hands be cut off every infant, no one wrote multi-volume treatises defending hands, no one taxed hands, and no one saw in hands a sign of the righteousness or…
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…