Are the Old Believers/Old Ritualists Orthodox?

[GOCTheophan]

I would be very interested to know what most True Orthodox people here think on this subject.

Theophan.

[Грешник]

To those who contend that the Old Believers are not Orthodox I would also ask that they supply a reason for this understanding please.

[Priest Siluan]

I replied: yes, but there are also "starovyeri" not orthodox as those "bezpopovsy" and other heretical groups that have their roots in the "Starovyeri".

[GOCTheophan]

To those who contend that the Old Believers are not Orthodox I would also ask that they supply a reason for this understanding please.

First off the opinions of St Philerat of Moscow, St Seraphim of Sarov and St Ignati Briannchinov (I hope that is spelt right!) was that they were indeed not Orthodox. Also there are grave doubts about the canonicty of the Apostolic sucession of the Priestly Old Ritualists.

The Old Believer Schism by Vladimir Moss.

Code: Select all

 The beginnings of the tragedy of the Old Believers lay in the arrival in Moscow of some educated monks from the south of Russia. They pointed to the existence of several differences between the Muscovite service books and those employed in the Greek Church. These differences concerned such matters as how the word "Jesus" was to be spelt, whether two or three "alleluias" should be chanted in the Divine services, whether the sign of the Cross should be made with two or three fingers, etc.
 The Muscovites had difficulty in accepting these criticisms. They suspected that the southerners were tainted with Latinism through their long subjection to Polish rule, and were therefore unwilling to bow unquestioningly to their superior knowledge. Moreover, beneath the issue of ritual differences between the Greek and Russian Churches lay a deeper principle, that of the source of authority in the Orthodox Church as a whole. The Greeks argued that, since Orthodoxy came to Russia and the other Orthodox nations from the Greeks, the criterion of correctness should be the practices of the Greek Church. The Muscovites, however, argued that the Greeks had betrayed the faith at the council of Florence, and that the pupils might have remained more faithful over the years to the teaching they had received than their original teachers.
 At this point Patriarch Nicon began to play an important part in the controversy. Not that the issue of the service-books was of paramount importance to him: his primary concern was to restore the balance of power between Church and State which had tilted towards the State, and in particular to repeal the hated Monastirskij Prikaz of 1649, which had removed control of much of the economic life and administration of the monasteries from the Church to the State. Also, if Moscow was to be the Third Rome and the protector of all Orthodox Christians, it was necessary that the faith and practice of the Moscow patriarchate should be in harmony with the faith and practice of the Orthodox Church as a whole, especially now that the Ukraine and Belarus, which had been under the jurisdiction of Constantinople and employed Greek practices, were again coming under the dominion of Muscovy and the Moscow Patriarchate. That is why Nicon supported the reform of the service-books to bring them into line with the practices of the Greek Church. Since the Tsar, in accordance with the Grecophile traditions of the Russian princes, also supported the reforms, the Patriarch went ahead with vigour.
 Soon opposition began to form against the reforms. The problem was, not only that a large part of the Russian aristocracy, clergy and people were suspicious of the Greeks, as we have seen, and looked upon them as of doubtful Orthodoxy, but that the practices of the Russian Church had been sanctified and confirmed, under pain of anathema and excommunication, by the famous Stoglav council of the Russian Church in 1551. Relying on this council, therefore, the opposition condemned the proposed corrections to the service-books as treacherous and heretical.
