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102-641: A significant ethnic Russian emigration took place in the wake of the Old Believer schism in the 17th century (for example, the Lipovans , who migrated southwards around 1700). Later ethnic Russian communities, such as the Doukhobors (who emigrated to the Transcaucasus from 1841 and onwards to Canada from 1899), also emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing centrist authority. One of the religious minorities that had

204-800: A Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia , but resident in Moscow, by a council of Russian bishops in 1448 without consent from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople initiated the effective independence of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Grand Duchy of Moscow . By then, apart from Muslim and Jewish minorities and pagan subject peoples, the Russian people were Christianised , observing church festivals and marking births, marriages, and deaths with Orthodox rituals. The main objectives of reformers in

306-588: A Russian Orthodox church. During the meeting of State Heads, President Halimah mentioned that there were 690 Russian companies in Singapore There are about 40 Russian families living in Manila, Philippines. Finland borders Russia directly, and from 1809 until 1917 was a Grand Duchy of Finland in personal union with the Russian Empire. As of 2013, Finland had 31,000 Russian citizens, which amounted to 0.56% of

408-482: A comparative analysis. Such a task would have taken many years of conscientious research and could hardly have given an unambiguous result, given the complex development of the Russian liturgical texts over the previous centuries and the lack of textual historiographic techniques at the time. Without waiting for the completion of any comparative analysis, Nikon overrode the decrees of the Stoglavy Synod and ordered

510-653: A former strategic adviser to Vladimir Putin , is a proponent of edinoverie, since it combines Apostolic succession of the ROC , while preserving pre-Nikonite liturgical tradition. Vladimir officially converted the Eastern Slavs to Christianity in 988, and the people had adopted Greek Orthodox liturgical practices. At the end of the 11th century, the efforts of St. Theodosius of the Caves in Kiev ( Феодосий Киево-Печерский , d. 1074) introduced

612-526: A founder-member, as well as the future patriarch Nikon, who joined in 1649. Their original aim was to revitalise the parishes through effective preaching, the orderly celebration of the liturgy, and enforcement of the church's moral teachings. To ensure that the liturgy was celebrated correctly, its original and authentic form had to be established, but the way that Nikon did this caused disputes between him and other reformers. In 1646, Nikon first met Tsar Aleksei, who immediately appointed him archimandrite of

714-561: A genuine correction, rather than aligning the texts of Russian liturgical books and practices, customs and even vestments with the Greek versions that Nikon considered were universally applicable norms. Nikon also attacked Russian Church rituals as erroneous, and even in some cases heretical, in comparison with their contemporary Greek equivalents. This went beyond the recommendation of Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem, who suggested that differences in ritual did not of themselves indicate error, accepting

816-663: A higher proportion of anti-semitic attacks were committed by the White military, which accounted for 17% of the anti-Jewish atrocities during the Russian Civil War. Suny stated that the casualties of the White Terror would have exceeded the Red terror with the inclusion of anti-Soviet violence and Jewish pogroms into the death toll. According to historian Marcel Liebman , the Red Terror

918-560: A result of opposition to the Nikonite reform, they do not constitute a single monolithic body. Despite the emphasis on invariable adherence to the pre-Nikonite traditions, the Old Believers feature a great diversity of groups that profess different interpretations of the church tradition and often are not in communion with each other. Some groups even practice re-baptism before admitting a member of another group into their midst. Since none of

1020-604: A side-effect of condemning the past of the Russian Orthodox Church and her traditions, the innovations appeared to weaken the messianic theory depicting Moscow as the Third Rome . Instead of the guardian of Orthodox faith, Moscow seemed an accumulation of serious liturgical mistakes. It is argued that changing the wording of the eighth article of the Nicaean Creed was one of the very few alterations that could be seen as

1122-655: A significant effect on emigration from Russia was the Russian Jewish population. Following the establishment of the State of Israel , many Russian Jews fled to the country along with their non-Jewish relatives, with the current estimate of Russians in Israel totalling 300,000 (1,000,000 including Russian Jews who in the Soviet Union were not registered as Russians but rather as ethnic Jews). The Russo-Japanese War , World War I , and

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1224-807: A single Russian Army on 23 September 1918. On 4 November Kolchak became part of the Russian Government . As the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak is recognized by all the commanders of the White Armies both in the south and west of Russia, as well as in Siberia and the Far East; generals Anton Denikin , Yevgeny Miller , Nikolai Yudenich voluntarily submit to Alexander Kolchak and recognize his Supreme High Command over all armies in Russia. The supreme commander at

