The Old Believers

Russian Christians who kept the service books, the two-fingered sign of the cross and the chant of the church before Patriarch Nikon's revisions, were anathematized for it in 1666–67, and live today in a priestly branch and a priestless one.

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Why do the Old Believers dislike the word "raskolniki" (schismatics)? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Is withdrawal from the world required for salvation? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (Moscow Metropolia), Questions and answers: How were the first Old Believers' church life organized? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Is it true the reform touched only rite? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Is a priestless teacher the equivalent of a priest? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: How is a person received into the Old Believer Church? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Reception in the different Old Believer accords (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: The role of the parish priest (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Who is the Antichrist in the Old Believer understanding? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Veneration of relics and icons (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Why did the Old Believers largely ignore the lifting of the anathemas in 1971? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: What do the Old Believers of all accords have in common? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Questions and answers: Why do the Belokrinitsa and Novozybkov hierarchies not reunite? (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Reply to the materials of the Russian Orthodox Church's polemic, enclosed with the letter of Metropolitan Anthony of 12 May 2025 (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Temples (directory of parishes and dioceses, Russian)

The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum by Himself, tr. Jane Harrison and Hope Mirrlees, preface by D. S. Mirsky (Hogarth Press, 1924), Internet Archive

Tatiana Veselkina, "The Way We Serve is Our Means of Communicating With God": on the Old Believer Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie, PA, with Archpriest Pimen Simon, OrthoChristian.com

Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church, Publications: History (Russian)

Russian Orthodox Church, Local Council of 30 May–2 June 1971: Act on the lifting of the oaths on the old rites, with the report of Metropolitan Nikodim (Russian; from the council's Documents, Materials, Chronicle, Moscow, 1972, pp. 129–131), Azbyka.ru

Adam Drozdek (Duquesne University), "On Pomorskiye Otvety," Roczniki Teologiczne 65, no. 7 (2018): 35–52

Old Believers (Wikipedia)

Avvakum (Wikipedia)

Great Moscow Synod (Wikipedia)

1971 Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (Wikipedia)

The Old Believers began as a quarrel over service books and the sign of the cross, and it ended as a tearing of the Russian church. Patriarch Nikon began revising the books in 1653. The Great Moscow Council of 1667 anathematized those who kept the old forms. Their leaders were imprisoned and burned, and thousands more died at their own hands. The dissenters then divided over a problem the anathemas created: where to get priests. The Russian church lifted the anathemas in 1971, and the Old Believers largely did not answer.

Nikon's reform

Patriarch Nikon sent the Moscow churches a written order, which Avvakum quotes: "it behoves you to sign yourselves with three fingers." Avvakum, then a priest in Moscow, tells what followed: "It was as if Winter was of a mind to come; our hearts froze." The Old Believers' church dates the whole reform to 1653–1667.

The councils and the anathema

The Russian Orthodox Church's report to its council of 1971 sets out the record. Nikon, patriarch from 1652 to 1658, gave his order on the sign in 1653, though the Stoglav Council of 1551 had required all Russians to cross with two fingers. In 1656 Patriarch Macarius of Antioch and a Moscow council pronounced a curse on those who crossed with two fingers. A council of Russian bishops in 1666 ordered the new books and the three-fingered sign but laid no general anathema. The Great Moscow Council of 1667, with Patriarchs Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch present, did: its ruling of 13 May 1667 anathematized anyone who would not accept the corrected rite. The report says the council judged the old rites heretical on the word of a Greek archimandrite's polemic. The Old Believers returned the judgment: in their view the bishops who took the reform had left the fullness of the faith.

The Solovetsky Monastery

The monks of the Solovetsky Monastery resisted the new rite for eight years. They began by petitioning the tsar. In one petition they said Nikon and his followers had made "a new faith." The resistance later became armed, and the Old Believers venerate the monks who died when the monastery fell as martyrs.

Pustozersk and the fire

Avvakum and three companions were condemned in 1670 to live "on bread and water" in a dugout at Pustozersk. On 14 April 1682, after Avvakum sent a strident letter to Tsar Feodor, the four were burned at the stake. Earlier, Avraami had been burned at the stake in 1672, and the boyarina Feodosia Morozova had starved to death in 1675.

Self-immolation

In the generation after 1667 perhaps 20,000 died by fire at their own hands, sometimes thousands at a time, in the belief that the end of the world had come. When the dates the leaders had named passed, the practice "nearly ceased."