 The problem was further compounded by the doubtful methodology of the reforms, which did not take into account the fact that the newest Kievan and Greek books (many of which were printed on Latin presses in Venice) were themselves not in conformity with the most ancient manuscripts of both Greek and Slavonic origin. However, if the matter had been left to Nicon alone, there would probably have been no schism. He shared the opinion of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote that differences in ritual were tolerable so long as the dogmas of the Faith are held in common. He was quite willing, as Fr. Andrew Phillips writes, "for those who did not wish to accept modifications to Russian Church ritual, to bring it into line with the practices of the rest of the Orthodox Church, to continue to use their 'old' rites. He was a man of the people and well understood the desire of the simple to keep their former ways. He required only one thing, that those who kept the 'old' rites remain in obedience and unity with the rest of the Church. Metropolitan Macarius writes that if Nicon had continued to be Patriarch, there would never have been a schism."[121]
 But it was not to be. The Tsar was growing increasingly independent of the Patriarch, and the nobles intrigued against him - in spite of the fact that they had all sworn obedience to him at the beginning of his tenure. Deprived of support from the State, Nicon withdrew to his monastery of New Jerusalem. This move was taken by the Tsar and the nobles to mean his final resignation from Church affairs. So when Nicon began to protest against moves made by his deputy on the patriarchal throne, and especially when he began to attack the Tsar for interfering in the Church's affairs, his enemies portrayed him as a dangerous rebel against both Church and State.
 Since the Russian Church was now an autocephalous patriarchate, she could have acted against Nicon on her own. But at this point the Tsar, in his efforts to gain greater support for his policies, made a fatal mistake. He invited three Greek hierarchs who were in Moscow at the time on alms-raising missions - two retired patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and the defrocked crypto-papist Paisius Ligarides, former metropolitan of Gaza - to participate in the councils of the Russian Church.
 During the course of the next few years, these three hierarchs, by dint of bluff, skilful diplomacy and plain forgery, succeeded in gaining such an ascendancy over the Tsar, the nobles and the submissive Russian hierarchy that - in spite of the opposition of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem - both the Grecophile Nicon was reduced to the rank of a simple monk on the basis of a mixture of true and patently false charges (this decision was reversed by the Eastern patriarchs in 1682), and the Grecophobe Old Believers had their rite anathematized. This injured the long-term interests of the Greek, no less than the Russian Churches; for only a strong and united Russia could hope to fulfil the mission of the Third Rome which Patriarch Jeremiah II had entrusted to her, and free the Greek and Balkan lands from the Turkish yoke. The only good to result from these councils was the suspension of the Monastirskij Prikaz - whereby one of Nicon's most persistent aims was realized after his own downfall. 
 The worst consequence was that the delicate symphony between Church and State was badly damaged, and the State now gained the ascendancy to the detriment of Holy Russia. In the next century Alexis' successor, Peter the Great, abolished the patriarchate and reduced the Church to a department of the State, and then Catherine the Great decimated the monasteries and confiscated their estates. Meanwhile the Old Believer schism has continued to the present day, in spite of concessions to the Old Rite made in 1801 and the annulment of the anathemas against it in 1971...
 There has been much idealisation of the Old Believer schism, as if the Old Believers represented the true old piety of Holy Russia which the "Niconians" destroyed. But this was not the opinion of the great Russian saints who opposed the schism, such as Demetrius of Rostov, Metrophanes of Voronezh and Seraphim of Sarov. The fact is that the Old Believers represented a dangerously pharisaical and nationalist stream which, if allowed to triumph, might well have torn the Russian Church away from the Ecumenical Church altogether.[122] Their fanatical attachment to the letter of the law (which they in case distorted) led to the loss of the Spirit that gives life; and, like the Jews, they became the enemies of lawful political authority and the revolutionary forerunners of the Bolsheviks. 
 This is not to excuse the coercive methods used against the Old Believers – although the violence was initiated by the State rather than the Church. And it is true that, having rejected the nationalist temptation of the Old Believers, the Russian Church showed herself less resolute in rejecting the opposite, internationalist temptation 250 years later. But that grace and truth remained with the official Church at this time, and not with the Old Believers, there can be no doubt.

