“You shouldn’t have thought that we were unsociable”: how a large Old Believer community lives in the Urals. Split. Ural. History of persecution
» the website is in first place in Yandex and in second place in Google (by the way, also thanks to Maxim). But this is not the main thing - although it is flattering - it’s just that the journalist who noticed this sent us a link to new article, which will be published in major Russian newspaper only tomorrow! This is such an amazing and surprising world around us, especially if you do it from the heart and for the glory of God, and don’t dance to someone else’s tune... At the end of the article, according to tradition, see extended information on the topic of Old Believers in Sverdlovsk region.
“New Life of the Old Faith”
Once they hid in the taiga, avoided communication with the authorities, relying only on themselves, and refused documents. Today Old Believers are full members of society. Officials listen to them, they are willingly hired and entrusted with responsible positions. They are open to everything new, while keeping the most valuable thing - faith - sacred: they build churches, create communities. In the Middle Urals alone there are now several thousand Old Believers...
BEING GOOD IS NOT DIFFICULT
Ilya Ustinov- the same young man as many of his peers: he studies at school, plans to enter a university, loves to take a walk or play on the computer in the evenings.
True, unlike friends who can go to a disco and swear loudly, he watches himself - his speech, his manner of behavior. Ilya is the son of an Old Believer priest, Archpriest John, who has been serving in the Ural village of Pristan for a quarter of a century. Every second person here is an Old Believer not only by roots, but also by spirit.
The young man says that he didn’t even have any thoughts of hiding his religion from his peers - why? “My classmates know that I’m an Old Believer, they react adequately, it’s not customary for us to joke about faith,” he says, sometimes distracted by correspondence on social networks. - Almost all of my friends are far from the faith, but they are interested in my principles - sometimes teachers let me out of class if they know that the church service is starting and I have to help my father, and my classmates come to light a candle and even stay until the end.
The young man says that the Old Believer is the same modern man, like anyone else, he only adheres to the faith in the old way: he crosses himself with two fingers, strictly observes fasts, prays in Old Church Slavonic, does not smoke, does not swear. And in a global sense, he sacredly preserves the spirit of distant antiquity, works selflessly, and responds to helping others.
Be good person in modern conditions it’s not difficult, you just need to do everything according to your conscience - this, I would say, is combining business with pleasure,” says Ilya.
MEET A NEW DAY WITH PRAYER
Georgy and Julia Nesterov- the parents of Stepan, Ustinya, Prokhor and Trofim are from Yekaterinburg. True, they don’t spend much time in the city, more and more on business trips. They are engaged in folklore: they study and preserve Old Russian, including Cossack, singing, making it, if not modern, then certainly not forgotten.
Their eldest Stepan- a completely modern guy: he got married at 18 and is raising a son. I confidently followed in the footsteps of my parents both in the matter of faith and in the matter of sphere of activity. He, too, took up Cossack culture and - a diagonal fathom in his shoulders - has advanced his interest so far that it is just right to envy. Last year, at the Seliger forum, he sat with Vladimir Putin and spoke about the importance of preserving the original Russian culture.
Old Believer Stepan Nesterov at the “Seliger” forum In his free time, he, his wife Valentina - also, of course, a folklorist - and his parents organize health camps for the younger generation of Old Believers: they go rafting down rivers, get acquainted with nature, and greet the morning and evening dawns with joint prayer.
PRISON AND MUSEUM
Young Old Believers from all corners of the Greater Urals come to such meetings - from Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk region, Perm region. Today, these territories are not just being revived from spiritual blindness, they seem to be making up for lost time. In the Sverdlovsk village of Russkaya Tavra on the border with Bashkiria, for example, despite the small community, a temple was erected right in the garden so that there was a place to pray. But in
Methodius Tyukin, left, and Sergei Panov at the Russian Orthodox Church Church under construction in Nevyansk
Nevyansk- a city where there were probably more Old Believers in the century before last than mushrooms in the forest in the most fruitful year - a large brick church was built. Here before there was no shortage of believers in the old way, and now even more - they are drawn here from surrounding cities and towns.