Vyg and the priestless

In 1692 and 1694 northern dissenters held councils at Novgorod and adopted the teaching of a "spiritual" Antichrist. In 1694 Elder Kornily blessed a male community on the Vyg River. The priestless accords grew from these, and the Pomorian Church traces itself to them.

Edinoverie

In 1800 a group of Moscow Old Believers petitioned Metropolitan Platon of Moscow to be received into the state church. Platon agreed to lift the curses only from those who "соединяются с Церковью, и истину ее, и таинства, и священство ее признают действительными" ("unite with the Church and acknowledge her truth, her sacraments and her priesthood as real," my translation). So began edinoverie, "one faith": parishes that keep the old books and rites under the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. That church's act of 1971 calls it the most successful attempt at reunion, though it did not end the schism. The Old Believer bodies do not count these parishes as their own.

A hierarchy of their own

Until 1846 the priestly Old Believers had no bishops of their own and took in priests who came over from the state church, receiving them by anointing as "heretics of the second rank" (my translation). In 1846 Ambrose, who had been Metropolitan of Bosnia-Sarajevo, joined them at Belaya Krinitsa, and the Belokrinitsa Hierarchy began. A second priestly line, the Novozybkov Hierarchy, followed in 1923.

The Pomorian Church

The Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church, the largest and oldest priestless body, was formally established in 1909 as a continuation of the Pomorian accord of the 1690s.

Old Believers in Erie

Pomorian immigrants from the Pskov and Novgorod region, by way of Poland, chartered the Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1916. They worked in paper mills and on the docks. In the early 1960s Old Believers who had gone to China and then Turkey were brought to the United States, and many moved on to Oregon. In 1968 families founded Nikolaevsk in Alaska.

The Moscow council lifts the anathemas

The Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, meeting at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra from May 30 to June 2, 1971, confirmed a synod decision of 1929. It declared the old rites "спасительными, как и новые обряды, и равночестными им" ("saving, as the new rites are, and equal in honor with them," my translation). It held the curses of 1656 and 1667 to be "яко не бывшие," as if they had never been.

The Old Believers' answer

The Moscow Old-Rite church says that its people "largely ignored" the lifting (my translation). It gives the reason: the old rite had never given "any reasonable ground" for an anathema, and in 1971 the other church "only acknowledged what had long been known."

Erie takes a priest

The Pomorian parish in Erie voted on January 9, 1983, with about eighty percent in favor, to join the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and Fr. Pimen Simon was ordained its priest on July 24, 1983. About a quarter of the parish left, and the former members worship a block away.

Reunion of part of the Novozybkov line

The Moscow church reports that in 2017 a part of the Novozybkov hierarchy reached union with it and became the Old Orthodox Archdiocese (my rendering), an autonomous local church. It says that full union of the two hierarchies is "sooner or later inevitable."

Avvakum Petrov

Archpriest of the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square, who led the opposition to Patriarch Nikon. He was exiled, held in a dugout at Pustozersk, and burned on 14 April 1682.

Feodosia Morozova

A boyarina of the court. After she lost her influence there she starved to death in 1675.

Ambrose of Belaya Krinitsa

The Metropolitan of Bosnia-Sarajevo, who joined the Old Believers in 1846 and restored to them a hierarchy of three ranks. He was afterward exiled. The Moscow church honors him as a saint.

Metropolitan Kornily (Titov)

Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus' of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. His see is at Rogozhskoe Poselok in Moscow.

Archpriest Pimen Simon

Rector of the Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie. He became leader of what was still a priestless parish in 1976, introduced English into its services from 1979, and led it into the Russian Church Abroad in 1983.

Where the sources fall short. The Old Believers' own English site (en.rpsc.ru) was unreachable when this chart was prepared, and the chart rests on the church's Russian pages. No site of a priestless body could be reached. Where the priestless are described here, the description is the Moscow church's, or that of the scholar Adam Drozdek writing on the Pomorian Answers of 1723, and is marked so.

Avvakum's own account. In the 1924 English translation of his Life, Avvakum writes of the tsar and his boyars, who had once honored him: "It grieves me to think how good they were." Of the priest Lazarus, whose tongue and right hand were cut off, he writes that the hand "placed its fingers after the ancient use." These are his reports, in his words, and not the teaching of the church today.

