RASKOLNIK NIKON

Old Believers are the name given to Christians who have departed from Orthodox Church during the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. They are also called schismatics or Old Believers, and some historians call them Orthodox Protestants. All these terms refer to the same people. The concept of “schismatic” was used by supporters of the new faith and was negative character. “Old Believers” is a term coined by secular authors in the 19th century.

Old Believers still keep chronology in the old way. The year 7524 arrived in September 2015.

The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was initiated in the 1650s by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (second of the Romanov dynasty). He nurtured ambitious plans to unite the entire Orthodox world around Moscow. The initial step in this direction seemed to Alexei to be the reduction of the symbols of faith to a single model. The point is that XVII century The Greek Church, which gave Rus' Orthodoxy, began to differ from the Russian Church in some rituals.

The then Patriarch Nikon invited Greek scientists to Moscow, who were supposed to identify differences in the performance of religious rituals. Scientists have come to the conclusion that over several centuries the Russian Orthodox Church moved away from the Byzantine canons. To bring the rituals into unity, Nikon introduced a number of changes: to be baptized not with two, but with three fingers, after the prayer, bow down not 17, but 4, write the name “Jesus” with two “and”, procession swipe not across the sun, but vice versa, etc. In 1666, a Council took place, which decided that all Nikon’s innovations should be observed as true.

This caused numerous church protests, and in some cases, unrest. Among the first to refuse to obey Nikon were the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery. Rebels are publicly burned at the stake and executed by hanging. The people, who did not agree with the innovations, but were frightened by the executions, fled across Russia. At first, the “schismatics,” as Nikon’s adherents began to call them, hid in the forests near Moscow, and then went east – to the Urals, to Siberia. This is how the Old Believers arose.

The suppression of the rebellion, the cause of which was merely a formal change in religious rituals, turned out to be inappropriately cruel. Those who were caught spreading the old faith were ordered to be tortured and burned alive. Those who maintain the faith or provide any minimal assistance to the Old Believers are ordered to be identified and mercilessly flogged. Old Believers find themselves completely outside the law: they are prohibited from holding government or public office, being witnesses in court, etc.

The fight against the Old Believers was waged without interruption throughout the entire time the Romanov dynasty was on the throne. But despite everything, the Old Believers are indestructible. The persecution sometimes weakens, sometimes intensifies, but never stops. The tenacity of the Old Believers, despite all the trials, is admirable. However, any people who do not betray their beliefs to suit the circumstances of the moment deserve deep respect.

URAL FOR OLD BELIEVERS

Fugitive hermits set up their hermitages - secluded dwellings - in remote, hard-to-reach places. On the territory of the Urals there are many hermitages known on islands, in impenetrable swamps, in the mountains, in forest wilds, etc. For many years, the Old Believers hid in the Merry Mountains in the Middle Urals. Movement along them is difficult due to windbreaks, rubble and extensive wetlands at the base of the mountains. The ridge has intricate orography, making orientation difficult. The places, despite the relative proximity of populated areas, are very remote. Since the 17th century here fugitive schismatic Old Believers began to secretly settle in monasteries. Over the course of 200 years, they found their own ascetics, revered by the people, and holy places - the graves of the elders. There were several dozen such graves, but four were especially revered: the schema-monks Hermon, Maximus, Gregory and Paul. The grave of Elder Pavel, one of the Old Believer preacher-mentors, is located at the foot of the Old Stone. Secret roads led to the graves of the elders from the Verkhne- and Nizhny Tagil factories, Nevyansk, Chernoistochinsk, Staroutkinsk. Only in 1905 did the persecution of schismatics stop, and shrines were “legalized.” New roads were cut, a marble monument was erected on the grave of Father Paul, the time of commemoration was determined, and the land under the graves was transferred to the eternal possession of the Verkhnetagil Old Believer Society. A mass pilgrimage of schismatics began with prayer services at the graves, the first day of which was called the Day of Joyful Meeting, and the last - the Day of Sad Parting. After 1917, not a trace remained of the graves; no roads to them could be found.

The monasteries of the Old Believers in the vast Bakhmet swamp in the Tugulym region have still been preserved. In the central part of the impassable marsh there are several dry islands covered with pine forests and heathland. Among them is Abraham Island, named after Elder Abraham (Alexey Ivanovich of Hungary, 1635–1710) - the leader of the Siberian Old Believers who fled east from Nikon’s reforms and settled in the Trans-Ural swamps. To this day, the Abraham Stone is revered - a holy place for the Old Believers.

Many Old Believer sites are located on the island of Vera, which is nestled on the pristine western shore of Lake Turgoyak. These are the dugouts of the islanders, a chapel with a stone cross on the shore of the lake, and an Old Believer cemetery. Architect Filyansky, who described the island during his visit in 1909, says that around the chapel, wooden icons were hung right on the trees. Archaeologists are trying to restore the ruins of these structures.

12 YEARS OF FREEDOM

Old Believers became especially widespread in the Urals with the development of industry here. The Demidovs and other factory owners, in defiance of the supreme royal authority, encourage the Old Believers in every possible way, hide them from the authorities and even endow them with high positions. Breeders need profit, they don’t care about priestly dogmas, and all Old Believers are conscientious workers. What is difficult for others is observed without difficulty. Their faith does not allow them to ruin themselves with vodka or smoke. Old Believers easily made a career, becoming craftsmen and managers. The Ural factories are becoming a stronghold of the Old Believers.

In 1905 common sense, finally prevailed, and the Tsar’s Decree lifted the ban on “schismatics,” as they were called for almost 250 years, to hold public office and allowed the “Old Believers” - the name from the new Tsar’s Decree - to openly create their parishes and perform religious services.

“At the beginning of the twentieth century. Entire villages on Pechora are populated by Old Believers. They had their own icons (mostly copper), which were placed not in the red corner, but near the stove or behind a partition. The old faith forbade them to smoke, drink wine, swear, or wear European clothes. Each “faithful” had his own dishes - a mug, a spoon and a bowl - which he never parted with; guests were not given their own dishes. Women wore dark-colored clothes. The most fanatical Pechora schismatics did not eat potatoes or “overseas” vegetables; instead of kerosene they used splinters. The Old Believers did not have churches or houses of worship; they chose living quarters for worship. At the same time as the Old Believers, Orthodox Christians also lived in the villages. Clashes on religious grounds between them rarely happened." 1 Many note some caution, silence and mistrust on the part of the Old Believers. They are also not particularly hospitable.

