Thou hast rauished my heart, with one of thine eyes, with one chaine of thy necke

Preliminary note: I'm pretty sure I have ADD and dysgraphia, so there probably will be many mistakes, which I will be correcting as I keep proof-reading. I post stuff first, because the correction stage will take too long. Hopefully, substance of the article will make up for everything.

A friend once told me something along the lines of: No, I'm either going to remain an Old Believer or become a Catholic, because Nikonians blaspheme against the Theotokos. This refered to the fact that the so-called Nikonians ended up not only denying the Immaculate Conception of Mary but also her pre-purification, which was accepted almost by everyone. You will be hard-pressed to find a person in the Orthodox circles, who can explicitely state what the teaching regarding Mary's absolute immaculate existence is. Most would agree that she had never sined but would likely say she simply did not sin by the grace of God and that any other speculation is at best a theologoumenon and at worst a heretical Latin raving. Of course, one can find many authors, who believed in Mary's pre-purification and even her immaculate conception  (IM) after the schism - Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Cyril (now Patriarch) or Demetrius of Rostov, just to name a few. For quite some time IM was if not widely-held but a popular opinion nevertheless. Though, currently it doesn't seem to be a very important theological issue, it certainly was important for the Old Believers, since even among their first generation one can find voices, who defended the Most Blessed Virgin against certain foreign novelties.

This is neither an academic, nor a polemical article (though it becames that a little bit at the end), nor a history of this teaching in the East, this is merely a very shallow overview of what Old Believers had to say about it. So with that it mind, one should start by mentioning the book called The Tablet (Skrizhal') published by Patriarch Nikon. It included a work by a Greek with Protestant education (it should be menioned that the 17th and 18th centuries  were marked by presence of a Catholic-leaning party on one side, and a Protestant-leaning party on the other), translated by the infamous Arsenius the Greek, which Nikon got through Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem, as well as a reply by another Patriarch Paisius of Constantinople to certain questions that Nikon had.

Skrizhal', page with Paisius' reply to Patriarch Nikon

To make a long story short, the book included anti-immaculist theology (i.e. she was purified at the Annunciation), which one of the leaders of the early Old Believer movement priest Nikita (Necetas), who recieved the nickname Pustosvyat, which literally means 'empty (i.e. fake\vain\false) saint', thought to be blasphemous. He was outraged and so wrote directly to the Czar Alexei the following words: "Our most pure and most holy Lady Theotokos... did not have the original stain, for she recieved a sanctification and was prepared to become a dwelling of God even in the womb of her mother". The Big Moscow Council of 1666 sought to publish a reply. The first choice for the role of the refuter fell on Paisios Ligarides, titular Metropolitan of Gaza, who was in Moscow at the time. Surisingly he started to defend Nikita and so the Council had to pick another person to write the refutation. This person was Simeon of Polotsk. He wrote a book titled The Rod of Ruling (Zhezl Pravleniya), which was officialy approved by the Council. Interestingly enough, though it does speak in favour of Nikon's reform, it once again defended not only the teaching of Mary's pre-purification but also of her Immaculate Conception, despite the author's Protestant leanings in other respects. One of the late Old Ritualist polemicist Melnikov pointed out an inconsistency in his "Wandering Theology)" (Bluzhdayusheye Bogosloviye), since the Council approved two books with opposed theological views (we will translate some parts from Melnikov's works later). The highly complex and fascinating relationship between the Russians and different theological parties within the Greek circles deserves a separate article, so we shall leave it at that, though of course one can just call it "Latin captivity" and brush this whole period of Church history aside.

"Monk Paul of Belaya Krinitsa"

Of course this issue was overshadowed by other questions, related to first and foremost the new rituals as well as different ecclessiologies of different groups of Old Believers.  However, one can almost safely say that until the second half of the 20th century, most of them accepted the fact that the Most Holy Theotokos was conceived without blemish of the original sin. As the so-called Nikonian church drifted further and further away from the belief in the Immaculate Conception and then from the pre-purificationist position in general, some Old Believers felt it necessary to mention this issue in respect to their differnces with the "State Church". One of them was Paul of Belaya Krinitsa, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Old Rite Church in 2004, and who was one of the two monks responsible for converting Metropolitan Ambrose, the founder of Belokrinitskaya hierarchy. In order to do everything "by the books", Paul decided to aquire an official status for the monastery (though the monastery was granted all religious freedoms already by Joseph II), where the future Metropolitan would  live. In turn, to do that he had to write the Rule of this monastery. Perhaps, for the sake of not writing two books, Monk Paul  included not only regulations of the monastery but also the teachings of the priest-accepting Old Believers. On September 6th, 1844 the monks recieved an official approval from Ferdinand of Austria to bring in Ambrose and establish their hierarchy. Among other things, the Rule included the following passage about the Most Blessed Virgin (the wording might seem strange but it's only because it's quite difficult to translate late Church Slavonic as it gets pretty "baroque"):

"With much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief"

Old Orthodoxy is a faith of lookers, seekers and searchers. There are stories of how a person from one group (soglas) switched to another one, or how a Nikonian became an Old Believer, or how an Old Believer apostasized and joined Yedinoveriye, or, even worse, became a full-blown Nikonian. In our post-religious age, same thing happens among those who become interested in religion. There is abundance of choice and so a person has to naturally limit that choice in order to not go crazy. He or she often creates a set of criteria, by which to determine whether it is a religion for them (for a more subjectivist crowd) or whether it is a true religion (for a more objective type). The problem is often times this aforementioned set is based on preconceptions or, more accurately, premisconceptions. Sometimes a person will brush off an entire tradition, because for some reason he\she is not even interested in it. Take for example a person, who understands Protestantism is false. His\her natural choice is Orthodoxy or Catholicism. But why not the Oriental Churches, why not the Assyrians? Well, isn't it obvious that they are marginals, that Ephesus or Chalcedon are obviously legitimate? In short, no, it isn't obvious, at least it was not obvious enough for those, who were involved in controversies and those nations that fell away from unity. I am saying all of this to illustrate the way people knowingly or unknowlingly limit their knowledge based on things that they decided are obvious. Some just find a religion aesthetically appealing and sometimes that appeal is so overwhelming, they do not care that being a Chinese Copt is strange. In many ways this is unavoidable.