1326-521: Is often broken down into three "waves" (волны) of emigration. The waves are the "First Wave", or "White Wave", which left during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then the Russian Civil War ; the "Second Wave", which emigrated during and after World War II ; and the "Third Wave", which emigrated in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. A sizable wave of ethnic Russians emigrated in the wake of

1428-470: Is that wherever the books read 'Церковь' [meaning Church ], Nikon substituted 'Храмъ' [meaning Temple ] and vice versa. According to a source sympathetic to the Old Believers: The incorrectly realized book revision by Nikon, owing to its speed, its range, its foreignness of sources and its offending character was bound to provoke protest, given the seriously assimilated, not only national but also

1530-713: The Danube Delta . In the Imperial Russian census of 1897 , 2,204,596 people, about 1.75% of the population of the Russian Empire self-declared as Old Believers or other denominations split from the Russian Orthodox Church . By the 1910s, in the last Imperial Russian census just before the October Revolution , approximately ten percent of the population of the Russian Empire said that they belonged to one of

1632-690: The Eucharist . The Bezpopovtsy rejected "the World" where they believed the Antichrist reigned; they preached the imminent end of Creation, asceticism , adherence to the old rituals and the old faith. More radical movements which already existed prior to the reforms of Nikon and where eschatological and anticlerical sentiments were predominant, would join the Bezpopovtsy Old Believers. The Bezpopovtsy claimed that any priest or ordinary who had ever used

1734-576: The Guadalupe Valley northeast of Ensenada to establish a few villages in which they maintained their Russian culture for a few decades before they were abandoned; cemeteries bearing Cyrillic letters remain. In the late 1800s, there was a large influx of Jewish immigrants to the United States from Russia and Eastern Europe to escape religious persecution. From the third of the Jewish population that left

1836-552: The Imperial Academy of Sciences . Research was continued later mainly by Serge A. Zenkovsky , a specialist on Russian ecclesiastical culture. Golubinsky, Dmitriyevsky, Kartashov and Kapterev, amongst others, demonstrated that the rites, rejected and condemned by the church reforms, were genuine traditions of Orthodox Christianity , altered in Greek usage during the 15th–16th centuries but remaining unchanged in Russia. The pre-Nikonite liturgical practices, including some elements of

1938-589: The Korean Peninsula in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. The population of Russians in Singapore is estimated at 4,500 by local Russian embassy in 2018; they are a largely-professional and business-oriented expatriate community, and among them are hundreds of company owners or local heads of branches of large Russian multinationals. President Vladimir Putin visited Singapore on 13 November 2018 to break ground for Russian Cultural Center, which will also house

2040-562: The Novospassky monastery in Moscow. In 1649, Nikon was consecrated as the Metropolitan of Novgorod and, in 1652, he became Patriarch of Moscow . During his time in Novgorod, Nikon began to develop his view that the responsibility for the spiritual health of Russia lay with senior church leaders, not the tsar. When he became patriarch, he started to reorganise the church's administration so it

2142-557: The October Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They became known collectively as the White émigrés . That emigration is also referred to as the "first wave" even though previous emigrations had taken place, as it was comprised the first emigrants to have left in the wake of the Communist Revolution, and because it exhibited a heavily political character. A smaller group of Russians, often referred to by Russians as

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2244-594: The People's Army again entered Syzran, occupied by the Bolsheviks, and threw them back to Simbirsk . A few days later, Kappel 's detachments occupied Simbirsk and from there they advanced in several directions: from Syzran to Volsk and Penza , from Simbirsk to Inza and Alatyr and along the banks of the Volga to the mouth of the Kama. After the capture of Kazan , the People's Army

2346-706: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , to attract local Orthodox rebels. Their rite was closer to the Greek than that in the Muscovite realm. Nikon did not accept the existence of two different rites in the same church. Supported by Tsar Aleksei, Nikon carried out some preliminary liturgical reforms. In 1652, he convened a synod and exhorted the clergy on the need to compare Russian Typikon , Euchologion , and other liturgical books with their Greek counterparts. Monasteries from all over Russia received requests to send examples to Moscow to have them subjected to

2448-402: The Russian Revolution that became a civil war happened in quick succession from 1904 through 1923 with some overlap and heightened the strain on Russia and particularly the men expected to participate in military service. A major reason for young men specifically to emigrate out of Russia was to avoid forced service in the Russian army. In the twentieth century, Emigration from the Soviet Union

2550-687: The Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) to conquer West Russian provinces and Ukraine, developed ambitions of becoming the liberator of the Orthodox areas which at that time formed part of the Ottoman Empire . They also mention the role of the Near-East patriarchs, who actively supported the idea of the Russian Tsar becoming the liberator of all Orthodox Christians and who suggested that Patriarch Nikon might become