During the time of the industrialists Demidovs, a unique direction of icon painting, unparalleled in world history, was born here - solemn, bright, spiritual. Today, the legacy of that era, more than two centuries ago, is preserved not only in the Ural Old Believer churches, but also by the mayor of Yekaterinburg, Evgeniy Roizman, the founder of the Nevyansk Icon Museum - by the way, the only private free museum in the country. And although the Old Believers believe that the place of the icon is in the church, they love to take their guests to this museum. This, of course, is far from the only place that believers in the capital of the Urals cherish. One prison for Old Believers, called Zarechny Tyn and created at the end of the 18th century, is worth it! Here, in the first decades after the founding of Yekaterinburg, dozens, if not hundreds of believers were killed. True, now in this place, on the banks of the Iset River, is the city Dynamo stadium, but the Old Believers honor their history, even if they try to hide it under infrastructure.
“TAKE THE BUILDING, LORD”
Here, for example, is a building anti-tuberculosis dispensary- right here, in the city center. In pre-revolutionary times, it was a church built by the Old Believer merchant Alexei Balandin, a close friend of the then burgomaster Yakim Ryazanov.
Former Old Believer church, tuberculosis dispensary In the 1930s, the premises were nationalized and a medical facility was located here. It was the current governor of the Sverdlovsk region who promised to transfer it to the local community of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church Evgeniy Kuyvashev, Metropolitan Cornelius in July 2013.
“I myself am one of the Old Believers,” the governor admitted and added, they say, “take away, Vladyka, the building”...
Alexander Smokvin He promised to promise, but fulfilling it according to the law turned out to be not so easy, and then some officials began to express a desire to sell this profitable land in the center of the metropolis to one of the developers. Throughout the summer of 2014, Old Believers prayed near the dispensary and, it seems, begged for it: these days, the regional government is preparing a document on the transfer of the ancient building to the community of believers, especially since a complex of buildings has been built for doctors outside the city.
Parishioner Alexander Smokvin knows a lot about this building, as well as about many other estates and places memorable for the Ural Old Believers. Once upon a time, San Sanych, as many believers call him today, stood at the origins of the revival of the Yekaterinburg Old Believer community - this was in the early 90s of the last century. He and his associates had to cross a lot of thresholds of power in order, after decades of lack of spirituality in the country, to defend the right of the Old Faith to a new life. They had to use “heavy artillery”: they reminded the authorities that the history of the Urals would have been completely different if not for the Old Believers, they showed documents, insisted, and told what many officials did not know about. And they achieved their goal!
Prayer service of Old Believers at the former church - an anti-tuberculosis dispensary On church holidays and on Sundays, dozens of cars park at the Russian Orthodox Church Church in the name of the Nativity of Christ - these are the Old Believers who come to the service. They greet each other with a bow to the waist, invariably saying: "Good health!"
"LIQUIDATOR"
The versatility of the Old Believers and their respect for history is confirmed by Methodius Tyukin. He - "liquidator", as those who eliminated the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster were called. Formerly a lieutenant colonel, and now an activist in the Nevyansk community of the Russian Orthodox Church. A man-encyclopedia - believers speak of him. And this is true: Methodius will tell about the history of the appearance of Old Believers’ monasteries in the Ural wilderness, tell about where it is better to pick mushrooms and what weather to fish in, why the Old Believers were called “Kerzhaks”, and what it was like for the zealots of the pre-schism faith who fled to the Ural wilderness in the first years of their stay Here.
Methodius Konstantinovich Tyukin He is “one of our own” for both urban Old Believers and rural ones. Not only does he speak to them in that great and powerful language, which is now hardly heard in artificially ventilated offices or in public transport. The essence of the Old Believers - “demand more from yourself, consider yourself worse than everyone” - he absorbed with his mother’s milk. And today he admits that he is repaying his debt to his ancestors, working non-stop for the good of the church.