In clothing, ancient types were preferred: for men - a shirt-shirt with a stand-up collar and trousers. The basis of women's clothing was a complex of a shirt with a sundress. Both men's and women's clothing had to be belted.

Until the 1950s, among the Old Believers there were prohibitions on the consumption of a number of products, including tea, potatoes, horse meat, garlic, and hare. “When Jesus Christ was crucified, his wounds were smeared with garlic to make it more painful. That’s why it’s a sin to eat garlic.” Products purchased from non-Old Believers had to be subjected to certain “purification” procedures. Flour and meat were “cleaned” during the cooking process - “passing through fire.” Butter They immersed him three times while reading the Jesus Prayer into running water.

Before the revolution of 1917, Old Believers made up 1/10 of the entire Orthodox population in Russia (and, it should be noted, far from the worst part of it). But in 1917, the “golden age” of the history of the Old Believers, which lasted 12 years, ended! Fleeing from the “godless authorities,” the first wave of Ural Old Believers again, as in Nikon’s time, moved deeper into the forests and further into Siberia.

BACK INTO THE FORESTS!

The fight against the Christian faith in general and against the Old Believers in particular after the revolution of 1917 acquired the most brutal forms. By the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Perm region alone there were almost 100 Old Believer parishes. After 60 years, there are only two of them left. The Old Believers suffered in 1922–1923. due to the massive decision, under pressure from party activists, to close houses of worship. Priests are shot or exiled. Most Old Believers have strong family peasant farms. They are autonomous, independent and do not depend on party directives, and the authorities can never come to terms with this! Old Believers are declared kulaks and are repressed. During the 1920s. The flow of Old Believers migrating to the east did not weaken. The most daring ones went into the North Ural forests.

Those escaping from repression settled along the banks of small rivers in such a way as not to be seen when moving along a large river. The schismatics of Ebeliz were hiding in the right tributaries of the Ilych, 2-4 km from their mouths. They built huts, cut down areas of forest and plowed them up for crops. Natural mountain meadows were used as feeding grounds. The main occupation of the Old Believers was fishing, hunting, livestock, and gardening. Communication with the outside world was kept to a minimum. Through reliable people, they exchanged hunting trophies for cartridges and matches.

Small villages of 3-5 houses were formed here, where the Old Believers farmed and prayed. They lived more often in family clans. This is evidenced by the spread of homogeneous surnames in these places - Mezentsevs, Popovs, Sobyanins. Later, when collectivization began, the Old Believers, not wanting to join collective farms, left their villages and went even further into the forest 2.

“Several decades ago, along the banks of Shezhima, and in many other remote areas of the Upper Pechora and its tributaries - Podcherya, Ilych and Shchugor, there were quite a few monasteries of Old Believers. In the abandoned huts, household items, hunting items and ancient handwritten books have been preserved to this day. Not long ago, researchers at the Leningrad Literary Museum discovered a library in one of these huts. old books(more than 200 books). There is a legend that the rarest ancient manuscripts are hidden in deep forests in deciduous logs filled with wax” 3.

The sacred occupation of the Old Believers was rewriting books. Until the middle of the 20th century, Old Believers used goose feathers for writing, and natural paints for ornamental painting of the manuscripts they created. The most important thing scribes in the monasteries were updating and rewriting Old Believer manuscripts and printed books. Russian philological science owes much to the Russian Old Believers for the preservation ancient lists monuments of pre-Petrine literature.

A difficult fate awaited the hermits who remained in the Urals. They were identified and tried for evading socially useful labor and military service. A large group of Old Believers were “neutralized” in 1936. Several dozen hermitages were tracked down, arrested and charged under Article 58 “for activities aimed at overthrowing Soviet power.”

“Ivan Petrovich Mezentsev left Saryudin with his family. They went to Kosya, where they founded their monastery and lived. They were looking for them in the forest for a long time. They even searched by plane. After 2-3 years they found him and arrested him. They put me in prison."

Story by Anna Ivanovna Popova, born in 1927: “A mother once gave birth to twins, and among the Old Believers this was considered a great sin. She was forced to plunge into ice water several times, so she was supposed to be cleansed of sin. But after that she fell ill and soon died. Then Anna’s father took another woman from Skalyap as his wife, and she persuaded him to go into the forest, and left the children in the village. They went far to the upper reaches of Kosyu, 40 kilometers upstream, at the very foot of Ebeliz. The monastery was built there. But they were found, arrested and then shot.”

Investigation documents show that all the cases of “counter-revolutionary Old Believer organizations” in the Urals, the so-called “Groups of Militant Christians” and “Brotherhood of Russian Truth,” were invented by the NKVD investigators themselves. The investigation materials contain certain denunciations of the KGB agents that the defendants, who did not agree with the Soviet regime, were engaged in distributing leaflets, carrying out sabotage, creating a network of underground organizations, etc. Anyone to a sane person it is clear that the Old Believers, who lived in the remote and completely uninhabited mountains of the Urals, never did anything like this.

Currently, the remains of the monasteries are difficult to find. However, in the middle reaches of the Valganyol stream there are characteristic hills overgrown with weeds, and in the Kosyu valley, participants of the search expeditions of 2000-2001. discovered a preserved hut.