2652-788: The Supreme Administration of the Northern Region in Arkhangelsk created troops of the Northern Region, sometimes referred to as the Northern Army (not to be confused with General Rodzyanko 's Northern Army). In January 1919, the Don and Volunteer Armies were combined into the Armed Forces of the South of Russia . In June 1919, the Northern Army was created from Russian officers and soldiers of

2754-672: The United States , the United Kingdom , and Australia . Emigres who left after the death of Stalin but before perestroika , are often grouped into a "third wave". The emigres were mostly Jews, Armenians, Russian Germans . Most left in the 1970s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union , Russia suffered an economic depression in the 1990s. This caused many Russians to leave Russia for Western countries. The economic depression ended in 2000. Also, during this time, ethnic Russians who lived in other post-Soviet states moved to Russia. Upon

2856-701: The Whites or White Guardsmen ( бѣлогвардейцы/белогвардейцы , belogvardeytsi ), was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War . They fought against the Red Army of Soviet Russia . When it was created, the structure of the Russian Army of the Provisional Government period was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of

2958-495: The liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666. Resisting the accommodation of Russian piety to the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship, these Christians were anathematized , together with their ritual, in a Synod of 1666–67 , producing a division in Eastern Europe between the Old Believers and those who followed

3060-859: The "pocket of Russia". However, the command and the Czechs abandoned these plans, citing a lack of reserves . At the same time, in June 1918, the Provisional Siberian Government in Novo-Nikolaevsk created the Siberian Army . Initially, it was called the West Siberian Volunteer Army. From June to December 1918, the headquarters of the Siberian Army was the general headquarters for the entire White Movement of Siberia . In August 1918,

3162-571: The "second wave" of the Russian emigration, left during World War II. They were refugees, Soviet POWs , eastern workers , or surviving veterans of the Russian Liberation Army and other collaborationist armed units that had served under the German command and evaded forced repatriation . In the immediate postwar period, the largest Russian communities in the emigration settled in Germany , Canada ,

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3264-452: The 1666 Great Moscow Synod , which brought Patriarch Macarius III Ibn al-Za'im of Antioch, Patriarch Paisios of Alexandria , and many bishops to Moscow. Some scholars allege that the visiting patriarchs each received both 20,000 rubles in gold and furs for their participation. This council officially established the reforms and anathematized not only all those opposing the innovations but the old Russian books and rites themselves as well. As

3366-510: The 16th century, many from the secular clergy , were to standardise the liturgy throughout the Muscovite realm. This resulted in the holding of the Stoglavy Synod , a Russian church council in 1551, whose decrees formed the basis of Orthodox ritual and liturgy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This synod condemned many popular religious practices; among other things, it forbade the practice of polyphony . In addition, while stressing

3468-529: The 17th century into the 19th century. The Old Believers considered such self-immolations not as a suicide but as a martyr’s death and an act of protest. In 1678, in the Paleostrov self-immolation, one of the largest, on an island in Lake Onega over 2,700 people perished at the sight of soldiers and officials who were sent to stop the burnings. In totaly, there were over 100 officially registered self-immolations of

3570-446: The 17th century, Greek and Russian Church officials, including Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, had noticed discrepancies between contemporary Russian and Greek usages. They reached the conclusion that the Russian Orthodox Church had, as a result of errors of incompetent copyists, developed rites and liturgical books of its own that had significantly deviated from the Greek originals. Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church had become dissonant with

3672-687: The 1930s, Shanghai's Russian community had grown to more than 25,000. There are also smaller numbers of Russians in Japan and in Korea . The Japanese government disputes Russia's claim to the Kuril Islands , which were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. The Soviet Red Army expelled all Japanese from the island chain, which was resettled with Russians and other Soviet nationalities. A few Russians also settled in

3774-514: The 1930s, where Trotsky himself was assassinated by NKVD agent Ramon Mercader in 1940. Russians ( eluosizu ) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China . They are approximately 15,600 living mostly in northern Xinjiang and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang . In the 1920s, Harbin was flooded with 100,000 to 200,000 White émigrés fleeing Russia. Some Harbin Russians moved to other cities, including Shanghai , Beijing , and Tianjin . By

3876-465: The Church to the state. Nevertheless, the Old Believers sought above all to defend and preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith, embodied in the old rituals, which inspired many to strive against Patriarch Nikon's church reforms even unto death. White Army The White Army ( Russian : Бѣлая армія /Белая армия , romanized :  Belaya armiya ) or White Guard ( Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия , Belaya gvardiya ), also referred to as