His friend and, as it recently turned out, a relative in one of the distant generations, Sergey Panov- the figure is no less interesting. Born in a town with the verbal name Dir. The strict and wise Old Believer grandfather instilled in his grandson all the best from the wonderful old times, then Sergei studied in Nevyansk and moved... to Novosibirsk. There he made himself an enviable career, and one day he realized: happiness does not lie in property and positions! Leaving a good job and a comfortable life, he returned to his homeland, to a small, provincial Sverdlovsk town. Everything here reminded me of the step Soviet power: the Old Believers, who once founded the city, were completely forgotten. Their cemetery on the shore of the pond was destroyed, but it was done clumsily, and at the beginning of the new millennium, when the pond became shallow, gravestones began to appear on the surface.
Was it possible to look at this with indifference? - argues Sergei Borisovich, with whom we are standing on the shore of that same pond.
True, during the four years of his life in his native Urals, he already literally influenced the appearance of the city: he obtained permission from the mayor’s office to clear the territory, united around himself other descendants of the Old Believers, who seemed to be just waiting for such an enterprising person. Now the Rezhevsky cemetery has been consecrated and ennobled, a cross has been erected, and people are thinking about erecting either a chapel or even a small church here. This year, Old Believer Sergei Panov became a member of the Public Chamber of Rezha - a position, although not decisive, but official and status. It is possible to monitor the affairs of the municipality according to honor and conscience. And this approach will be useful for any city!
SOLDIER, FURNISHER, PRIEST...
Young priest Mikhail Loskutov A memorial service for the dead at the cemetery site in Rezha was performed by a young priest Mikhail Loskutov. He has been serving in the small Ural village of Baranchinsky for only a few years, and until recently he was a simple furniture assembler in hometown Miass near Chelyabinsk.
“I never thought at all that I would become a priest,” he says during our meeting. “Fr. Mikhail was traveling to his homeland on business and agreed to stop by Yekaterinburg to tell about himself.
He says that after driving school he did military service in the missile forces in Tyumen and encountered hazing. Fortunately, his build helped: a couple of times he had to explain to the old-timers that he had come to serve, and not to serve. When he himself became a “grandfather”, he tried to be an example for others: he didn’t push “salazhat”, he only demanded that they comply with the charter and orders. And after returning home, he got a job as a furniture designer. Making up for lost time in the army, he began to go to church often and participate in diocesan events. During one of the religious processions to the relics of the monks Konstantin and Arkady Shamarsky, revered among the Old Believers, I met a girl. Julia, of course, did not think that one day she would become a mother - the wife of a priest.
But, as believers say, “everything is God’s will.” Today Father Mikhail and Yulia have five children, and Father Mikhail has about two hundred spiritual children. He listens to them, draws wisdom from the old people, and they honor and support him as their shepherd.
Old Believer clergy in the village of Pristan, May 2014 Old Believers in the Sverdlovsk region today are a large community of people: they have five operating churches here, five under construction, and the number of communities is even greater. And hardly anyone will say that the Old Faith is dying. There are almost more young people in their communities than old people. Everyone works honestly, there are some among the Ural Old Believers.
Preserving the memory of their ancestors, they publish their books, there is, except that there is no TV channel and radio station. But the connections between the communities are so well established that people can come to each other’s aid with just one call or SMS - yes, iPhones and laptops for modern believers are the same integral part of life as for everyone else in the country. In addition to the indigenous Old Believers, those who, having understood history, found the Old Faith to be true, also come to churches today.
Archpriest John Ustinov has been serving at the Pier for 25 years Only the Old Believers themselves do not oppose themselves to anyone. If necessary, they enter into dialogue with the authorities, express their position in interviews and always emphasize that they keep in purity the faith that was accepted by Prince Vladimir in 988.
At the cross at the Old Believer cemetery in the town of Rezh Old Believers in the Urals and Southern Trans-Urals
There were several centers from which the Old Believers came. According to most historians, the main flow of fugitives to the Urals was directed from the Volga: if we take into account that in 1722 there was a defeat of one of the centers of the Old Believers - the Nizhny Novgorod Kerzhak monasteries (Kerzhenets is a tributary of the Volga, hence the word “Kerzhak”), then the conclusion is that the majority of Old Believers among the fugitive population suggests itself. Another stream of immigrants was associated with the Russian North and Pomerania. One of the strongholds of the Pomeranian Old Believers in the Urals should be considered Krasnopolskaya Sloboda (the modern village of Krasnopolye in the Prigorodny district of the Sverdlovsk region, 45 km southeast of the city of Nizhny Tagil). Another significant Pomeranian center in the Urals was the village. Tavatuy (currently located in the Nevyansky district of the Sverdlovsk region, 43 km south of the city of Nevyansk).These flows were different, as they were associated with different movements in the Old Believers. The defeat of Kerzhenets coincided with the rapid growth of industry in the Urals. Old Believers became the main labor force. The Demidovs and other breeders took advantage of the influx of runaways from central Russia, they quickly found specialists among them, and used the rest for auxiliary work - it cost them almost nothing. At the same time, they often hid the Old Believers from persecution by the authorities.