“We decided to try to find a person who knows where a monastery is located and will agree to take us to it. Cordon worker Ivan Sobyanin kindly agreed to be our guide. With his help, having overcome great obstacles, having walked a considerable number of kilometers, first along the Kosyu River, then away from it, we finally reached the monastery. It turned out to be a small hut, carefully cut from spruce. A hut of 10 crowns, slightly taller than a man, with a roof that was covered with large pieces of birch bark intertwined willow twigs. A thick layer of earth up to 25 cm high was poured onto the roof for warmth. The house was built “into a cup.” On one side of the hut there was a small window, probably for the escape of smoke, since the hut was heated in a black way. The door of the hut overlooked a small lake (or rather, a karst depression) with a diameter of no more than 3 m, quite deep. Another window bigger size was located on the opposite side of the small window. He, as the guide claimed, had not been there before. It was later that the hunters cut it through. Inside the hut, everything had collapsed; they found the remains of some simple household items - wooden hooks, a mortar, a shovel, a high chair, etc. Near the hut we found traces of some buildings, completely collapsed, overgrown with moss and covered with a layer of earth. They were at a distance of 10-15 steps from the hut. But what especially attracted our attention were the strange buildings located in front of the door, 3-5 steps away, between the hut and the lake. The impression was that these were tombstones - half-rotten log houses of a wooden 2-3-crowned frame, characteristic of the funeral rite on Ilych. An eight-pointed cross is placed at the feet of the grave, the top of which is crowned gable roof. There were three of these houses..."

REVENGE OF A REJECTED PARTY MEMBER

The remaining untouched Old Believers existed in the vast expanses of the Urals until 1952. For over 30(!) years they led an autonomous existence in harsh climatic conditions. During the war, some women and children returned to Ilych villages under the guise of settlers. Some monasteries were inhabited mainly by men. They sometimes went to the villages. Participation in haymaking was especially practiced. Men dressed in dark women's clothing, mowed the grass without arousing any suspicion.

Unfortunately for the Old Believers, that year a representative of the Troitsko-Pechora regional party committee arrived in the area on some party business. His attention was disproportionately attracted a large number of women in remote forest villages. Perhaps he would not have paid attention to it - there were few men everywhere after the war. Most likely, some village resident (or maybe several) rejected his attentions. This angered the party member, and he, finding fault with some little thing, wrote a report.

Senior lieutenant of the NKVD Kurdyumov from Troitsk-Pechorsk was sent to the investigation. It was he who later drew attention to a curious fact: at about the same time, in villages almost devoid of a male population, children were born together. This prompted the senior lieutenant to become suspicious. Under the guise of a young teacher, an agent provocateur arrived in the area, gained the trust of the local residents, and the case of the hiding Old Believers was soon solved.

There were arrests and charges under articles of evasion of labor activity (parasitism - what an irony of fate! - it is difficult to imagine more hardworking people who managed to live autonomously for years in the harsh conditions of the Northern Urals) and evasion of military duty. About one and a half dozen Ebeliz Old Believers were sentenced to various terms. After leaving, they all returned to the Pechora villages. Their descendants still live there today.

The dwellings of the arrested Old Believers were mostly abandoned, partially looted by poachers and “developed” by hunters, but, nevertheless, much of what remained in the huts was discovered in 1959 by members of the expedition of the Institute of Russian Literature. They found costumes, icons, folds, painted boards for grave crosses and - the main thing for which the expedition was equipped - handwritten books. Some manuscripts were sealed with wax in sealed birch bark tubes and hidden in leafy logs. Undoubtedly, they have survived to this day and are hiding somewhere on the slopes of Ebeliz.

In 1971, the official church lifted the curse that it had placed on them during the schism from the Old Believers. So, after 305 years, the old faith was rehabilitated.

The literature mainly deals with communities of Old Believers living in populated areas, but there is practically no information on monasteries. This is understandable, since most of them were secret and were not widely known even during the period of their existence.

1 E. Shubnitsina, Shchugor. Syktyvkar: NP “Yugyd va”, 2009. – 72 p. with ill.

2 Here and below, fragments of the essay by Elena Fedorenkova (scientific supervisor - Tatyana Kaneva) “Old Believers on Ilych (based on materials from school historical and local history expeditions in 2000 and 2001 to the Troitsko-Pechora district along the Ilych river)” are highlighted in italics, secondary school No. 37 Syktyvkar, 2001

3 A. Kemmerich. Northern Urals. "FiS", M., 1969.

The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church began in 1653 under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Patriarch Nikon, a tough character, introduces new rules. The Tsar cherished the dream of uniting the entire Orthodox world around Moscow and liberating Byzantium. The first step should be to bring rituals and symbols of faith to a single model so that all Orthodox Christians pray and believe the same. Thus, the Greek Church, which essentially gave Orthodoxy to Rus', had a number of differences by the 17th century. Nikon invites Greek scientists to Moscow. They should compare Russians Orthodox books with ancient Greek. The conclusion was made that the Russian Church over the course of several centuries moved away from the true Old Byzantine canons.

I have always been surprised by the fanaticism of the Old Believers, their willingness to go to death, but not betray their faith. Furious, cruel eradication, suppression, destruction of the old faith by the authorities and Nikon’s church. There must be some kind of ideological principle here, extremely important, for which people went to the stake, to torture. And this, of course, the main thing was not whether to cross yourself with two or three fingers and how many bows to make.

The fact is that our great Russian saint Sergius of Rajonezh reformatted Western-style Christianity into Vedic Orthodoxy. Father Sergius was a highly dedicated sorcerer. His Orthodoxy is the triumph of the laws of the Rule. He subtly incorporated Slavic Vedic laws into Christianity. But the teaching of Christ was originally Vedic; it was only then completely distorted. The Christian teaching of Sergius of Radonezh became what it should be - sunny, life-affirming, no different from the ancient Hyperborean worldview.

Then it becomes clear that the Old Believers are precisely the bearers of that very true Orthodox faith. And Nikon, together with the second Romanov (Rom-man - man of Rome), began the reverse process - the destruction of the Church of Sergius of Radonezh, the enslavement of the Russian people, the imposition of the Greek religion with its servility and submission to power.

Sergius of Radonezh clothed the Slavic-Aryan worldview in a Christian form. He didn't have any dogmas. The Vedic head of the Gods Rod turned into the Heavenly Father, and the son of Rod Svarokh - into Christ, the son of God. Lada - Slavic goddess love and harmony took on the image of the Virgin Mary. The most important thing in the teachings of Father Sergius is the stages of moral and spiritual growth of a person. Violence, violation of human dignity, and drinking alcohol were prohibited. Love for the Motherland, for the native Slavic culture, self-sacrifice, and moral qualities of a person were supported. It turned out that Rus' began to unite around Sergius of Radonezh. The Vedic Slavs and the Orthodox who were still alive began to understand each other; they had nothing to share. Both of them looked to the West as a breeding ground for evil and demonism. Under Sergius of Radonezh, ancient Vedic holidays were included in the Orthodox ones. And we still celebrate them. Maslenitsa, Christmastide, Kolyada.