3978-493: The Council of Defense of the Don Host formed the Don Army . In May 1918, the Drozdov brigade joined the Volunteer Army from the Romanian Front. Among those who came to the Don were public figures. Boris Savinkov , the former head of the Socialist Revolutionary Combat Organization , who organized the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom under the Volunteer Army, was also there. Military leaders and Cossacks reacted extremely negatively to his presence. One of

4080-436: The Great (reigned 1682–1725) (Old Believers had to pay double taxation and a separate tax for wearing a beard )—to intense, as under Tsar Nicholas I (reigned 1825–1855). The Russian synodal state church and the state authorities often saw Old Believers as dangerous elements and as a threat to the Russian state. There were Old Believers who chose death rather than give up their faith. Collective suicides by fire continued from

4182-465: The Great passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practise their faith openly without interference. In 1905, Tsar Nicholas II signed an act of religious freedom that ended the persecution of all religious minorities in Russia. The Old Believers gained the right to build churches, to ring church bells, to hold processions and to organize themselves. It became prohibited to refer to Old Believers as raskolniki (schismatics), as they were under Catherine

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4284-455: The Great—reigned 1762–1796, a name they consider insulting. People often refer to the period from 1905 until 1917 as "the Golden Age of the Old Faith". One can regard the Act of 1905 as emancipating the Old Believers, who had until then occupied an almost illegal position in Russian society. Some restrictions for Old Believers continued: for example, they were forbidden from joining the civil service. Although all Old Believers groups emerged as

4386-434: The Greek ones of his time. In doing so, according to the Old Believers, Nikon acted without adequate consultation with the clergy and without gathering a council. After the implementation of these revisions, the Church anathematized and suppressed—with the support of Muscovite state power—the prior liturgical rite itself, as well as those who were reluctant to pass to the revised rite. Those who maintained fidelity to

4488-414: The Moscow printed editions of 1610, 1633 and 1641, continues to be used by modern Old Believers. In the course of the polemics against Old Believers, the official Russian Orthodox Church often claimed the discrepancies, which emerged in the texts between the Russian and the Greek churches, as Russian innovations, errors, or arbitrary translations. This charge of "Russian innovation" re-appeared repeatedly in

4590-400: The Nikonite Rites had forfeited apostolic succession . Therefore, the true church of Christ had ceased to exist on Earth, and the Bezpopovtsy therefore renounced priests and all sacraments except baptism . The Bezpopovtsy movement has many sub-groups. Bezpopovtsy have no priests and no Eucharist , but may elect a mentor ( наставник ) or church leaders ( настоятели or начётчики ) to lead

4692-437: The Northern Corps, who left the Estonian army. A month later, the army was renamed the Northwest. On 14 October 1918, Minister of War Alexander Kolchak arrived in Omsk . On 18 November 1918 he was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia , who also assumed the supreme command of all the land and naval forces of Russia. He made a substantial reorganization of the forces of the White movement and carried out its integration into

4794-422: The Old Believer branches (census data). Some Old Believers evaded state persecution by fleeing to the Altai Mountains , a mountainous region near the Russian border with Mongolia. The convents of the Pomorskii group were built there at the beginning of the 20th century with the financial support of Savva Morozov , a rich textile mill owner and a member of the Pomorskii community himself. In 1762, Catherine

4896-544: The Old Believers. Old Believers were driven by persecutions to the fringes of Russia and became the dominant denomination in many regions, including the Pomors of the Russian Far North , in the Kursk region, in the Ural Mountains , in Siberia , and the Russian Far East . Many Old Believers fled Russia altogether, particularly for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , where the community exists to this day. The 40,000-strong community of Lipovans still lives in Izmail Raion ( Vylkove ) of Ukraine and Tulcea County of Romania in

4998-492: The Red Army, according to intelligence estimates, by June 1919 was about 683,000. However, together with auxiliary and staff units, it could exceed 1,023,000 people. A significant part of the White forces was on contentment. Combat units amounted to only half of this figure. After that, the number of White Armies began to decline steadily. The White Army consisted of all kinds of troops for that period: All of them had their own uniforms and formation patch , often copied from

5100-404: The Reds, as well as the Makhnovtsi , carried out the White Terror , while taking part in mass executions, including assisting allied foreign interventionists (for example, 257 civilians were killed in 1919 in the course of the struggle in the village of Ivanovka of the Japanese Army and the White Guards against the pro-Bolshevik detachments of partisans). The overall number of people killed in

5202-423: The Russian Federation was estimated as close to 30 million by SIL Ethnologue in 2010. In Albania , the presence of Russians first occurred at the end of 1921, with thousands of former White Army soldiers settling in the nation at the request of Prime Minister Ahmet Zogu . After the Second World War, hundreds of Soviet civilian and military experts were sent to Albania. The Soviet Union withdrew specialists from