But still, the main reason for the growth of the Old Believer population in the Urals was its isolation from the center of Russia, the “special way of life of the Urals” - the stagnation of economic forms and public relations created the most favorable conditions for the preservation of traditional cultural and everyday phenomena.
The beginning of the mass spread of the Old Believers among the population of the Southern Urals and Trans-Urals can be dated back to the last quarter XVIIcentury, that is, the process of strengthening the old faith went simultaneously with active settlement, which continued in the studied region until the middleXIXcentury. In addition, the Cossacks played famous role in the spread and strengthening of the Old Believers, but this still cannot be considered a determining factor in the spread of the Old Believers in the region due to the internal characteristics of the Cossacks.
The Trans-Urals, like Siberia in general, was a place where one could hide from brutal persecution by the government and church authorities. There was a stream of immigrants coming here. Where were these people from? Based on the research of Savitskaya O.N. and Menshchikova V.V.We present the following data:
|
Where did the immigrants come from and what percentage? |
|||||
|
Place of settlement |
|||||
|
Dalmatov Monastery |
|||||
|
Kondinsky Monastery |
|||||
|
Rafael Monastery |
|||||
The table above clearly shows that a significant part of the migration flow was made up of immigrants from Pomerania and the Urals, and the Dalmatov Monastery, closest to the European part of Russia, had the highest rate of immigrants from Pomorie, and the most remote Rafaylov Monastery had the highest rate of immigrants from the Urals. This situation will later affect the predominance of one or another Old Believer movement.The Old Believers settled in compact settlements, not allowing non-believers - "Nikonians" - into their midst. There were a lot of such settlements throughout the entire territory of the modern Kurgan region. So, for example, I know of several such villages in the Kargopol region - these are the villages of Zhitnikovo and Zhikino, founded by Pomor settlers; the village of Shmakovo was considered the center of the Old Believers in the Trans-Urals.
The Old Believers gradually began to divide into two movements, the first of which was the current of the Old Believers, which accepted the priesthood (priests); the second movement is one that does not accept the institution of the priesthood (bespopovtsy). In Russia as a whole, this process began at the junction XVII - XVIIIcenturies and finally took shape in the first half XVIIIcentury, however, in the territory of the Southern Urals and Trans-Urals, this trend of division of a single Old Believer movement took shape later - only in the second half XVIIIcentury.
XIXV. - this is the time when there is an intensive disintegration of the Old Believers into numerous movements. In the disintegration into rumors and agreements, the Old Believers of the Southern Urals and Trans-Urals had their own specific features. This is, first of all, the “blurring of the boundaries” of Old Believers’ talk, sometimes even the absence of a clear division between Old Believers-priests and non-priests. In addition, as O.N. Savitskaya notes, the evolution from clericalism to non-clericalism and further to sectarianism can be traced.This gave rise to extreme confusion in the classification of the Old Believers as a whole, when the same agreements referred either to priestlyism or to non-priestly views. The first relatively complete classification of the Old Believers was given by V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, but it already refers toXXcentury. A more suitable classification for us was proposed by the same Savitskaya O.N. It looks like this:
1. Edinoverie
2. Popovshchinsky trend of the Old Believers
This includes Beglopopov’s Old Believer interpretation (chapel agreement);
Austrian Old Believer priesthood;
Old manism
3. Bespopovshchinsky movement of the Old Believers
- Pomeranians;
- Fedoseevites;
- Filipovtsy;
Wanderer Runners;
Netovtsy;
- non-Moles;
Hole makers;
Belorrizians;
Ryabinovtsy;
Avramovshchina;
Rastrigovschina;
Kapitonovism;
Andreevshchina;
Kuzminshchina;
Sensuals;
Sub-grids;
Messalians;
Potemkovshchina;
Razlykovschina;
Akulinovschina;
Osipovshchina;
Nifontovschina;
Buriers;
Adamantovs;
Iconoclasts;
Vain;
Doubters;
Cognizers;
No good;
Molokans (Sundays);
Subbotniks;
Doukhobors.