[GOCTheophan]

The Schism.

Kostomarov 44 once rightly noted that the "Schism hunted for tradition and attempted to adhere as closely as possible to it; yet the Schism was a new phenomenon, not the old life." Therein lies the Schism's fatal paradox: it did not embody the past, but rather a dream about Old Russia. The Schism represents mourning for an unrealized and unrealizable dream. The "Old Believer" [Starover] is a very new spiritual type.

Division and split wholly constitute the Schism. Born in disillusionment, it lived and was nourished by this feeling of loss and deprivation, not by any feeling of power and possession. Possessing nothing, losing everything, the Schism, more with nostalgia and torment than with routine and custom, could only wait and thirst, flee and escape. The Schism was excessively dreamy, suspicious, and restive. There is something romantic about the Schism, hence its attraction for many Russian Neo-Romantics and Decadents.

The Schism, consumed by memories and premonitions, possessed a past and a future but no present. For their "blue flower" [goluboitsvetok] 45 the Old Believers possessed the semi-legendary Invisible City of Kitezh 46 The Schism's strength did not spring from the soil but from the will; not from stagnation but from ecstasy. The Schism marks the first paroxysm of Russia's rootlessness, rupture of conciliarity, [sobornost'], and exodus from history.

The keynote and secret of Russia's Schism was not "ritual" but the Antichrist, and thus it may be termed a socio-apocalyptical utopia. The entire meaning and pathos of the first schismatic opposition lies in its underlying apocalyptical intuition ("the time draws near"), rather than in any "blind" attachment to specific rites or petty details of custom. The entire first generation of raskolouchitelei ["schismatic teachers"] lived in this atmosphere of visions, signs, and premonitions, of miracles, prophecies, and illusions. These men were filled with ecstasy or possessed, rather than pedants: "We saw that it was as if winter was of a mind to come; our hearts froze, our limbs shivered" (Avvakum) One has only to read the words of Avvakum, breathless with excitement: "What Christ is this? He is not near; only hosts of demons." Not only Avvakum felt that the "Nikon" Church had become a den of thieves. Such a mood became universal in the Schism: "the censer is useless, the offering abominable."

The Schism, an outburst of a socio-political hostility and opposition, was a social movement, but one derived from religious self-consciousness. It is precisely this apocalyptical perception of what has taken place, which explains the decisive or rapid estrangement among the Schismatics. "Fanaticism in panic" is Kliuchevskii's definition, but it was also panic in the face of "the last apostasy."

How was such a mood created and developed? What inspired and justified the hopeless eschatological diagnosis that "the present Church is not a church; the Holy Sacraments are not sacraments; Baptism is not baptism; the Scriptures are a seduction teaching is false; and everything is foul and impious?" Rozanov 47 once wrote that "the Typicon of salvation provides the mystery of the Schism, its central nerve, and tortured thirst." Might it not be better to say: "Salvation is the Typicon?" Not ' merely in the sense that the Typicon as a book is necessary and needed for salvation, but because salvation is a Typicon, that is, a sacred rhythm and order, rite or ritual, a ritual of life, the visible beauty and well-being of custom. This religious design supplies the basic assumption and source for the Old Believer's disenchantment.

The Schism dreamed of an actual, earthly City: a theocratic utopia and chiliasm. It was hoped that the dream had already been fulfilled and that the "Kingdom of God" had been realized as the Muscovite State. There may be four patriarchs in the East, but the one and only Orthodox tsar is in Moscow 49 But now even this expectation had been deceived and shattered. Nikon's "apostasy" did not disturb the Old Believers nearly as much as did the tsar's apostasy, which in their opinion imparted a final apocalyptical hopelessness to the entire conflict.

At this time there is no tsar. One Orthodox tsar had remained on earth, and whilst he was unaware, the western heretics, like dark clouds, extinguished this Christian sun. Does this not, beloved, clearly prove that the Antichrist's deceit is showing its mask? 50

History was at an end. More precisely, sacred history had come to an end; it had ceased to be sacred and had become without Grace. Henceforth the world would seem empty, abandoned, forsaken by God, and it would remain so. One would be forced to withdraw from history into the wilderness. Evil had triumphed in history. Truth had retreated into the bright heavens, while the Holy Kingdom had become the tsardom of the Antichrist.

A public debate about the Antichrist had been present from the outset of the Schism. Some immediately detected the coming Antichrist in Nikon or in the tsar. Others were more cautious. "They do his work even now but the last devil has not yet to come" (Avvakum) At the end of the century the teaching of a "mental" or spiritual Antichrist became established. The Antichrist had come, but he exercised his rule invisibly. No visible coming would occur in the future. The Antichrist is a symbolic, but not a "real" person. The Scripture must be interpreted as a mystery. "When the hidden mysteries are spoken, the mystery is to be understood with the mind and not with the senses." A new account is now present. The Antichrist stands revealed within the Church. "With impiety he has entered into the chalice and is now being proclaimed God and the Lamb." 51