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5304-464: The Russian typicon Oko Tserkovnoe , were demonstrated to have preserved earlier Byzantine practices, being closer to the earlier Byzantine texts than some later Greek customs. Remarkably, the scholars who opened the new avenues for re-evaluation of the reform by the Russian Church themselves held membership in the official church (A. V. Kapterev, for instance, was a professor at the Slavic Greek Latin Academy ) but nevertheless took up serious study of

5406-445: The Studite liturgical practices were gradually replaced in Russia with the so-called Jerusalem Typicon or the Typicon of St. Sabbas —originally, an adaptation of the Studite liturgy to the customs of Palestinian monasteries. The process of gradual change of typica continued throughout the 15th century and, because of its slow implementation, met with little resistance—unlike Nikon's reforms, conducted with abruptness and violence. In

5508-410: The United States. In 1652, Nikon of Moscow , patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church from then until 1658, introduced a number of ritual and textual revisions with the aim of achieving uniformity between the practices of the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches. Nikon, having noticed discrepancies between Russian and Greek rites and texts, ordered an adjustment of the Russian rites to align with

5610-407: The White Army was based on the experience of the First World War , which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Russian Civil War. The name "White" is associated with white symbols of the supporters of the pre-revolutionary order , dating back to the time of the French Revolution , in contrast to the name of the Red Guard detachments, and then the Red Army. For the first time,

5712-430: The White Terror is significantly less than that in the Bolshevik Red Terror , which drastically differed from its counterpart due to being deliberately organized and run by Bolshevik leaders. However, the total estimates for the White Terror are difficult to ascertain due to the role of multiple administrations and violence perpetrated by undisciplined, independent anti-Bolshevik forces. Historian Ronald Suny noted that

5814-403: The Zealots of Piety against him. Their protests led to their excommunication and exile and, in some cases, imprisonment or execution. It was not disputed by the reformers that the Russian texts should be corrected by reference to the most ancient Greek, but also Slavonic, manuscripts, although they also considered that many traditional Russian ceremonial practices were acceptable. In addition,

5916-435: The ambition to aim for such control. Both the popovtsy and bespopovtsy, although theologically and psychologically two different teachings, manifested spiritual, eschatological and mystical tendencies throughout Russian religious thought and church life. One can also emphasize the schism's position in the political and cultural background of its time: increasing Western influence, secularization , and attempts to subordinate

6018-402: The area, roughly eighty percent resettled in America. There, many still desired to hold onto their Russian identities and settled in areas with large numbers of Russian immigrants already. Local populations were generally distrustful of their cultural differences. Dissenters of the official Soviet Communist Party like the Trotskyists and their leader, Leon Trotsky , found refuge in Mexico in

6120-412: The arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Kappel in the army, the following were formed: 1st Volunteer Samara Squadron, Cavalry Squadron of Staff Captain Stafievsky, Volzhskaya Equestrian Battery of Captain Vyrypayev, horse reconnaissance, subversive command and economic unit. After the formation of the units, Kappel 's troops occupy Syzran and Stavropol on June 11 and 12, respectively. On 10 July,

6222-425: The basis of mobilization. They drew from the population of controlled territories and from captured Red Army soldiers . On a voluntary basis, they were staffed not only from officers of the Imperial Russian Army and Navy , but also from all comers. It was both in the South – in the Volunteer Army , and in Siberia, for example – the division of the Labor Corps. The strength of the White Armies fighting against

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6324-469: The beginning of the 20th century is difficult to estimate, as many still feared persecution for admitting their faith, but contemporary sources put the total between 10 and 20 million. Persecution was renewed in the Soviet era , ending during Gorbachev 's perestroika reforms of the Soviet Union. In the early 21st century, the number of Old Believers is estimated to be between 2 and 3 million, mostly in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and

6426-463: The bishops joined the Old Believers, except Bishop Pavel of Kolomna , who was put to death for this, apostolically ordained priests of the old rite would have soon become extinct. Two responses appeared to this dilemma: the Popovtsy (поповцы, "with priests") and the Bezpopovtsy ("priestless"). The Popovtsy represented the more moderate conservative opposition, those who strove to continue religious and church life as it had existed before

6528-508: The causes and background of the reforms and of the resulting schism. Their research revealed that the official explanation regarding the old Russian books and rites was unsustainable. As Serge A. Zenkovsky points out in his standard work Russia's Old Believers , the Old Believer schism did not occur simply as a result of a few individuals with power and influence. The schism had complex causes, revealing historical processes and circumstances in 17th-century Russian society. Those who broke from