What the church says of itself. The Moscow church holds that it never left the Orthodox church: "The Old Believers are convinced that they committed no schism and remained the body of the Orthodox Church. And those who accepted the reform split from it." The Russian pages quoted here are on rpsc.ru, and every English rendering of them is mine.

Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition together, with the councils and the Fathers; the service books and usages of the church before Nikon are guarded as the faith itself.

The Old Believers' church says that a dogma is the understanding of the faith "according to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition," and that in ordering their church life the Old Believers always "held strictly to the canons: the rulings of the Ecumenical and Local Councils and the rules of the Fathers" (translations mine). What they defended in the 1600s was not "rite" (a word they say did not yet exist) but "the purity of the dogmas" and "the purity of the sacraments." They call all of it "ancient piety." Avvakum writes that he stood "secure in the tradition of the Fathers."

Старообрядцы всегда чётко следовали Священному Преданию и в организации своей церковной жизни строго придерживались канонов: постановлений Вселенских и Поместных Соборов, святоотеческих правил.

Догмат, в общем и целом, это осознание веры по Священному Писанию и Священному Преданию

Were they to heap stones on me then, secure in the tradition of the Fathers, I would lie in peace beneath these stones

The Solovetsky monks wrote to the tsar, as the church quotes them in 2025, that Nikon and his followers made "новую веру, по своему плотскому мудрованию, а не по апостольскому и святых отец Преданию" ("a new faith, by their own fleshly reasoning, and not by the tradition of the apostles and holy fathers," my translation). The church adds that Russian academic history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the work of Professor N. F. Kapterev, partly confirmed the monks' charge that the revisers used Greek books printed in the West. On what to call the reform, it dates it "в 1653–1667 гг."

Salvation is in the church, by the sacraments given through the ordained priesthood and entered by triple immersion; the way of salvation is open to everyone, in the world or out of it.

The Moscow church says that a person baptized by three immersions under the 50th apostolic canon enters the Old Believer church "by the second rank," through anointing, and that a person who was only sprinkled must be baptized by "threefold immersion" as "a symbol of the Holy Trinity, of death to sin, and of the intention of life in Christ Jesus" (translation mine). It teaches that a priest has the right to perform the sacraments that Christians need for salvation. The way is open: "Возможность спастись есть у каждого," it says, "a chance of salvation is open to everyone," whether in the world or as a hermit. Infants are baptized: Avvakum tells how, driven into exile, he and his wife carried "the unbaptized infant" with them, "and on the way we baptized our son." Among the priestless, Andrei Denisov's Pomorian Answers of 1723 hold, in the scholar Adam Drozdek's summary, that "only two sacraments are necessary for salvation: baptism and repentance." The sources reached do not state in so many words that baptism regenerates.

Если человек крещён в соответствии с 50-м апостольским правилом, в три погружения, то в старообрядческую Церковь он переходит «вторым чином», через миропомазание.

Лицо, принявшее священство имеет право совершать церковные Таинства, необходимые христианам для Спасения.

Возможность спастись есть у каждого.

The cite for the third quotation is the question about leaving the world, which the church answers: "Можно быть отшельником, как, например, Агафья Лыкова и спасаться в уединении от цивилизационных благ. Но можно пройти путь спасения и в миру, в мегаполисе." The church also holds that a baptism done by a layman "is not baptism but a simple immersion needing to be completed," except by necessity when death threatens and no priest is near.

The Eucharist is the Body of Christ and the greatest holy thing a Christian can receive; only a priest can celebrate it, and a person prepares by confession, prayer and fasting.

The Moscow church calls the Eucharist "the Body of Christ" and the greatest holy thing the Lord has given, one above which "there is nothing in the universe," and says it needs a worthy preparation: "repentance, prayer, fasting" (translation mine). Avvakum, in the 1600s, writes that in the Orthodox faith there is no Communion without Confession. The Moscow church says that a priestless teacher performs only two sacraments, baptism and confession, so the priestless do not celebrate the Liturgy. The scholar Adam Drozdek reports that Andrei Denisov, answering the Synod's questions in 1723, taught that if it is impossible to take the Eucharist, "then the ardent desire to take it and good works can replace it." Of the first Old Believers who had no priest at hand, it says that they took Communion in the fasts from a reserved Lamb, and that in place of the Liturgy they held a service called obednitsa. None of the sources reached says how often a Moscow-church parish gives Communion.