And that's not yet full list agreements, which were attributed to the Old Believers, who did not accept the priesthood.It was the non-priest movement in the Old Believers that was the most radical. Many of the agreements went deeper into sectarianism, often losing touch with the Christian faith.
The attitude of the government and the state towards the Old Believers on the eve ofXIXcentury can be described as dual. On the one hand, these are the endless admonitions of those professing the old faith, which sometimes reached the point of state intervention and the use of administrative measures in relation to those who persist, and on the other hand, official permission for the free activity of the Old Believer Church.
On the one hand, a system of measures against schismatics was developed and improved, and on the other hand, attempts began to study the history of the Old Believers, to assess the essence of the conflict between the Old Believers and the official church. On the one hand, police sanctions for sealing Old Believers' prayer houses, chapels and the associated destruction of icons of old writing and books of the Donikon press, on the other hand, a discussion in the early 60s of legislative relief for the situation of the Old Believers. On the one hand, the permission of civil metric registration of marriages, births and deaths of Old Believers in special police metric books and the removal of restrictions on trade, crafts, participation of Old Believers in city and rural elective institutions, and on the other hand, prohibitions on organizing religious processions, building external bell towers in Old Believers churches, repairing houses of worship and building new ones was allowed only with the permission of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. All of the above illustrates the duality of the position of the Old Believers in the civil world.
In the Old Believer movement of the 19th century, anti-church traits dominated, there was no longer any acute social protest, and conformist sentiments were growing. This adaptation to the world, reconciliation with state power took various forms and manifestations, and was a characteristic of the Old Believers in general and the local Old Believers in particular. The most clearly defined process manifested itself in the emergence of unity of faith. In the 19th century The social content of the Old Believers movement changes somewhat. If in the 18th century. it was mainly a movement of social protest, then in the 19th century. it is a movement of emerging (bourgeois) forms of life. If in the 18th century. the leaders of the Old Belief lived in a semi-legal position, and the religious centers of agreement were monasteries and deserts located in hard to reach places, then in the 19th century. the leaders of Old Believer communities become wealthy peasants or merchants, and the centers of religious and organizational life of harmony are cities or large, often trading villages. The Old Believers contributed, as it were, to a roundabout development of the rudiments of capitalism. A wealthy Old Believer peasant, being the leader of a religious community, acquired power based on authority. Participation in the bodies of peasant self-government could not give him this power. The Old Believer community created the possibility of non-economic coercion. The existing strong system of religious ties (not only in the region, but also throughout Russia) could be used for economic purposes. So in the first half of the 19th century. Among the Trans-Ural Pomeranians, a desire to strengthen their organization and legalize it became noticeable. There was a revision of the Pomeranian doctrine towards greater loyalty to the government.