The Church of the Magus Sergius denied the title “servant of God.” Under him, the Rus were the children and grandchildren of God, just as before in Vedic times. Under Ivan the Terrible, all this continued. All Western attacks failed. And only in the middle of the 17th century, the proteges of Rome, the Romanovs, were ordered to cleanse Rus' of the Orthodoxy of Sergius of Radonezh.

There was a murmur among the people that these scientists were crooks pursuing self-interest. And changes are taking place according to Latin books. The monks of the Solovetsky Monastery were the first to refuse to obey Nikon. They are ready to give armed resistance. The murmur turns into confusion.

They wait with special trepidation for the year 1666. It is not entirely clear why. After all, before the calendar reform of Peter I in 1700, chronology in Rus' was carried out from the creation of the world. 1700 AD corresponds to 7208 AD, which means 1666 AD is 7174 AD. By the way, the Old Believers still calculate chronology according to the old style, just as we did in Vedic Rus'. (In September 2012, we entered the year 7521 and the beginning of the era of the Wolf).

On June 22, 1666, something that horrified many happened solar eclipse, foretelling the end of the world as a matter of course. The Council takes place in the same year. The Council decides to observe all Nikon’s innovations as true. Defenders of the old faith are cursed and called schismatics. The Solovetsky Monastery is taken by storm. The main rebels are hanged and burned to intimidate them. The most ardent preacher of the Old Believers, Archpriest Avvakum, is executed by fire. In an earthen prison, the nun Theodora, known to us more as the noblewoman Morozova, dies of hunger. Ordinary people, frightened by the executions, ran across the expanses of Russia. First to the Kostroma and Bryansk forests, and then further to the Urals, to Siberia.

The purge began under Tsar Alexei and continued with particular fury under Peter I. Bonfires of ancient manuscripts blazed. Slavic culture was destroyed in order to break the connection of times. Mass drunkenness was encouraged. The people were turned into slaves. How many Russian people were destroyed? There is a version that it is a third. The second genocide after Vladimir the Bloody - the baptizer of Rus'.

Ural.

The first report of Old Believers appearing in the Urals dates back to 1684. About 50 people appeared in Porechye in Usolsky district. Especially many Old Believers accepted the Ural forests after the famous Streltsy revolt. The suppression of the rebellion by Tsar Peter was brutal. Those who fled are buried in the most remote corners - forests, mountains, caves. The chronicle writes: “During the resettlement, they started monastic hermitages. And they lived like monasteries, crowded with about a hundred people.” One of the settlements of the Old Believers was on the site of the present village of Kulisei. According to legend, it was from this graveyard that the Old Believers began to settle in the Urals. The forest surrounded the churchyard with such a dense wall that the narrow clearing leading out into the world was called a hole by the Old Believers. The Old Believers were divided into two factions: priests and non-priests. The name itself speaks for itself. Both of them pray only to icons painted before Patriarch Nikon. Contacts with the outside world were kept to a minimum. Those who were caught spreading the old faith were ordered to be tortured and burned in a log house. And those who maintain the faith are supposed to be mercilessly whipped and exiled. It was ordered to beat with a whip and batogs even those who provide little help to the Old Believers, give them something to eat or just drink water.

Tsar Peter I allows registered Old Believers to live openly in villages, but imposes double taxes on them, and this is ruinous. And the majority of Old Believers live unregistered, that is, illegally, for which they are tried and exiled. They are prohibited from holding any state or public position, or from being witnesses in court against Orthodox Christians, even if the latter are convicted of murder or theft. But despite everything, the Old Believers are indestructible.

Old Believers are becoming especially widespread in the Urals with the development of industry here. The Demidovs and other breeders, contrary to the supreme royal authority, encourage the Old Believers in every possible way and hide them from the authorities. They are even given high positions. After all, breeders only want profit, they don’t care about church dogma, and all Old Believers are conscientious workers. What is difficult for others is observed without difficulty. Their faith does not allow them to ruin themselves with vodka or smoke. Old Believers, to put it modern language, quite quickly make a career, becoming foremen and managers. The Ural factories are becoming a stronghold of the Old Believers.

Not far from Nevyansk, the capital of the Demidovs, there is an ancient Old Believer village, Byngi (emphasis on the “and”). There is a very beautiful, even unique in its architecture, St. Nicholas Church (1789). The end of each century was marked by a thaw in relation to the Old Believers. There are heavy huts around. Yes, what kind! Just 19th century. Many huts could decorate any museum of wooden architecture. By the way, the film “Gloomy River” was filmed here.

The persecution sometimes weakens, sometimes intensifies, but never stops. During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, the Old Believers were attacked new wave repression and persecution. Dissenters are prohibited from building monasteries and calling themselves desert dwellers and monasteries. Another trap is the introduction of Edinoverie. Dilapidated Old Believer churches close, new ones cross. IN churches of the same faith services are carried out as before. However, they are subordinate to the official Orthodox Church. If you cannot get rid of schismatics by destroying churches, then you can try to overcome the faith with a new schism. In the village of Byngi, near Nikolskaya, there is the Kazan Church of the same faith (1853) with rather primitive architecture.

In Nizhny Tagil they decide to convert the Trinity Chapel into a church of the same faith. Old Believers surround the chapel, blocking access to it. “We’ll die, but we won’t give it up,” they say. The angry governor comes to see the conflict. And he gives the command to storm the chapel. The chapel has been taken. The monasteries are being destroyed: Kasli, Kyshtym, Cherdyn. A permanent mission begins to operate in the Urals. Its members, Orthodox priests, travel to villages, talk with Old Believers, assuring them that their faith is nothing more than heresy. In words, the peasants agree with the missionaries, but after leaving they are often asked by the council to impose penance on them in order to atone for the sin that happened. In general, the fight against the Old Believers was waged almost throughout the entire time the Romanovs were on the throne. One can count only 60-70 years when the struggle subsided. Construction workers consider this time to be the happiest in their history.