Эта Святыня – Евхаристия, Тело Христово и достойное предуготовление человека к Его принятию: покаяние, молитва, пост.

in our Orthodox faith there is no Communion without Confession

В посты христиане молились так называемое «Скитское покаяние» и причащались запасным Агнцем.

The church also says that in the 1600s the Old Believers often served the Liturgy by night in remote places so as not to bring danger on themselves, and that when there was no priest "вместо литургии служилась обедница мирским чином." On the unworthy reception of the Eucharist it adds: "недостойное принятие этой Святыни может возыметь не самые лучшие последствия."

A priesthood of three ranks (bishop, priest, deacon), whose grace comes by ordination; each parish decides its affairs by common counsel under the priest. The priestless accords hold that the priesthood has ended and are led by lay teachers.

The Moscow church teaches that a priest is a "bearer of holy orders" who holds "the grace of the Holy Spirit, given in the sacrament of ordination" (translation mine), and it counts the priesthood as necessary for the sacraments. It says its parishes decide matters "by common counsel, by the shared opinion of the parishioners," and that the priest must guard that practice. It explains that until 1846 it had no bishops of its own, and that after Ambrose it has had a three-rank hierarchy. The priestless accords reached the opposite conclusion from the same history: that the true priesthood has ended. They are led by experienced laymen, called teachers (nastavniki), who are not priests. The Moscow church holds that the teachers are not equivalent to priests and that the priestless sacraments are doubtful.

Священник – духовное лицо, носитель священного сана – благодати Святаго Духа, дающейся в таинстве хиротонии (рукоположения, священства).

Все решения в старообрядческом приходе традиционно принимаются соборным путём, общим мнением прихожан.

Исходя из беспоповского учения о прекращении священства, их общинами управляют самые опытные миряне, именуемые наставниками, но не священниками.

The third quotation is the Moscow church's description of the priestless teaching, not a priestless document. The Moscow church recognizes the Pomorian, Fedoseyevtsy and chapel-accord baptism, but not their orders, and it says the Pomorians and Fedoseyevtsy receive its own people by baptizing them again. It also writes of its priest's work: "Священник – служитель Тайн Божиих, охранитель учения Церкви."

Long, unabridged services in Church Slavonic (and English in some parishes), sung in the unaccompanied znamenny chant before icons painted in the old manner.

The Moscow church says that Old Believer services are long, "без всяких сокращений," with no cuts, "4–5 hours at a stretch, and in the fasts more" (translation mine). It names among what all Old Believers share the "каноническом иконном писании" (canonical icon painting) and "знаменное пение," the unaccompanied chant, together with the pre-reform service books. It accepts only icons in the old Russian or Byzantine style, with no paper reproductions, and holds that the writing of an icon is "a mystical act akin to a Sacrament." In Erie, Fr. Pimen Simon says: "The way we serve is our means of communicating with God." The Theotokos and the saints are honored with feasts and with the days of the Old Believer saints. The sources reached name the chant but do not say, in so many words, that no instrument is used.

У старообрядцев долгие службы, без всяких сокращений, по 4-5 часов сряду, а в посты того и больше.

У старообрядцев, например, приемлемы только канонические иконы в древнерусском или византийском стиле.

The way we serve is our means of communicating with God.

On what the Old Believers share, the church lists "дореформенные, неиспорченные боголужебные тексты, знаменное пение и многие другие церковные особенности, сохранившиеся только у старообрядцев" (the spelling "боголужебные" is the source's own). Of the icon it adds that it is "некое малое Откровение иконописцу," a small revelation to the one who paints it.

The Spirit's grace is given in the sacraments and above all in ordination; wonders are reported at relics and icons. The sources reached do not state a teaching on the miraculous gifts as such.

The Old Believers' church teaches that the grace of the Holy Spirit is given to a man through ordination, and it describes dogma as "living revelation and the summit of spiritual experience" (translation mine). It teaches that the relics, icons, the Cross, holy water, oil and bread have no value to a person who receives them "without a due religious life." Avvakum, in his Life, tells of casting out spirits and of healing, and writes, "Without the Blessed Sacrament I cannot heal." These are his accounts from the 1600s. The sources reached state no present teaching about speaking in tongues, prophecy or healing services, and this chart does not supply one.