6630-415: The commanders of the North and Northwest Armies Generals Yudenich and Miller. In April 1920, the Far Eastern Army was created in Transbaikalia from the remnants of the troops of the Eastern Front under the leadership of General Grigory Semenov . Out of the remnants of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia that left for Crimea in May 1920, General Wrangel formed the armed forces that inherited

6732-413: The community and its services. Apart from these major groups, many smaller groups have emerged and became extinct at various times since the end of the 17th century: Edinovertsy ( единоверцы , i.e. "people of the same faith"; collective, единоверчество; often referred to as Orthodox Old Ritualists, православные старообрядцы): Agreed to become a part of the official Russian Orthodox Church while saving

6834-540: The country in 1961, resulting in about half of the Russian diaspora being forced to remain in Albania permanently. The Russian-speaking diaspora today numbers only about 300 people. Russian settlement in Mexico was minimal but well documented in the 19th and the early 20th centuries. A few breakaway sectarians from the Russian Orthodox Church , partial tribes of Spiritual Christian Pryguny arrived in Los Angeles beginning in 1904 to escape persecution from Tsarist Russia and were diverted to purchase and colonize land in

6936-406: The course of the 15th—17th centuries, Russian scribes continued to insert some Studite material into the general shape of Jerusalem Typicon . This explains the differences between the modern version of the Typicon , used by the Russian Orthodox Church, and the pre-Nikonite Russian recension of Jerusalem Typicon , called Oko Tserkovnoe (Rus. "eye of the church"). This pre-Nikonite version, based on

7038-411: The decrees of the Council of Florence , the Greek patriarchate had compromised its authority and forfeited any right to dictate to Russia on liturgical matters. Tsar Aleksei, Nikon and some of the Zealots of Piety decided that the best way to revitalise the Russian church was to conform with the usages of the Greek church and accept the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople . By the middle of

7140-467: The early church. Old Believer theology is characterized by this strict adherence to pre-reform traditions, as well as the belief that the reformed church's heresy is coeval with the arrival of the Antichrist . As a result of this eschatological belief, as well as the church and state's mass persecution of the Old Believers, many fled to establish colonies and monasteries in the wilderness. No bishops opposed Nikon's reforms (besides Paul of Kolomna , who

7242-477: The existing rite endured severe persecutions from the end of the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century as "Schismatics" (Russian: раскольники , raskol'niki ). They became known as "Old Ritualists", a name introduced under the empress Catherine the Great , who reigned from 1762 to 1796. Those who adopted new liturgical practices started to call themselves pravoslavnye ( православные , 'those believing rightly', 'orthodox'). The installation of

7344-666: The first to join the Alekseyev Organization was Vasily Shulgin , who later became a member of the Special Meeting under Denikin . On 8 June 1918, the uprising White Czechs took Samara . On the same day, the People's Army was organized under the command of Colonel Nikolai Galkin. It was formed by the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly , which was repressed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. On 9 June, after

7446-409: The genuine orthodox identity of the Russian people. The protest was indeed global: the episcopate, the clergy, both regular and monastic, the laity and the ordinary people. Opponents of the ecclesiastical reforms of Nikon emerged among all strata of the people and in relatively large numbers (see Raskol ). However, after the deposition of Patriarch Nikon (1658), who presented too strong a challenge to

7548-465: The hastily published new editions of the service books contained internal inconsistencies, and had to be reprinted several times in quick succession. Rather than being revised according to ancient Slavonic and Greek manuscripts, the new liturgical editions had actually been translated from modern Greek editions printed in Catholic Venice. The locum tenens for Patriarch Pitirim of Moscow convened

7650-424: The hierarchy of the official State Church had quite divergent views on church, faith, society, state power and social issues. Thus the collective term "Old Believers" groups together various movements within Russian society which actually had existed long before 1666–67. They shared a distrust of state power and of the episcopate, insisting upon the right of the people to arrange their own spiritual life, and expressing

7752-521: The late 1630s, and also included the future Patriarch of Moscow Nikon. Upon Nikon's elevation to the patriarchal throne, he and the tsar hoped to revitalize the Russian Church through the ecumenical Eastern Orthodoxy of the Greek Church, introducing various Greek reforms to the liturgy. Old Believers believe these reforms to be heretical, believing the pre-reform rites to be the authentic practices of

7854-617: The mob and went to Don to Ataman Alexey Kaledin . The Don region abandoned the power of the Soviets and proclaimed independence "before the formation of a nation-wide, popularly recognized government". The first White Army was created by Mikhail Alekseyev , calling it the "Alekseyev Organization". Officers were recruited there on a voluntary basis. A Volunteer Army was created from the members of this organization. Generals Alexey Kaledin and Lavr Kornilov joined him. Three months later, in April 1918,