But a new cruel and bloody 20th century, rich in shocks, was already approaching. The official church, which fought so ardently against the Old Believers, will have to drink the cup of bitter trials itself. Who knows, maybe they prepared this cup for themselves when they were chasing the old faith with the passion of the hunt. For the new Bolshevik government, issues of faith and property turned out to be extremely important. The Old Believers were directly related to both issues. To begin with, the entire religion was subjected to an atheistic revision. Faith in Marx-Engels was supposed to supplant any religion. The Bolsheviks found out that among the Old Believers, old people play a huge role; they do not allow young people to break away from the faith. The fight against faith takes on the most brutal forms. Churches are closing. Priests are shot or exiled. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were almost 100 Old Believer parishes in the Perm region. After 60 years, there are two left. Most Old Believers have strong family peasant farms. They depend only on the weather and are not at all dependent on party directives. This situation of the new government must be broken. Many Old Believers are declared kulaks and exiled. The whole way of life fell apart. Throughout the entire period of Soviet power there was a struggle against religion. Poor villages pushed people into the cities.

In 1971, the official church lifted the curse that it had placed on them during the schism from the Old Believers. Thus, after three centuries, the old faith was rehabilitated. But even today there is a chill of alienation in the relations between the two churches. The last 15 years of the 20th century turned out to be the most liberal in Russia. But on the other hand, it became clear what losses the Old Believers suffered during the years of Soviet power. Now the Old Believers hope that young people will come to the faith.

We have one country, one history. They are as Russian as we are. And their perseverance despite all the trials is admirable. Today there is no more persecution. But temptations are coming, which are becoming increasingly difficult to resist. The technological age is increasingly invading their lives.

On Southern Urals Old Believers settled for a long time. These were mainly two streams: from the Volga, or rather its tributary Kerzhenets, where the Nizhny Novgorod monasteries were destroyed (probably this is where another name for the Old Believers came from - Kerzhaks) and from the Russian north, from Pomerania. It is believed that even the first breeder of Miass, I. Luginin, was an Old Believer. In 1809 there was a chapel here, and in 1895, when repressions eased, there was also a stone church, which was destroyed in the 1960s. At the end of 1999, the Old Believer Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in Miass.

5 little-known facts about Old Believers in the Urals

1. Former Old Believer church in Yekaterinburg

Modern Cathedral of the Holy Trinitywas built at the expense of the merchant and head of the city of Yekaterinburg Yakim Ryazanov in 1830. It was founded as a house of worship for Old Believers who were seeking reconciliation with the official church. Then they handed it over to the Russian Orthodox Church. During Soviet times, films were shown here, a factory was set up, and rock club concerts were held here.

2. Why were the Old Believers of the Urals and Siberia called Kerzhaks?

The history of this word begins in the era of PeterI.It was under Peter that it beganthe defeat of Kerzhenets - one of the largest Old Believer centers.
Kerzhenets is the name of a river in the Nizhny Novgorod province. After the defeat of Kerzhenets, the Old Believers fled to the Urals, Siberia, Starodubye, Vetka and other places. People from the Kerzhen monasteries in the Urals and Siberia began to be called Kerzhaks; this term later spread to all Old Believers of the Urals and Siberia.

3. The secret school of icon painters - Old Believers.

Nevyansk icon

After the split, when many Old Believers came to the Urals and Siberia, where they settled in permanent residence, they had a great need for icons. They built secret hermitages, chapels and prayer houses, which had to be equipped and furnished with icons, so secret schools of icon painters - Old Believers - began to appear.The most famous school was Nevyansk. Although there were similarin Nizhny Tagil, Staraya Utka, Solikamsk and in a number of other cities and settlements of the Urals.

4. Old Believers and the intoxicating drink - kumyshka.

Staroutkinsk

According to legend, during the time of the Demidovs in the stones In the vicinity of the village of Staroutkinsk, the Old Believers carved out spacious cells where they hid from the Tsar’s and Demidov’s clerks. And they lived by distilling an intoxicating drink - kumyshka - from flour. And over time, a secret distillery was formed here. The sellers were tracked down by Demidov's guards, the Old Believers were caught, and their cells were covered with stones. But one of the stones for her has since received its self-explanatory name -Distillery stone.

5 . Old Believer Icarus

Big Galashki

One of the famous Old Believer settlements in the Urals is the village of Bolshie Galashki. According to legend, it was founded by a certain Galanya, a great dreamer and jack of all trades. Galanya was troubled all his life by the eternal universal dream, which destroyed him. Galanya, like Icarus, dreamed of flying. He made a light wooden frame with mobile controlled birch bark wings and jumped from a tree with it, trying to take off.

Many people ask the question: “Who are the Old Believers, and how do they differ from Orthodox believers?” People interpret Old Belief differently, equating it either to a religion or to a type of sect.

Let's try to understand this extremely interesting topic.

Old Believers - who are they?

Old Belief arose in the 17th century as a protest against changes in old church customs and traditions. A schism began after the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, who introduced innovations in church books and church structure. All who did not accept the changes and advocated for the preservation of old traditions were anathematized and persecuted.

The large community of Old Believers soon split into separate branches that did not recognize the sacraments and traditions of the Orthodox Church and often had different views on the faith.

Avoiding persecution, the Old Believers fled to uninhabited places, settling in the North of Russia, the Volga region, Siberia, settling in Turkey, Romania, Poland, China, reaching Bolivia and even Australia.

Customs and traditions of the Old Believers

The current way of life of the Old Believers is practically no different from the one that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers used several centuries ago. In such families, history and traditions are respected, passed down from generation to generation. Children are taught to respect their parents, brought up in strictness and obedience, so that in the future they become a reliable support.

From the early age sons and daughters are taught to work, which is held in high esteem by the Old Believers. They have to work a lot: Old Believers try not to buy food in the store, so they grow vegetables and fruits in their gardens, perfect cleanliness They keep livestock and do a lot of things for the house with their own hands.