носитель священного сана – благодати Святаго Духа, дающейся в таинстве хиротонии

догмат есть живое откровение и вершина духовного опыта

Without the Blessed Sacrament I cannot heal

The church's words about holy things: "Святые же иконы, мощи, Крест, святая вода, масло, просфора не имеют ценности для того человека, который их принимает без должной религиозной жизни."

The priestly church holds the common Orthodox teaching: a personal Antichrist will come before the Second Coming, and the time is unknown. In the 1600s many saw him already reigning; the priestless later taught a spiritual Antichrist.

The Moscow church says the Old Believers who keep the priesthood hold the Orthodox teaching on the end: before the Second Coming of Christ the Antichrist will come, and many will take him for the true Messiah. It adds that, whatever the persecution, Christians must remember that "the exact time of the coming of the Antichrist and of the Second Coming of Christ is unknown" (translation mine). It describes the radical Christians of that age, Old Believers and others, as sure he was at hand, and as seeing him by turns in Nikon, in Tsar Alexis, in Peter I, in Nicholas I, and even in Lenin. In time the priestless developed the teaching of a spiritual Antichrist, "reigning in the world in the form of heresies." Avvakum's Life confesses that Christ "will come again to judge and requite every man according to his deeds."

Перед Вторым Пришествием Христовым в мир придёт антихрист, в котором многие увидят истинного Мессию.

Вместо антихриста-персоны возникает учение о духовном антихристе, царствующем в мире в виде ересей.

He will come again to judge and requite every man according to his deeds

The old rite as the faith itself

The two-fingered sign of the cross, the service books from before Nikon, and the old forms are held as part of the faith, not as custom.

The Moscow church says that what the early Old Believers defended was never "rite" but "the purity of the dogmas," and that the whole is "ancient piety." It argues that a change in the outward form changes the inward. Avvakum's account of Nikon's order to cross with three fingers, and of the priest Lazarus whose cut-off hand "placed its fingers after the ancient use," shows how the two-fingered sign came to stand for the faith. The church holds that the old rite "never gave any reasonable ground" for anathema.

Предметом защиты был не «обряд», а «непорочность догматов», «непорочность таинств».

Как перемена внутреннего вела к перемене внешнего, так и перемена внешнего неизбежно приводит к перемене внутреннего.

placed its fingers after the ancient use

But him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not for decision of scruples. One man hath faith to eat all things: but he that is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.

If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

But Peter and the apostles answered and said, We must obey God rather than men.

The Old Believers were right to refuse a patriarch and a tsar who changed the church's worship by decree and enforced it with fire. "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29), and in a matter God never commanded, a bishop has no power to bind anyone either way. But that same truth condemns the old form when it is bound. No apostle taught a sign of the cross with two fingers or with three, so how a hand is folded is a matter on which Paul says, "Who art thou that judgest the servant of another?" (Romans 14:4). By making the gesture and the older books a test of fellowship and of salvation, they made an ordinance "after the precepts and doctrines of men" (Colossians 2:22), which is the very fault they charged against Nikon.

Their best argument is that outward form and inward faith cannot be pulled apart: "перемена внешнего неизбежно приводит к перемене внутреннего." Where God appointed the form, that is true, and it is why this chart holds them right on immersion: Paul ties the burial in the water to the death and rising of Christ (Romans 6:4). But a form God did not appoint carries no such meaning by divine choice. Its meaning is given it by men, and men may not bind it. The two-fingered sign itself rested on a council, the Stoglav of 1551, so the Old Believers answered one council with another, not with Scripture. Paul says such things "have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship" (Colossians 2:23), and that "the body is Christ’s" (Colossians 2:17). The church's own words at the end of the question about the reform: "Разделение в церковной жизни нашего Отечества на «догмат» и «обряд» стало возможным только под влиянием западноевропейского Просвещения." Paul made that distinction long before the Enlightenment, when he set what God commanded apart from the "precepts and doctrines of men."

Reception by rank

Converts from other churches are received by rank: by anointing or by baptizing again. Each body counts the others' orders and baptism differently, and those who left are not received back as equals.