Yet the diagnosis, the "approach of the last apostasy," did not change. Disruption of the priesthood in Nikon's Church, cessation of its sacraments, diminution of Grace served as the first conclusion from such a diagnosis. However, the disruption of the priesthood by Nikon's followers meant an end to the priesthood generally, even among the adherents of the Schism. No source could "revive" this diminished Grace. A "fugitive priesthood" [begstvuiushchee sviashchentsvo] did not resolve the problem, while ritual purification taken by "fugitive priests" implied that a genuine and unexhausted priesthood existed among the followers of Nikon. Disagreements and debate about the priesthood developed very early in the Schism. Comparatively quickly the "priestly" [popovtsy] and the "priestless" [bezpopovtsy] diverged and divided. 52

The priestless segment was magistral. Compromises and concessions were not that significant, and only the priestless carried their ideas to a logical conclusion. The priesthood ended with the coming of the Antichrist. Grace withdrew from the world, and the earthly Church entered upon a new form of existence: priestlessness and absence of sacraments. Priesthood was not denied, but eschatological diagnosis acknowledged the mysterious fact or catastrophe that the priesthood had withered away. Not everyone accepted this conclusion. Varying estimates were made about the degree of the coming lack of Grace. After all, if necessary, even laymen could baptize (and "rebaptize" or "correct"), but could baptism be complete without the chrism? In any case, the Eucharist was impossible: "according to theological calculation, at the fulfillment of 666 years, the sacrifice and sacrament will be taken away." Confession was scarcely possible. Since no one could give absolution, it was more prudent to settle for mutual forgiveness. Marriage generated particularly violent quarrels. Could marriage still be permitted as a "sacrament?" Was a pure marriage or a pure bed possible without priestly blessing? Moreover, should one marry during these terrible days of the Antichrist, when it was more fitting to be with the wise virgins? The "anti-marriage" decision possessed a certain boldness and consistency. A more general question arose about how the liturgy could be conducted without priests. Was it permissible in case of necessity for unordained laymen and monks to perform or consummate certain sacraments? How should one proceed? Should ancient services and rituals be preserved untouched and unaltered? Could the liturgy be performed by unordained laymen by virtue of some "spiritual" priesthood? Or would it be safer to submit and be reconciled to the fact that Grace was gone?

The so-called "negativist" movement [netovshchina], that maximalism of apocalyptical rejection, provided the most extreme conclusion: Grace had been completely and utterly withdrawn. Therefore, not only could the sacraments not be performed, but the divine liturgy as a whole could not be conducted in accordance with the service manuals. Oral prayer, or even breathing, was inappropriate, for everything, including running water, had been profaned. Salvation now would come not by Grace or even by faith, but through hope and lamentation. Tears were substituted for communion.

The Schism created a new antinomy. Once Grace had been withdrawn, everything depended on man, on works or continence. Eschatological fright and apocalyptical fear suddenly became transformed into a form of humanism, self-reliance, or practical Pelagianism. 53 Ritual took on particular importance during this exceptional moment of withdrawal. Only custom and ritual remained when Grace departed and the sacraments lost their potency. Everything became dependent upon works, for only works were possible. The unexpected participation of the Old Believers in worldly affairs, their zeal for custom (as an experiment in salvation through the relics of traditional life) derives from this necessary dependence on works. The Schism made its peace with the vanishing of Grace only to clutch at ritual with still greater frenzy and stubbornness. Grace had been extinguished and diminished, but the Schism tried to replace it with human zeal. By doing so, the Schism betrayed itself, prizing ritual more highly than sacrament and overestimating its value. Enduring life without Grace was easier than enduring a new ritual. The Schism attached a certain independent primary value to the "office" and "regulation." Even when in flight from the Antichrist, the dissenters strove to organize an ideal society, although doubts were raised in some quarters about the possibility of doing so during the days of the last apostasy. The Schism withdrew to the wilderness, making an exodus from history and settling beyond its frontiers. "For God dwells only in the wilderness and the hermitages; there He has turned His face."

[GOCTheophan]

I hope I was not doing a "Rostislav" there by posting such long texts. However I have come across very conflicting opinions of this topic among those who otherwise share the same Faith and therefore I think it is a matter that needs to be discussed.

Also someone suggested to me that the Old Believer schism was an ancestor of the present National Bholesvik/Sergianist Antichrist that has just swallowed ROCOR which for a long time was the most promenient of the various True Orthodox groups therefore discussion is of this is now very fitting.

Theophan.

[Грешник]

Dear Theophan,

I thank you for posting these texts. They are very elevant to the topic and I for one found them very nlightening. Thank you.