They do not like to talk about their lives to strangers, and even have separate dishes for those who come into the community “from the outside.”

To clean the house, use only clean water from a consecrated well or spring. The bathhouse is considered an unclean place, so the cross must be removed before the procedure, and when they enter the house after the steam room, they must wash themselves with clean water.

Old Believers pay great attention to the sacrament of baptism. They try to baptize the baby within a few days after his birth. The name is chosen strictly according to the calendar, and for a boy - within eight days after birth, and for a girl - within eight days before and after birth.

All attributes used during baptism are kept in storage for some time. running water so that they become clean. Parents are not allowed to attend christenings. If mom or dad witnesses the ceremony, then this bad sign, who threatens divorce.

As for wedding traditions, relatives up to the eighth generation and relatives “on the cross” do not have the right to walk down the aisle. There are no weddings on Tuesday and Thursday. After marriage, a woman constantly wears a shashmura headdress; appearing in public without it is considered a great sin.

Old Believers do not wear mourning. According to customs, the body of the deceased is washed not by relatives, but by people chosen by the community: a man is washed by a man, a woman by a woman. The body is placed in a wooden coffin with shavings at the bottom. Instead of a cover there is a sheet. At funerals, the deceased is not remembered with alcohol, and his belongings are distributed to the needy as alms.

Are there Old Believers in Russia today?

In Russia today there are hundreds of settlements in which Russian Old Believers live.

Despite the different trends and branches, they all continue the life and way of life of their ancestors, carefully preserve traditions, and raise children in the spirit of morality and ambition.

What kind of cross do the Old Believers have?

In church rituals and services, Old Believers use an eight-pointed cross, on which there is no image of the Crucifixion. In addition to the horizontal crossbar, there are two more on the symbol.

The top one depicts a tablet on the cross where Jesus Christ was crucified, the bottom one implies a kind of “scale” that measures human sins.

How Old Believers are baptized

In Orthodoxy it is customary to perform sign of the cross three fingers - three fingers, symbolizing the unity of the Holy Trinity.

Old Believers cross themselves with two fingers, as was customary in Rus', saying “Alleluia” twice and adding “Glory to Thee, God.”

For worship they dress in special clothes: men put on a shirt or blouse, women wear a sundress and a scarf. During the service, Old Believers cross their arms over their chests as a sign of humility before the Almighty and bow to the ground.

Where are the settlements of the Old Believers?

In addition to those who remained in Russia after Nikon’s reforms, Old Believers who have lived for a long time in exile outside its borders continue to return to the country. They, as before, honor their traditions, raise livestock, cultivate the land, and raise children.

Many people took advantage of the resettlement program for Far East, where there is a lot of fertile land and there is an opportunity to build a strong economy. Several years ago, thanks to the same voluntary resettlement program, Old Believers from South America returned to Primorye.

In Siberia and the Urals there are villages where Old Believer communities are firmly established. There are many places on the map of Russia where the Old Believers flourish.

Why were the Old Believers called Bespopovtsy?

The split of the Old Believers formed two separate branches - priesthood and non-priesthood. Unlike the Old Believers-Priests, who after the schism recognized the church hierarchy and all the sacraments, the Old Believers-Priestless began to deny the priesthood in all its manifestations and recognized only two sacraments - Baptism and Confession.

There are Old Believer movements that also do not deny the sacrament of Marriage. According to the Bespopovites, the Antichrist has reigned in the world, and all modern clergy is a heresy that is of no use.

What kind of Bible do the Old Believers have?

Old Believers believe that the Bible and the Old Testament in their modern interpretation are distorted and do not carry the original information that should carry the truth.

In their prayers they use the Bible, which was used before Nikon's reform. Prayer books from those times have survived to this day. They are carefully studied and used in worship.

How do Old Believers differ from Orthodox Christians?

The main difference is this:

1. Orthodox believers recognize church ceremonies and the sacraments of the Orthodox Church, believe in its teachings. Old Believers consider the old pre-reform texts of the Holy Books to be true, without recognizing the changes made.
2. Old Believers wear eight-pointed crosses with the inscription “King of Glory”, there is no image of the Crucifixion on them, they cross themselves with two fingers, and bow to the ground. In Orthodoxy, three-fingered crosses are accepted, crosses have four and six ends, and people generally bow at the waist.
3. The Orthodox rosary consists of 33 beads; the Old Believers use the so-called lestovki, consisting of 109 knots.
4. Old Believers baptize people three times, completely immersing them in water. In Orthodoxy, a person is doused with water and partially immersed.
5. In Orthodoxy, the name “Jesus” is written with a double vowel “and”; Old Believers are faithful to tradition and write it as “Isus”.
6. There are more than ten different readings in the Creed of the Orthodox and Old Believers.
7. Old Believers prefer copper and tin icons to wooden ones.

Conclusion

A tree can be judged by its fruits. The purpose of the Church is to lead its spiritual children to salvation, and its fruits, the result of its labors, can be assessed by the gifts that its children have acquired.

And the fruits of the Orthodox Church are a host of holy martyrs, saints, priests, prayer books and other wondrous Pleasers of God. The names of our Saints are known not only to the Orthodox, but also to the Old Believers, and even to non-church people.

In the turbulent year of the vicious dog, one involuntarily recalls the “number of the beast” and the year 1666, when a church council opened, which a year later anathematized the schismatics.

Despite the fact that it is long ago the 21st century, and not the 17th century, the name of the Old Believers still frightens the respectable public. In the latest domestic blockbuster, “Piranha Hunt,” it is the Old Believers who act as the forces of evil. This is understandable given how little we know about them, and the unknown is always scary. It is interesting that the ideological scheme proposed by the authors of the film has not changed much in three hundred years. As before, the smart and fair servants of the sovereign are saving Rus' (even if not with the word of God, but by force of arms), and the evil and narrow-minded Old Believers are preventing them from doing this.