The Moscow church receives a person baptized by three immersions through anointing "by the second rank," and it keeps a priest's orders. Someone who was only sprinkled is baptized. In the early years it received priests who came from the state church as "heretics of the second rank." It states that the priestless Pomorians and Fedoseyevtsy receive its own people "by repeated baptism, without keeping orders," while the Old Orthodox Church, the other priestly body, receives from it through anointing. The Moscow church counts the Old Orthodox hierarchy not as heretical but as schismatic.

Беспоповские согласия (поморцы и федосеевцы) из РПСЦ и РДЦ принимают через повторное крещение без сохранения сана.

Было решено принимать таковых как еретиков второго чина, через миропомазание.

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.

And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus, and found certain disciples: and he said unto them, Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed? And they said unto him, Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given. And he said, Into what then were ye baptized? And they said, Into John’s baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Paul counts "one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5), and the one baptism of the New Testament is the immersion of a believer for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). The Old Believers rightly insist on immersion, and they will not take sprinkling for baptism. The ranks of reception go beyond that. Anointing a baptized person as a second act, and baptizing again a person already immersed because he came from another accord, makes the validity of the washing depend on the hand of a particular hierarchy. Ephesus in Acts 19 shows a rebaptism, but only of men who had not received Christian baptism. A church whose members were already immersed on their faith is not the same case.

The priestless

Some Old Believers, the bespopovtsy, hold that the true priesthood ended after the anathemas and live without priests, led by lay teachers who baptize and hear confessions.

The priestless accords, of whom the Pomorians are the largest, hold that after the bishops accepted the reform the line of lawful ordination was broken. Their congregations are led by an experienced layman, the nastavnik, who baptizes and hears confession and, in some accords, blesses a marriage in a special form. The Moscow church, which describes them, calls this view "false" and says that, from a strictly canonical point of view, their sacraments are "doubtful" (my translation). The priestless case was set out by Andrei Denisov of the Vyg community in the Pomorian Answers of 1723. The scholar Adam Drozdek summarizes it: only baptism and repentance are needed for salvation, a layman may baptize and hear confession in time of need, and where the Eucharist cannot be had, the ardent desire for it and good works take its place. Every member at Vyg and Leksa was to have a spiritual father and confess four times a year. In Erie the Pomorian parish had no priest until 1983, and Fr. Pimen Simon says that the 105-year-old teacher of the breakaway congregation a block away "also rarely does the services."

Беспоповский наставник — это мирянин, не рукоположенный во священники.

Исходя из беспоповского учения о прекращении священства

According to Denisov, only two sacraments are necessary for salvation: baptism and repentance

But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

On one point the priestless stand nearer the New Testament than the church they left: they have no priestly caste and no hierarchy over the congregation, and ordinary believers lead the worship. But they reached it by the wrong road. As the Moscow church describes them, and as Denisov argued in 1723, they gave up the priesthood because they believed the lawful line of ordination had ended, not because Scripture has none for the church. All believers are "a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9) under Christ the one high priest (Hebrews 4:14), so no line of succession was ever needed. Keeping the premise that the Supper needs a priest has cost them three centuries without it, though the disciples at Troas gathered "to break bread" (Acts 20:7) with no priest named.

Icons

Icons, painted in the old manner, are venerated by bows and kisses and are held to be a window of revelation; paper prints are refused.

The Moscow church teaches that the veneration of icons comes from the apostles and was fixed as dogma at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. It requires that icons follow the old Russian or Byzantine style, with no "lifelikeness," and says the painting of an icon is "a mystical act akin to a Sacrament" (translation mine). It describes the kissing of the icon, with bows to the ground, at the vigil before each feast.

Почитание святых икон и святых мощей – естественная молитвенная практика, ведущая свое начало от апостолов, догматически закрепленная в Деяниях VII Вселенского Собора.

Икона в некотором смысле слова не просто произведение церковного искусства, а некое малое Откровение иконописцу.

Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me,

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The second commandment forbids making an image to bow down before, and Paul tells the Athenians that "we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man" (Acts 17:29). No apostle bowed to an image or taught the churches to. The practice rests on the decision of a council, not on Scripture. The Old Believers are strict in the form of what they do. They refuse the lifelike icon and keep the old manner, and they are consistent with their own tradition, but the bow and the kiss before a painted board is worship of the kind Moses forbade.

The saints and the Theotokos

The Theotokos and the saints are prayed to, their relics are honored, and the Old Believer martyrs and saints are remembered on set days each month.