Let us also touch upon the question of the number of Old Believers who inhabited the territory of the Southern Trans-Urals. When studying the size of the Old Believers, one should always remember that the Old Believers as a religious movement were generally opposed to Orthodoxy. Within the Old Believers themselves, only two main trends were distinguished (and even then not always) - clericalism and lack of priesthood. And here the difficulties began. Speaking about the various Old Believer movements, there was a tendency towards evolution from moderation to radicalism (from the acceptance of the priesthood to its denial) and further - to sectarianism. All this was contained in a single concept - “Old Believers”, and therefore the boundaries of agreement were very flexible, “everything depended on which schismatic teacher was campaigning in which village.” The first attempts to identify the number of residents of the Southern Trans-Urals who adhere to the Old Believer religion were made in the 40s of the 19th century. Here the researchers encountered serious problems. Firstly, there was a large number of “unregistered” Old Believers who, for various reasons, hid their religion. Secondly, the peculiarity of Edinoverie in the Southern Trans-Urals was its proximity to schism rather than to Orthodoxy (as was assumed when Edinoverie was introduced). Fellow believers often painted themselves in schismatic paintings, thereby multiplying the number of schismatics. Thirdly, the territory of the Southern Trans-Urals was characterized by blurred boundaries of Old Believer agreements, even such large ones as priesthood and bespopovschina. The schismatics themselves often did not know which of the two agreements they belonged to. Thus, it was impossible to accurately determine the number of followers of one or another Old Believer persuasion. Fourthly, the Orthodox priesthood, especially the rural one, was often illiterate and judged a person’s Old Believer religion by failure to appear for confession and holy communion, as well as by the sign of two fingers, which, by the way, was common both among the Old Believer and Orthodox populations. Fifthly, the influence of the eschatological views of local Old Believers on their attitude towards the population census was felt. They considered her the Antichrist. Entry into the census forms was for them an “antium seal”, which could only be gotten rid of after a special cleansing ritual.
Data from the Tobolsk Diocesan Gazette indicate a steady increase in the number of followers of the old faith in the Tobolsk province throughout the second century. half of the 19th century century. Note that government statistics took into account only Old Believers who were officially registered in the schism. There were many more unregistered, secret Old Believers. But the statistics give a correct picture of the state of the Old Believers. The Tobolsk Diocesan Gazette makes it possible to trace in which districts the largest number of Old Believers lived. The Yalutorovsky district is the leader in this regard. The second and third places are occupied by the Kurgan and Ishim districts, respectively. If for the first half of the 19th century there is a significant predominance of the Old Believers-Priests over the Bespopovtsy in the Kurgan district, then in the second half of the 19th century almost all documents speak of the unconditional predominance of the Old Believers-Bespopovtsy.This is due to the remoteness from the centers of supply for priests-schismatics and the habit of celebrating spiritual needs themselves with the help of ustavs, teachers, and elders allocated from the community.There are government statistics on the number of Pomeranians in the Ural region in 1826.
The Mining Urals provides an example of the successful adaptation of Old Belief to the sociocultural realities of the large metallurgical industry that was advanced for its time. The qualified and administrative-technical personnel of the factories were largely formed from Old Believers. They also produced many innovators and inventors. There are dozens of names that can be cited, but we will limit ourselves to two: mechanics of the Nizhne Tagil factories, builders of steam engines and creators of the first Russian steam locomotive, Beglopopov father and son Cherepanovs.
The Mining Urals provides an example of the successful adaptation of Old Belief to the socio-cultural realities of the large metallurgical industry that was advanced for its time. The qualified and administrative-technical personnel of the factories were largely formed from Old Believers. They also produced many innovators and inventors. There are dozens of names, but we will limit ourselves to two: mechanics of the Nizhne Tagil factories, builders of steam engines and creators of the first Russian steam locomotive, Beglopopov father and son Cherepanovs. (Ill. 53). The combination of the traditional way of life and the new nature of work at metallurgical enterprises, serfdom and market relations, living in large factory settlements, often with a mixed population of many thousands, gave rise to an original worldview, the very phenomenon of artistic culture of the region. One of the manifestations of this culture was the local Old Believer iconography of the second half of the 18th - early 20th centuries. (Nevyansk icon). From the Nevyansk plant - the first mountain "capital" of the Demidovs and the spiritual center of the Ural Old Believers - it received the name "Nevyansk school". The term is largely conventional, as is conventional, for example, the concept of “Stroganov letters,” the style of which had a nationwide distribution. (Baidin). Icon painters who painted in the “Nevyansk” manner worked in many other factories and cities, and not only in Nevyansk. (Ill. 54).