The Old Believers did not accept and shunned the poisoned, corrupted world of the Antichrist, by which they understood Patriarch Nikon and many Russian tsars, starting with Alexei Mikhailovich. They believed that the Antichrist, having come into the world, poisoned the water, earth and air, so for many adherents of the old faith it became impossible to breathe this air and drink this water, and the best way out was to leave for another world. In addition, according to the decrees of Alexei Mikhailovich, those exposed in the Old Belief were subject to merciless physical destruction, including by burning. This is exactly how Archpriest Avvakum was executed in Pustozersk. Boyarina Feodosia Prokofyevna Morozova was imprisoned for her beliefs in a five-seated earthen pit, where she soon died of starvation. Therefore there was little choice. Hence the numerous cases of mass suicide.

The Russian state did not like them either for their freethinking and stubbornness. It is no coincidence that the level of literacy has always been high among the Old Believers. Meanwhile, the most irreconcilable were either destroyed by the state or died in numerous “burnings”, and the rest, to one degree or another, came to terms with reality. And already within the framework of the “sinful” state they became the most important part of its history and culture. When the average Russian hears the word “Old Believers,” his memory will most likely come to mind of the taiga recluse Agafya Lykova, the noblewoman Morozova from Surikov’s painting, and the famous self-immolations. Meanwhile, the Ural Old Believers did much of what surrounds us now, although we may not notice it. By the way, Surikov painted the face of noblewoman Morozova from a Ural Old Believers who happened to meet him in Moscow.

Character of the Old Believers

Over the centuries of persecution among the Old Believers, a unique attitude to life and an original philosophy was formed, which made it possible, over many years of persecution, to achieve the fact that in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, about 60% of industrial capital was concentrated in the hands of the Old Believers.

They, as a rule, do not drink, although, as a last resort, they are allowed to drink no more than three glasses of wine, but only on Sundays. Getting drunk “to the point of losing the image of God” is considered undignified and shameful. Also among them there is a ban on smoking tobacco, since it is believed that it is a weed that grew from the blood of the unclean. It is interesting that in the 18th century among the Old Believers there were even bans on tea and samovars. Although gradually the attitude towards this drink changed, since tea is still better than alcohol.

The swearing is denied as blasphemy. It is believed that a woman who swears makes the future of her children unhappy. The Old Believers call their children according to the Saints, and therefore with rare names (Parigory, Eustathius, Lukerya), although there are also quite familiar names. Men are required to wear a beard, and girls a braid. In addition, each person must be belted; it is necessary to constantly wear a strap without removing it. Observance of rituals, holidays and daily prayers are also an integral part of life. The Old Believers have a calm attitude towards death. It is customary to prepare in advance the “shell” (clothes in which they will be placed in the coffin): a shirt, a sundress, linden bast shoes, a shroud. The mother should prepare the shell for her son and give it to him when he joins the army. It was also necessary to prepare a coffin, preferably hollowed out from a single piece of wood.

Abortion is considered a sin even more serious than murder, because the baby in the womb is unbaptized.

“Demand more from yourself, consider yourself worse than everyone else” is another principle of the Old Believers, encouraging hard work and activity. Having a “tough economy” has always been important for these people, because it allowed them to have support in difficult times. Leaving their homes for the Urals and Siberia, they had to work a lot and hard, which created a habit of hard work. Asceticism, conditioned by religious tradition, did not allow wasting money and living in idleness. For an Old Believer, not working at all is a sin; however, working poorly is also a sin.

An important feature their worldview is love for their small homeland as the home of their body and soul, which must be preserved in beauty and purity.

The success of Old Believers in business often carries with it the temptation to draw a parallel with the Protestant capitalist spirit of individualism and competition. In reality, if the Old Believers entered into a competitive struggle, it was a struggle with the world of dark forces that surrounded them. They believed that the pious Old Believers were chosen by the Lord for eternal life, therefore, at all costs, it was necessary to preserve their own world. Old Believers entrepreneurs were collectivists. They believed that all members of the community should treat each other as brothers. Therefore, any workshop or factory carried family traits. This is also where the Old Believers’ penchant for charity stems. Old Believer traditionalism in this sense is closer to the Japanese work ethic with their “quality circles” and the cult of their company.

Demidovs

The first Demidov factories were, in fact, created by Old Believers. It was rumored that Nikita and Akinfiy themselves were secret schismatics. They ordered the best Old Believers craftsmen from the Olonets factories, accepted runaways, and hid them from the census. Akinfiy Demidov even built an Old Believer monastery on the outskirts of Nevyansk. The talents of the Old Believers later bore rich fruit. Beglopopovites Efim and Miron Cherepanov built it in 1833-34. first in Russia railway and the first steam locomotive.

Probably, the Ural Old Believers were also involved in the invention of the Russian samovar. Since the 17th century, tea began to come to the Urals from China. It was the combination of Chinese tea and Ural copper that led to the appearance of the samovar, which was born here, and not in Tula. The first mention of a samovar is contained in a list of items seized at Yekaterinburg customs and dates back to 1740. And that samovar was from the Irginsky plant, which consisted almost entirely of fugitive schismatics. It was the craftsmen brought by N. Demidov from the Urals to Tula who opened the first samovar workshops in the mid-18th century.

In the Nevyansk possessions of the Demidovs, a unique school of icon painting developed. This original cultural phenomenon was called the “Nevyansk Icon”. It preserved the traditions of ancient Rus', and at the same time included the trends of the New Age in the form of features of Baroque and Classicism. The popularity of Nevyansk Old Believer icon painters was so great that in the 19th century they no longer worked only for communities of chapel harmony or co-religionists, but also for the official church. Since 1999, there has been a unique free private museum “Nevyansk Icon” in Yekaterinburg. In March 2006 at the Central Museum ancient Russian culture and art named after Andrei Rublev, for the first time in Moscow, an exhibition of the collections of the Yekaterinburg Museum “Nevyansk Icon: Ural Mining Icon Painting of the 18th - 19th Centuries” was successfully held in Moscow.

General V.I. de Gennin also appreciated the hard work of the Old Believers and did not subject them to serious persecution, although from time to time they were caught, their nostrils were torn out and they were flogged. Another founder of our city, V.N. Tatishchev, fulfilling the sovereign's will, did not give in to the schismatics. In 1736, on his orders, 72 nuns and 12 monks were captured and imprisoned for 30 years in a specially built prison in Yekaterinburg.