The Moscow church holds that the veneration of the saints and their relics is "a natural practice of prayer" that comes from the apostles. Its site publishes a monthly list of the days of memory of the Old Believer saints, and it venerates the Solovetsky monks who died in 1676 as martyrs. It says that no relic or wonderworking icon brings a person nearer to God than a life of repentance, prayer and fasting. Avvakum writes in his Life: "I importuned the sweet Mother of God."

никакие чудотворные иконы и мощи не делают нас ближе к Богу, чем непосредственная практическая духовная жизнь.

I importuned the sweet Mother of God

For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus,

And when it came to pass that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. But Peter raised him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

The church deserves credit for what it says about relics: they bring no one nearer to God than the life of repentance and prayer. But prayer is to be addressed to the Father, and the Lord taught his disciples to begin, "Our Father who art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9). Paul writes that "there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). When Cornelius fell at Peter's feet, Peter raised him up and said, "Stand up; I myself also am a man" (Acts 10:26). There is no command, and no example in the apostles' churches, of praying to the dead, however holy.

The plumb line is the New Testament: what the apostles commanded, and what the churches practiced with their approval. Each position above is set against it, and the wall below shows how far each one stands from it. Choose a course to read the Scripture and the reason. The Old Believers suffered cruelly for a form of worship, and that is not in doubt here. Where they stand near the pattern, they are credited plainly, and where they stand far, that is said too.

Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.

But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.

Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other.

Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand.

So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of ours.

The Old Believers bind Holy Tradition beside Scripture, with the councils, the canons and the old service books, though Scripture makes "the man of God" complete (2 Timothy 3:17). The traditions Paul handed down were binding (2 Thessalonians 2:15), but nothing shows that the usages of Moscow in 1650 are those traditions. They were right that a patriarch's decree could not make a new usage the faith, and they paid in blood for refusing it. But they bound the old usage in the same way, so that the two-fingered sign and the books printed before Nikon became a test of fellowship and of salvation. Where God has given no command, no one may judge "the servant of another" (Romans 14:4), and a form bound as the faith is a precept of men, however old it is (Mark 7:8).

The lineage rubric scores the Old Believers' reading of Scripture through Holy Tradition and through the pre-1652 books, and binds the old forms as the faith (A1 3, A2 3, G1 4). The mean is three, and the placement follows it.

Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

And as they went on the way, they came unto a certain water; and the eunuch saith, Behold, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

But when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Here the Old Believers stand nearer the New Testament than many churches, in one thing: baptism is immersion, and they hold to it more strictly than the church they left. Acts shows it, with Philip and the eunuch going "down into the water" (Acts 8:38), and Paul speaks of being "buried therefore with him through baptism" (Romans 6:4). The Moscow church requires that a person baptized by pouring be baptized again by immersion. They fall short in what baptism is for and who is to receive it. In the New Testament it follows repentance and faith, and it is for "the remission of your sins" (Acts 2:38), but Avvakum baptized his infant son on the road into exile, and none of the sources reached says that baptism waits for the person's own repentance and faith. They also make a priesthood necessary for salvation, and the New Testament names no such need.

The lineage rubric scores triple immersion at the line (C2 0), infants baptized as the ordinary entry (C1 4), and baptism that regenerates of itself (C3 4). The mean is nearly three. The sources reached describe immersion and the baptism of infants. They give no Old Believer text on regeneration as such, though both the Moscow church and Denisov's Pomorian Answers count baptism among the sacraments necessary for salvation. The placement follows the rubric.

And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and prolonged his speech until midnight.

For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread.

By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest indeed standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins: but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

The Old Believers hold the Supper in great reverence and require what Paul requires: "let a man prove himself, and so let him eat" (1 Corinthians 11:28). They fall short in who may serve it and how often it is taken. Only a priest may celebrate it, and the priestless, holding that no lawful priest remains, have gone without it for three centuries. The disciples at Troas came together "upon the first day of the week" to break bread (Acts 20:7), with no priest named, and that apostolic example binds. The sources reached describe the early Old Believers taking Communion in the fasts, after confession, and none describes a congregation breaking bread every Lord's day.

The rubric scores D1 1, D2 4, D3 0, a mean of between one and two, placed at two. The rubric scores the teaching that a priest offers the Supper, but it is the remembrance of a sacrifice made "once for all" (Hebrews 10:10). The priestless have no Eucharist at all. Denisov taught that where it cannot be had, desire for it and good works take its place.