7956-838: The name "Russian Army" from the single Russian army of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kolchak of 1919 – as the last of its fronts. In 1921, from the remnants of the Far Eastern Army of General Semyonov in Primorye, the White Rebel Army was formed, later renamed the Zemsky Army , since the Amur Zemsky Government was created in Vladivostok in 1922. White Armies drew both from volunteers and on

8058-910: The name "White Guard" was used in Russia for Finnish police detachments created in 1906 to fight the revolutionary movement . Their members wore white bandages on their sleeves; however, this did not have a direct connection with the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The White Armies comprised a number of different groups, who operated independently and did not share a single ideology or political goal. Their leaders were conservative or moderate generals and political leaders, each with different goals and plans to achieve them, and most of these armies did not coordinate their actions. The chain of command in each, as well as individual members, differed, from experienced veterans of World War I to fresh volunteers. The White Guards, in addition to directly fighting with

8160-464: The need for accurate copying of sacred documents, it also approved of traditional Russian liturgical practices that differed from contemporary Greek ones. During the reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich (r. 1645–1676), the young tsar and his confessor , Stefan Vonifatiev, sponsored a group, mainly composed of non-monastic clergy and known as the Zealots of Piety . These included the archpriest Avvakum as

8262-434: The new Patriarch of Constantinople. The numerous changes in both texts and rites occupied approximately 400 pages. Old Believers present the following as the most crucial changes: Today's readers might perceive these alterations as trivial, but the faithful of that time saw rituals and dogmas as strongly interconnected: church rituals had from the beginning represented and symbolized doctrinal truth. The authorities imposed

8364-545: The number of Old Believer bishops in Russia reached ten and they established their own episcopate, the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy . Not all popovtsy Old Believers recognized this hierarchy. Dissenters known as beglopopovtsy obtained their own hierarchy in the 1920s. The priestist Old Believers thus manifest as two churches which share the same beliefs, but which treat each other's hierarchy as illegitimate. Popovtsy have priests, bishops and all sacraments , including

8466-462: The old rites and books and those who wished to stay loyal to them at the synod of 1666. From that moment, the Old Believers officially lacked all civil rights. The State had the most active Old Believers arrested, and executed several of them (including Archpriest Avvakum) some years later in 1682. After 1685, a period of persecutions began, including both torture and executions. Government oppression could vary from relatively moderate, as under Peter

8568-520: The old rites. First appearing in 1800, the Edinovertsy come under the omophorion of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate – Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia , abbreviated as ROCOR – have come into communion under different circumstances and retain being old believers in the traditional context and retain the use of the pre-Nikonite rituals. Alexander Dugin , sociologist and

8670-408: The other Orthodox churches. The unrevised Muscovite service-books derived from a different, and older, Greek recension than that which was used in the current Greek books, which had been revised over the centuries, and contained innovations. Nikon wanted to have the same rite in the Russian tsardom as those ethnically Slavic lands, then the territories of Ukraine and Belarus, that were then part of

8772-476: The population, and 80,000 (1.5%) speak Russian as their mother tongue. Today the largest ethnic Russian diasporas outside of Russia exist in former Soviet states such as Ukraine (about 9 million), Kazakhstan (3,644,529 or 20.61% in 2016), Belarus (about 1.5 million), Uzbekistan (about 650,000) Kyrgyzstan (about 600,000) and Latvia (471,276 or 34.7% in 2020). The situation faced by ethnic Russian diasporas varied widely. In Belarus , for example, there

8874-422: The possibility that differences have developed over time. He urged Nikon to use discretion in attempting to enforce complete uniformity with Greek practice. Nevertheless, both patriarch and tsar wished to carry out their reforms, although their endeavors may have had as much or more political motivation as religious; several authors on this subject point out that Tsar Aleksei, encouraged by his military success in

8976-404: The printing of new editions of the Russian psalter , missal , and a pamphlet justifying his liturgical changes. The new psalter and missal altered the most frequently used words and visible gestures in the liturgy, including the pronunciation of Christ's name and making the sign of the cross . In addition, the overbearing manner in which he forced the changes through turned Avvakum and others of

9078-558: The reforms in an autocratic fashion, with no consultation of the subject people. Those who reacted against the Nikonite reforms would have objected as much to the manner of imposition as to the alterations. Changes were also often made arbitrarily in the texts. For example, wherever the books read 'Христосъ' [ Christ ], Nikon's assistants substituted 'Сынъ' [meaning the Son ], and wherever they read 'Сынъ' they substituted 'Христосъ'. Another example