It was the residents of the ancient Old Believer village of Shartash who became the first builders of the Yekaterinburg plant - the future capital of the mining Urals. In the 17th century, when there was no trace of Yekaterinburg, Shartash was a rich village with more than ten hermitages and about four hundred inhabitants.

In 1745, a resident of the same village of Shartash, Old Believer Erofei Markov, discovered grains of native gold while walking through the forest, and laid the foundation for mass gold mining in Russia. The first gold mine in Russia appeared at the site of the discovery in 1748.

Catherine II abolished the double per capita salary of the Old Believers and stopped their persecution. They were given the opportunity to join the merchant class. After this, the number of Old Believers among the Ural merchants began to grow rapidly and approach one hundred percent.

The owners of tallow factories and gold mines, the merchants Ryazanovs, played a large role in the religious life of the Urals. Ya.M. Ryazanov, considered the head of all Ural Old Believers, founded a large prayer house in Yekaterinburg in 1814. However, the authorities did not allow construction to continue at that time. Only after Ryazanov and many of his supporters converted to the same faith in 1838 were they allowed to complete the construction of the temple. So, in 1852, the Holy Trinity Cathedral appeared, which is now a cathedral and belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church.

IN Soviet years The temple lost its domes and bell tower and was transferred to Sverdlovskavtodor. Somewhat later, the building housed the Avtomobilistov House of Culture, a place known among the city’s intelligentsia for the fact that during the years of perestroika various intellectual films were shown here and there was even a discussion club. In the 1990s, the building was transferred to the Yekaterinburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and was restored. The domes and bell tower had to be rebuilt, but already in 2000 the temple was illuminated by Patriarch Alexy II who personally came here.

The godless Soviet government hit the old faith hard. To reduce the influence of the Old Believers, strong pressure was put on community leaders. They were either liquidated, or expelled, or forced to abandon the outward manifestations of religious life.

Although strong and thrifty men were valued even under the new government. True, now we had to abandon the icons and join the party, but the traditions and way of life were largely preserved. In this regard, I remember the life or fate of the famous Kurgan field farmer Terenty Semenovich Maltsev. He, being a representative of one of the Old Believers, never drank, never studied for a day at school, but at the same time he was literate, had beautiful handwriting, could read Old Church Slavonic and, due to his literacy and prudence, at one time performed the duties of an “old man” in the village house of worship.

In 1916, Terenty Maltsev was drafted into the army. The First World War was going on. Quite quickly he is captured and from 1917 to 1921 he is in the German city of Quedlinburg.

After graduation Civil War Terenty Semenovich returns to Russia. Here he is passionately engaged in agricultural technology and eventually becomes a twice Hero Socialist Labor, honorary academician of VASKhNIL. The Old Believer's concern for the environment apparently manifested itself in the fact that Terenty Maltsev developed a gentle, no-moldboard method of cultivating the land, for which he received the USSR State Prize in 1946. His books “A Word about the Earth-Nurse”, “Thoughts about the Harvest”, “Thoughts about the Land, About Bread” are imbued with reflections on the relationship between man and nature.

Having been born at the beginning of the reign of Emperor Nicholas II in 1895, having passed all the tests that befell home country, Terenty Semenovich passed away already in the first years of President Yeltsin’s reign, in 1994. Thus, for 99 years, Old Believer humility and hard work helped Terenty Maltsev to endure all the hardships and hardships that befell the common Russian man.

Places of residence

The Urals became the largest place of residence for Old Believers, who fled here from all over Russia. The first settlements of Old Believers in the Urals appeared on the Neiva River and its tributaries. The Beglopopovites settled in the area of ​​Nevyansk, Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg. Representatives of the chapel consensus (starikovshchina) live compactly in the village of Zakharov (near Lysva, Perm region), Nevyansk, village. Big Laya ( Sverdlovsk region), Tugulymsky district, Revda and Polevskoy. A large number of Old Believers in the Sverdlovsk region live in the village of Shamary, the village of Pristan and other villages of the Artinsky district, in the Krasnoufimsky district (village of Russkaya Tavra), Nevyansky and Baranchinsky districts. These are largely adherents of the Belokrinitsky consent.

Within the Perm region, parishes are officially registered in Perm, Ocher, Vereshchagin, Tchaikovsky, Kudymkar, at the Mendeleevo station, in the villages of Borodulino, Sepych, Putino.

In the 1990s, active construction of Old Believer churches began. In 1990, a temple was consecrated in the city of Omutninsk, Kirov region. On the basis of this project, a temple was built in 1993 in the city of Vereshchagino. In 1994, the old church building, which had previously served as a museum, was transferred to the Old Believer community of Yekaterinburg. Since 1996, there has been a temple in the village of Shamary. The temple in the city of Miass was built in four years and consecrated in 1999.

In Yekaterinburg, in the area of ​​Tveritin, Belinsky and Rosa Luxemburg streets, another one should appear in a few years Old Believer temple in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Representatives of the Pomeranian consensus who reject priests (bespopovtsy) are going to build it. The Ekaterinburg VIZ Church belongs to the Belokrinitsky Concord, which ordains its own priests. In general, there are a lot of different agreements in the Old Believers. Fedoseevites and Filippovites, for example, reject marriage. Beglopopovtsy accept priests - “runaways” - from other communities and directions. One of the most democratic agreements is the Netovites. They have nothing: no priests, no temples. They believe that only individual contact with God through prayer can be saving. The most mysterious group is considered to be runners or True Orthodox Christians Wandering (ITPS). They preach leaving the world of the Antichrist, so they break all ties with society. Dont Have real estate, passports, do not pay taxes, do not participate in censuses, do not accept modern chronology, do not have a name and therefore are called servants of God. They have connections only with a small group of people who support them financially. During the years of Soviet power, they went underground and became close to the Catacomb Church, and therefore, due to their anti-state position, they were under the close attention of the security officers.

Andrey LYAMZIN,
candidate historical sciences.
Ural geographical magazine “Podorozhnik”, summer 2006.