And when they had appointed for them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed.

For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge; if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children that believe, who are not accused of riot or unruly. For the bishop must be blameless, as God’s steward; not self-willed, not soon angry, no brawler, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre;

The New Testament appoints "elders in every church" (Acts 14:23), plural, over each congregation, and the elder is the overseer, the same office. The Old Believers have instead a three-rank clergy, bishop, priest and deacon, with a metropolitan over the bishops, and they teach that the grace of the Holy Spirit passes through the laying on of hands of the clergy. There is no such priesthood in the churches of the apostles; all Christians are "a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9). They deserve credit in two things. Their parishes decide by common counsel, and the priest is told not to be a despot. The priestless accords have no clergy and no hierarchy over the congregation, but they reached it by the wrong road.

The rubric gives B1 3, B2 3, B3 4 (a sacrificing priesthood held necessary), a mean of between three and four, rounded to three.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.

In one part of worship the Old Believers stand on the line: their chant is the znamenny chant, sung unaccompanied (the lineage research records it so; the sources reached name the chant but do not use the word), and singing is what the apostolic churches did (Colossians 3:16). They worship through the whole night with reverence and do not shorten it. They fall short in the images and in the prayers. They bow and kiss before icons, which the second commandment forbids, and they pray to the Theotokos and the saints, though the New Testament names one mediator. The long forms of the service are bound as the faith. The Lord said that the Father seeks those who worship "in spirit and truth" (John 4:23), and that cannot be fixed to the form of a book or a gesture.

The rubric gives E1 0 (unaccompanied chant), E2 4 (icons venerated) and E3 4 (the Theotokos and saints invoked), a mean of between two and three, placed at three.

Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money,

Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty works.

how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.

how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit;

This placement is authored, and it rests on little. The sources reached state no Old Believer teaching on the gifts as such. What they do teach is that the grace of the Spirit is passed on through a line of ordination, and they honor wonders at relics and icons. The New Testament shows the miraculous gifts given through the apostles' hands (Acts 8:17-18), as "the signs of an apostle" (2 Corinthians 12:12), to confirm the word when it was first spoken (Hebrews 2:3-4). The gift is not handed on by a succession of bishops, and a wonder at a relic has no precedent in the apostles' preaching.

Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.

But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand. If therefore they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not forth: Behold, he is in the inner chambers; believe it not.

But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

This placement is authored. The priestly church holds what the New Testament says about the end: a man of sin comes before the Day, and the day itself is known only to the Father (Matthew 24:36). It says no one can know the time, which is just right. The record of the early movement is harder. The leaders of the 1600s named the Antichrist as particular persons and named the church of their day as his, and thousands burned themselves on the strength of it. Christ told the persecuted, "flee into the next" (Matthew 10:23), and warned against anyone who says "Lo, here is the Christ" (Matthew 24:23). The practice nearly ceased when the dates the leaders named passed, and the Moscow church now says that no one knows the time.

The Old Believers hold much that Scripture teaches, and it should be said plainly. They confess one God in three persons, and, in the words Avvakum wrote down, that the Son was made flesh "of the Holy Ghost, of Mary the Virgin, and became man and suffered for our sakes and rose again the third day." They baptize by immersion and will not call pouring baptism. Their chant is old and sung unaccompanied. They hold that a person must prepare to come to the Lord's table. They would not bow to a state that told them how to worship, and they paid for it with their lives. Wikipedia says their communities were governed by rules stressing "moderation, abstinence, sobriety, hard work and mutual help," and the Moscow church says they keep strong families and avoid harmful habits.

Measured by the New Testament alone, the Old Believers stand on the line in two things, immersion and unaccompanied chant, and short of it in five: the tradition bound beside Scripture, the priesthood that dispenses grace, the Supper treated as a priest's sacrifice, the veneration of images, and the prayers to the saints.

They were right that no patriarch had the power to alter the church's usage by decree. Their error, and that of the church that cursed them, was to make a gesture and a spelling the price of fellowship. In the end the church that pronounced the anathemas lifted them. The Old Believers' own reply was that it had only admitted what was long known. The way back to the pattern is not to the books of 1650 or those of 1666 but to the New Testament itself, where there is no priestly rank to receive, no icon to kiss and no mediator but Christ.

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