9180-424: The reforms of Nikon. They recognized ordained priests from the new-style Russian Orthodox church who joined the Old Believers and who had denounced the Nikonite reforms. In 1846, they convinced Ambrose of Belaya Krinitsa (1791–1863), a Greek Orthodox bishop whom Turkish pressure had removed from his see at Sarajevo , to become an Old Believer and to consecrate three Russian Old Believer priests as bishops. In 1859,

9282-650: The same time confirms the authority of the commanders. From this moment, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia , the Northwestern Army , the Northern Army , and the Eastern Front have been operating on the fronts of this single army. The name "Russian Army" is approved as the union of all White fronts, the status of commanders of the fronts formally from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is received by

9384-552: The so-called Studite Typicon to Russia. This typicon (essentially, a guide-book for liturgical and monastic life) reflected the traditions of the urban Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople . The Studite typicon predominated throughout the western part of the Byzantine Empire and was accepted throughout the Russian lands. At the end of the 14th century, through the work of Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus',

9486-541: The start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent mobilization , hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad . Some 20 to 30 million ethnic Russians are estimated to live outside the bounds of the Russian Federation (depending on the definition of "ethnicity"). Official census data often considers the only nationality. The number of native speakers of the Russian language who resided outside of

9588-479: The state church in its condemnation of the Old Rite. Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol ( раскол ), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart". The leaders of the Old Believers, including Avvakum Petrov and Ivan Neronov , were originally members of the Zealots of Piety . This group of church reformers gathered around Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the tsar's confessor Stefan Vonifatyev in

9690-513: The textbooks and anti- raskol treatises and catecheses, including, for example, those by Dimitry of Rostov . The critical evaluation of the sources and of the essence of the church reforms began only in the 1850s, with the groundbreaking work of several church historians, Byzantinists , and theologians, including S. A. Belokurov , A. P. Shchapov , A. K. Borozdin, N. Gibbenet and, later, E. E. Golubinsky , A. V. Kartashev , A. A. Dmitriyevsky, and Nikolai F. Kapterev . The last four were members of

9792-460: The tsar's authority, a series of church councils officially endorsed Nikon's liturgical reforms. The Old Believers fiercely rejected all innovations, and the most radical among them maintained that the official Church had fallen into the hands of the Antichrist . The Old Believers, under the leadership of Archpriest Avvakum Petrov (1620 or 1621 to 1682), publicly denounced and rejected all ecclesiastical reforms. The State church anathematized both

9894-788: Was banished to a monastery), so the Old Believers had no ability to ordain new priests, meaning the anti-reform priesthood would quickly vanish. This dilemma led to the split among the Old Believers into the Popovtsy (the priested ones) and the Bespopovtsy (the priestless ones); the Popovtsy accept priests ordained by the reformed Russian Church, while the Bespopovtsy reject any priest ordained after Nikonite reforms. The widespread persecution of Old Believers came to an end with Tsar Nicholas II 's Edict of Tolerance in 1905. The total number of Old Believers at

9996-516: Was initiated in response to several, planned assassinations of Bolshevik leaders and the initial massacres of Red prisoners in Moscow and during the Finnish Civil War by Finnish Whites . After the October Revolution , the arrested generals Lavr Kornilov , Anton Denikin , Sergey Markov and others were released by Commander-in-Chief Nikolay Dukhonin before his removal and subsequent murder by

10098-594: Was no perceivable change in status. But in Estonia and Latvia , people without ancestors that had been a citizen of those countries before the Soviet occupation of 1940–1991 , and who did not request Russian citizenship while it was available, were deemed non-citizens . In March 2022, a week after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , 12% of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine said they did not believe that any part of Ukraine

10200-675: Was reorganized. The Volga Front was created under the command of Stanislav Chechek . It was divided into several groups: Simbirsk, Kazan, Khvalynsk, Ufa, Nikolaev, Ural Cossack troops and the Orenburg Cossack troops. Kappel suggested the command to take Nizhny Novgorod . He suggested that the occupation of the city would break the Bolshevik plans to sign additional agreements with the Kaiser of Germany in Berlin , as he would deprive them of money from

10302-626: Was rightfully part of Russia, according to Lord Ashcroft's polls which did not include the Russian-occupied regions of Crimea and parts of the Donbas. 65% of Ukrainians – including 88% of those of Russian ethnicity – agreed that "despite our differences there is more that unites ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and Ukrainians than divides us." Old Believers Old Believers , also called Old Ritualists , are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain

10404-421: Was wholly under his own control. In 1649, a Greek delegation, headed by Patriarch Paisios of Jerusalem , arrived in Moscow and tried to convince the tsar and Nikon that current Greek liturgical practices were authentically Orthodox and that Russian usages that differed from them were local innovations. This led to a heated debate between the visiting Greeks and many Russian clerics who believed that, by accepting

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