Hundred Chapter Council

For most of the time, Old Believers limited themselves to literature that they trusted, i.e. books that were printed and were popular at around the time of Patriarch Joseph of Moscow. Those books are known as Books of Josephite Print (knigi iosifovskoy pechati) or simply old-printed books (staropechatnye knigi). This has to do with the fact that Old Believers can be sure of these books' orthodoxy. This rests on a famous Third Rome narrative, which goes something like this. Russians recieved their faith from the Greeks, the new Romans. First the old Rome was destroyed and then the old Romans themselves fell away from the truth, leaving the Byzantines as the only Rome. However, soon enough they started being influeced by the Latins and perhaps other heretics, thus watering down their orthodoxy. Even before the fall of Constantinopole, Russians stopped trusting the Greeks, but after the fall were able to claim themselves as the citizens of the Third and last Rome. Finally, Ivan IV gathered the Hundred Chapter Council (Stoglavy sobor), which codified and confirmed the correctness of Russian rites (dogmatic issues were not important to Russians, since they simply accepted what is written in books as is). This is how Russia became the last defender of the real Orthodox faith. Whatever was preserved by the Russian Church and whatever was written and printed was also the only thing worth knowing, because OBVIOUSLY Russian Church then was the true Church (almost synonymous with Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church).

D. Zhukov "Debates about Faith"

In the late 19th, early 20th century, the co-called Nikonians made translations of the Fathers from Greek and Augustine from Latin. Old Believers had to decide whether it is possible to use these translations. Most of those who accepted priests, as well as Pomorians (the largest priestless Old Believer group) decided in the affirmative. Not only did these new books not pose any threat to them but could prove their positions (whatever the position was). Of course, this presented a question they did not see coming: what is Holy Tradition? The definition stayed the same but the main core of the tradition, i.e. writings of the Fathers, expanded and thus, new positions and new opinions could be found in or derived from these new translations. The world of knowledge was very limited for the Old Believers. They were able to extract so much from it but was clearly not everything one needs to know. This helped some to make the leap and see the world outside of their usual books. Augustine, for instance, was used to show how heretics can enter into Church with their consecrations recognised as valid, even if there are no sacraments outside of the Church. However, aside from Augustine (and this is also true for the Eastern Orthodox in general) writings of other Western fathers were not widely translated and in any case were not that popular. Thus, opinions of Augustine could be brushed off as contradicting the Consensus Patrum.

The co-called readers (nachetchik\nachetnik), a class among the Old Believers that consisted of those well-versed in theological literature. It is also a derogatory term for a person, who reads a lot but without any deep understanding of what they read.

It is interesting, however, that many issues discussed among the Old Believers were never discussed among the mainstream Orthodox Christians. The issues of Mary's sinlessness, nature of priesthood and church hierarchy, the person of antichrist, spiritual communion and many such issues that resembled more polemics between Catholics and Protestants. In the next few posts I will discuss these, which in turn will draw attention to questions that some take for granted or do not even consider. 

"Teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight"

There are many things that Old Believers see as Apostolic tradition. Even though this is quite often not the case, many of their practices are in fact at least Byzantine in origin and thus, are part of the overall Eastern Christian heritage. There is no reason, why these should be viewed as specifically Old Believer (as part of  a specific ethno-religious culture) and not just "Eastern" or at least Byzantine. Moreover, some practices can even be viewed as Chrisian in general. We'll start by showcasing just one of such practices. 

Many have seen this gesture on various paintings:

I am not an art expert, so I am not going to go into semiotic analysis, but it seems that this gesture symbolises humility ("broken spirit" of Ps. 50/51), feeling of unworthiness or gratitude. However, according to the Old Believers (and, presumably, pre-1666 Russian and, at a certain period, Byzantine Church) this gesture is not just something depicted on paintings or icons, it is the way a Christian is supposed to hold his\her hands at all times when praying in a church. The ideal way to hold hands is much like on the paintings above and much like Byzantine-rite Christians hold their hands when approaching the Holy Communion:

One can even see this gesture in action on Western miniatures:

This is supposed to imitate the cherubim and has more to do with sacred fear or being collected for prayer. However, it is quite difficult to stand that way the whole service, especially considering how long the services are when one follows the Jerusalem Typikon to the dot. Though it should be mentioned that a Wanderer Old Believer (strannyk) told me that their faithful stand like that the whole service. But anyway, there is a more comfortable position that became much more popular:

This also reminds me of the way some saints are depicted in Western art, for instance this satue of Saint Bruno (who is usually depicted with hands crossed on the chest):

Unforetunately, some forget the meaning of this gesture and as a result, some Old Believer churches resemble a gathering of security tough guys, waiting to whale on a Nikonian, who will walk in by accident. Perhaps this is a trivial custom but it might be helpful to some. By the way, the last time the question of where to hold one's hands was revisited by Ignatius Brianchaninov, who thought it was better to just hold one's hands like a soldier, keeping them at our sides.