The Ural Old Believer mining icon painting during its formation was influenced by the school of the Armory Chamber of the late 17th - early XVIII centuries, painting of the Volga region (Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and other centers); probably the influence of foreign Old Believer centers. (Ill. 55; cf. Il. 52). After the first “forcing” of Vetka in 1735, small but active groups of “Poles” appeared at the Ural Demidov factories. Being a zealous guardian of the traditions of Ancient Rus', the Nevyansk icon painting school was at the same time a developing creativity, sensitive to the context of the New Age. Hence the graphic nature of individual works (Ill. 56), realism in interiors (Ill. 57) and landscape backgrounds (Ill. 58): here are not the conventional slides and floats of old Russian icons, but picturesque landscape views of the Urals (G.V. Golynets. Nevyansk icon. pp. 210-211). The features of baroque and classicism, romantic and realistic trends reflected in the Nevyansk icon did not turn it into a painting, nor did they deprive it of its sacred meaning. Having formed in the bosom of the Old Believers of the Beglopopovian persuasion, which later became known as the Chapel Concord, the masters of Ural icon painting worked for the co-religionist, and sometimes for the official church. The works and stylistics of the Nevyansk school spread throughout Western Siberia, right up to the Tomsk province. In addition to icon painting, the cult copper-cast plastics (Ill. 59) received great development in the Urals, fortunately there were foundry specialists and raw materials here.
In parallel with the icons, book miniatures of Old Believer manuscripts were created. (Ill. 60, 61). Obvious is the close relationship between the Ural Old Believer icon painting and the mining artistic painting on wood and metal that arose simultaneously with it. (Ill. 62).). “Side by side with it (icon painting - Author),” wrote D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, “another branch of industry developed - painting chests, beetroot (tues), trays, etc.” (Ill. 63, 64). In the guest courtyard of the Irbit Fair in 1817 there were 7 shops “with chests, boxes, ... lacquered trays, portraits, pictures on iron and copper, iron and copper lacquered tables with paintings from the Nevyansk and Tagil factories.” (Ill. 65, 66). In the first half of the 19th century. Printed engravings served as themes for narrative painting on metal by Old Believers masters. (Ill. 67). Artistic sewing became widespread in mining factories); Local vestments for icons, made using Ural semi-precious and ornamental stones, were especially famous. From generation to generation, women in families of icon painters attached beaded vestments to icons, which were made to order in the family workshop. (Ill. 68). In the Old Believer families of hereditary icon painters and masters of painting on metal and wood, such as the Khudoyarovs, the inventors of the recipe for the famous Tagil “crystal” varnish, the genre of Ural painting on industrial themes arose. (Ill. 69). In 1858 and 1861 two Khudoyarov cousins entered the Academy of Arts, where they specialized in historical and portrait painting.
Contrary to fairly widespread ideas about the conservatism of the Old Believers, it was not a “closed” system. Even the limited material presented allows us to assert that the Old Russian Orthodox cultural traditions, which the Old Belief was oriented towards, in practice actively interacted with folk everyday culture. It is not surprising, but it was among the Old Believers that some pre-Christian elements of culture were best preserved. Traditionalism often contributed not to their eradication, but to the conservation of many customs, beliefs and ideas in which Christian elements were intricately intertwined with pagan ones. On the other hand, the Old Belief turned out to be quite capable of perceiving and “processing” many cultural innovations that correspond to the spirit of the times.
Some complete cultural and everyday isolation, and even then relative, was possible in remote areas. But even there, sociocultural “mechanisms” were constantly created, which made it possible to reach a compromise between the principles of “leaving the world” in the name of “salvation” with the inevitability real life in this world and the needs of farming. Thus, among the Pomeranian peasants of Verkhokamye, who also adhere to the requirements of celibacy, this was reflected in the division into “secular” and “conciliar”. Only the latter were full members of the territorial religious community - the “cathedral”, and were obliged to strictly observe the entire system of religious and everyday regulations, restrictions and prohibitions. They were “conciliar” (“consecrated”) from the age of 10-11 before marriage and in old age, after the actual end of marital relations, when a person actually could no longer help with the household and had the opportunity to minimize contacts with people of other faiths, and with the world in general. (Pozdeeva. P.42-43).
It is well known that Old Believers have food prohibitions, restrictions on clothing, communication, etc. played a significant role, being elements of self-identification. For example, the Iryumsky Cathedral of Beglopopov peasants (chapels) of the Trans-Urals and Siberia introduced bans on the consumption of tea and non-traditional clothing back in 1723: “Christians should not drink tea, ... do not wear foreign clothing.” These prohibitions were repeated, more specifically, by all local councils until the beginning of the 20th century. (Pokrovsky, 1999). True, then at one of the councils it was decided: “Christians should not have samovars in their homes.” There is no longer a direct ban on tea here; only samovars are prohibited.
