www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St Avvakum the Old Believer

Dear Friends,

Today is the feast of the Holy Hieromartyr and Confessor Saint Avvakum the Old Believer who was burned under Tsar Theodore for defending the Old Rite.

(He wrote a letter to the young Tsar advising him to return to the faith and practices of his forefathers - he included, I believe, references to a dream he had in which Tsar Alexis, Theodore's father, was cast into hell . . . Theodore took offense . . .).

Before the pyre was ignited, St Avvakum raised his hand in the Old Rite form for making the Sign of the Cross and said, "Orthodox Christians! When you will make the Sign of the Cross in this way, you and our land will be blessed . . . Do not give in to the wiles of the devil" etc.

Best wishes today to our Old Believers on the forum, to Father Mark especially and to Diak, an Old Believer enthusiast and to all.

Alex

Spasi Christos! Duzhe dyakuyu, pan Doktor!

Slava Isusu Krystu!

Please forgive me for asking, what do you mean by an old believer? who or what are their counterpart?

Thanks! God bless!
eumir

Eumir, these are the adherents of the Russian Church who did not accept the liturgical and spiritual changes mandated by Patriarch Nikon in the later 17th century.

These changes of Nikon included everything from changes in the liturgical books down to making the sign of the Cross. To the Old Ritualists the faith was an entire package, and needless to say the changes of Nikon were met with great resistance.

The Old Ritualists were heavily persecuted in Russia and fled to such far places as China, Argentina and Alaska to continue to practice their faith. Some groups had a priesthood (popovtsy) and some groups did not (bezpopovtsy).

Some groups, like the Old Believer diocese in Erie, Pennsylvania, have re-entered into communion with Orthodox churches who accepted the Nikonian reforms like the ROCOR, but who have publically asked the Old Ritualists for forgiveness for the previous persecution.

There were even some Russian Catholic Old Rite priests like Frs. Patapy Emelianov and Eustachy Susalev who came into communion with the Ukrainian Catholic Church under Metropolitan Sheptytsky. Metropolitan Andrey encouraged them to continue the use of the Old Rite after coming into communion with the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Dear Diak,

Although I need to find the actual source, I did read at one time that Bl. Leonid Fyodorov belonged to an Old Rite Orthodox community in union with Rome.

This is also how Leonid described his community when he wrote a letter to Tsar St Nicholas II to assure him of their prayers for their ill son, Tsarevich St Alexei.

The Tsar wrote back to thank the "Old Rite Orthodox community in communion with Rome" for their prayers.

Whenever Bl. Leonid's group were threatened with eviction from wherever they happened to be gathering to pray and serve the Liturgy, he would show the Tsarist police the letter, hand-signed by the Tsar, and they would leave them alone.

Alex

Dear Alex, to my knowledge St. Leonid and his sainted mother were firmly of the St. Petersburg intellegentia and of the Synodal liturgical tradition. He himself was educated primarily in St. Petersburg before entering communion with Rome.

However he greatly respected the Old Rite and personally facilitated much of the dialogue between the Old Rite clergy and parishes with Metropolitan Sheptytsky. He was indeed a close friend of many Old Rite clergy of his day, both in and out of communion with Rome.

He had even suggested an eventual separate Old Rite Studite community, but the arrests of the early 1930s squelched that dream.

The Greek-Catholic community in Saint Petersburg in Blessed Leonty's time (to give Exarch Leonid his monastic name) used the Old Rite and the Niconian Rite by turns, depending on who was serving; the synod of the Exarchate held under Metropolitan Andrew had prescribed that either form was acceptable but that there should not be an indiscriminate mixing of the two. The last Greek-Catholic chapel using the Old Rite seems to have been Our Lady of Tikhvin, at Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon, about 30 years ago. Incognitus

Dear Incognitus,

You da man!

I believe Bl. Leonty suffered for 14 years for his faith on the Solovetsky Islands, did he not?

