Schism of the Russian Church

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The Schism of the Russian Church, also known as Raskol (

Church reforms and reaction to them

The members of an influential circle called the

With the support from the Russian

A traditional, widespread view of these reforms is that they only affected the external ritualistic side of the Russian Orthodox faith and that these changes were deemed a major event by the religious

Avvakum and Daniel first petitioned to the tsar to officialize the two-finger sign of the cross and

The most radical apologists of the Raskol preached about approaching Armageddon and coming of the Antichrist, Tsar's and patriarch's worshiping of Satan, which ideas would find a broad response among the Russian people, sympathizing with the ideology of these most radical apologetes. The Raskol movement thus became a vanguard of the conservative and at the same time democratic opposition.

Uprisings and persecution

The Raskol movement gained in strength after the

The Old Believers would soon split into different denominations, the Popovtsy and the Bespopovtsy. Attracted to the preachings of the Raskol ideologists, many posad people, mainly peasants, craftsmen and cossacks fled to the dense forests of Northern Russia and Volga region, southern borders of Russia, Siberia, and even abroad, where they would organize their own obshchinas. This was a mass exodus of common Russian people, who had refused to follow the new ecclesiastic rituals. In 1681, the government noted an increase among the "enemies of the church", especially in Siberia. With active support from the Russian Orthodox Church, it began to persecute the so-called raskolniki (раскольники), i.e., "schism-makers".

In the 1670s–1680s, the exposure of certain social vices in the Russian society gained special importance in the Raskol ideology. Some of the Raskol apologetes, such as Avvakum and his brothers-in-exile at the

In the late 17th – early 18th century, the most radical elements of the Raskol movement went into recession after it had become obvious that the reforms could not be reversed. The internal policy of

The Raskol (schism) still exists, and with it a certain antagonism between the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Old Believers, although on an official level both sides have agreed on a peaceful coexistence. From an ecclesiastic and theological point of view the Raskol remains a highly controversial question and one of the most tragic episodes of Russian history.

Literary reference

The term is etymologically related to the family name of Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoevsky's well-known novel Crime and Punishment.

See also

• Patriarch Nikon of Moscow
• Old Believers
• Edinoverie
• Avvakum

References

In English

• Cherniavsky, M (1955), "The Reception of the Council of Florence in Moscow", Church History (article), XXIV: 147–57.
• Crummey, Robert O (1970), The Old Believers & The World of Antichrist; The Vyg Community & The Russian State, Wisconsin UP.
• Gill, T (1959), The Council of Florence, Cambridge{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
• Shevchenko, I (1955), "Ideological Repercussions of the Council of Florence", Church History (article), XXIV: 291–323,
  S2CID 159708744
  .
• Zenkovsky
  , Serge A (1957), "The ideology of the Denisov brothers", Harvard Slavic Studies, III: 49–66.
• ——— (1956), "The Old Believer Avvakum", Indiana Slavic Studies, I: 1–51.
• ——— (1967) [1960], Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia, Harvard UP
• ——— (1957), "The Russian Schism",
  JSTOR 125748
  .