Things were different in the mining Urals. It was the Urals, where the flow of tea from China (Irbit Fair) intersected with metal (copper) and the masters of its processing, that became, figuratively speaking, “the birthplace of the Russian samovar.” (Ill. 70). One of the leaders of the community of the same Beglopopovites at the Irginsky plant, S. Gordievsky, in 1740 responded to his opponent’s accusations that “the vile tea is acceptable and ... we drink”: this is “a custom ... not new, but, according to the announcement of the old people, ancient." The “old people” also believed that tea was generally better than the traditional “brew”, which included alcoholic beverages. In conclusion of his argument in defense of tea, Gordievsky cited references to the church fathers about the acceptability of every creation of God sanctified by prayer. At the end of the 1760s. Monk Maxim, close to the factory Old Believers-clerks and entrepreneurs, the head of the hermitage center at the Nizhny Tagil factories, answered tricky questions about the attitude towards foreign or “newly introduced” clothes and communication with non-believers in the following way: “We don’t communicate with the heretics, below we wear foreign clothes, We command anyone to wear it lower; whoever does this will give an answer to God.” The Old Believer monks, of course, did not wear “foreign” clothes, but they could not and did not try to prohibit their flock from factory settlements from doing so. (Ill. 71).
N.D. Zolnikova, who specially studied the issue of “friends” and “strangers” according to regulations Siberian Old Believers, came to the following conclusions. Although the Old Believers as a whole were characterized by a tough line of opposition to the “stranger” as an enemy and a regulatory reaction within the community of “friends” aimed at protecting its culture." However, not a single agreement could exist completely without changes, without one or another influence of reality and compromise with her."
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.
Didn't like them either Russian state for 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 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. 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 have a belt; it is necessary to constantly wear a strap without taking it off. 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 “tight 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 religious tradition, did not allow me to waste money and live in idleness. For an Old Believer, not working at all is a sin; however, working poorly is also a sin.
An important feature of 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 peace. 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. the first railway in Russia 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, for the first time in Moscow, at the Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art named after Andrei Rublev, an exhibition of the collections of the Yekaterinburg Museum “Nevyansk Icon: Ural Mining Icon Painting of the 18th - 19th Centuries” was successfully held.
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 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.
During the Soviet years, the temple lost its domes and bell tower and was transferred to Sverdlovsk Avtodor. 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, 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. Walked First world war. Quite quickly he is captured and from 1917 to 1921 he is in the German city of Quedlinburg.
After the end of the Civil War, Terenty Semenovich returned to Russia. Here he is enthusiastically engaged in agricultural technology and eventually becomes twice a Hero of Socialist Labor, an honorary academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 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 trials that befell his native country, Terenty Semenovich passed away already in the first years of the reign of President Yeltsin, 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. Bolshaya Laya (Sverdlovsk region), Tugulym region, 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, the temple in Omutninsk was consecrated 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, in a few years another Old Believer church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker should appear. 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. They don't 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 of Historical Sciences.
Ural geographical magazine “Podorozhnik”, summer 2006.
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 creeds to uniform pattern so that all Orthodox pray and believe equally. 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 Russian Orthodox books with ancient Greek ones. The conclusion was made that the Russian Church had moved away from the true Old Byzantine canons over several centuries.
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, the Slavic goddess of 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 Orthodox Christians 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, a solar eclipse that horrified many occurred, foreshadowing the end of the world. 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 began to burn. 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 current 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, in modern terms, quickly make a career, becoming craftsmen 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 called 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, a new wave of repression and persecution fell on the Old Believers. Dissenters are prohibited from building monasteries and calling themselves desert dwellers and hermitages. Another trap is the introduction of Edinoverie. Dilapidated Old Believer churches are closing, new ones are being rebaptized. In Edinoverie churches, services are conducted in the old way. However, they are subject to 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.
Old Believers settled in the Southern Urals 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.