In addition to the Russian saints there, about 300 Old Believer monks were shot to death by Tsarist police for refusing to submit to the Niconian reforms - and they are invoked as martyr-saints by the Old Believers.

Bl. Leonty now joins that entire choir of Saints of the Solovetsky Islands.

Alex

Yes, St. Leonid was imprisoned at Solovetski for many years. He died, however, in the arms of strangers in 1935 at Vyatka, not at Solovetski. It is certainly true that many, both Old Rite and Synodal, were imprisoned with him at Solvetski.

I think he having been a student of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy it is safe to say his "home rite" was certainly the Synodal usage. It certainly was during his stay in the Studion. But there is certainly no denying his love and respect for the Old Rite.

It is interesting that his mentor at the Academy blessed his entering into communion with Rome, his mentor having read Soloviev . What is even more interesting is that St. Leonid admittedly didn't read Soloviev much until after he had come into communion with Rome.

The priests serving the small chapel off Nevsky Prospekt where his mother Lyubov Dimitrievna attended Divine Liturgy were both Synodal and Old Rite and did rotate the celebration of those liturgies as mentioned above. The 1905 "ukaz of toleration" had brought some of them out of hiding, some of those desiring union with Rome.

St. Leonid certainly did support, foster, and served when he could for the Old Rite celebrations in St. Petersburg before his moving on to the Studion, Serbia and finally imprisonment and martyrdom. Metropolitan Sheptytsky already in 1935 was sending letters to Rome recommending his beatification cause be advanced.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky was clear in the ukaz of 1917 for the Russian Catholic Synod that both the Old and New Rites could be used, but not intermingled. This was apparently on advice from St. Leonid as well as Eustachy Susalev who were both concerned that the Old Rite would become some sort of liturgical amalgamation with the Synodal.

The letter you mention to the Tsar was supposedly actually written (telegram, actually) by Fr. Eustachy Susalev, the most prominent of the Old Rite Catholic priests. I guess he wanted to make sure his Old Rite folks got some publicity...right up to the Tsar.

Through the prayers of Avakkuum, the martyrs of Solovetski and all those preceding us in the Old Rite, O Lord have mercy on us!

Dear Diak,

I was just wondering, were you ever an Old Believer yourself - or it is that you have a deep interest in their traditions?

I understand that a number of Russian Orthodox New Martyr-Priests were "bi-ritual" in that they served both Niconian and Old Rite parishes (of the Yedinovyertsy).

And also that St Maximus the Greek, although canonized by the Patriarchate of Moscow, was, in his time, favourably disposed to the Old Rite (for which he suffered).

The case of St Anna of Kashin is particularly interesting. The wife of the Prince St Michael, she apparently crossed herself with two fingers and her relics were found with her hand in the Old Rite position for the Sign of the Cross. For this reason, she was the only saint "de-canonized" in Orthodox Church history (but later restored to the Orthodox calendar). The Old Believers, of course, venerated her continuously.

I believe another saint, locally canonized by Pat. Nicon himself when he was a Metropolitan, was also dropped from the calendar because of an icon depicting him about to cross himself with two fingers in the Old Rite manner.

Alex

Dear Alex, it is a very long story but the short of it is many years ago as a college student I very nearly joined a community in the Kenai Peninsula, which was originally in Nikolaevsk. Since then other villages have also sprung up like Razdolna, Voznesenka, and Kachemak Selo on the peninsula. Most of the founders of Nikolaevsk came from Brazil, then Oregon and finally in the Kenai.

Needless to say, I had prepared myself for that for some years prior. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing not going through with it....

Dear Diak,

I guess now we're both just "old Believers!"

Alex

Do you know if in our times there are still Old Believers in communion with the see of Rome? Are there still communities in Russia or the diaspora?

Slava Isusu Krystu!

Dear Diak,

Coming from a RC perspective, could i compare the situation when Pat. Nikon had the litugical changes and some did not accepted that chages where called Old Belivers and etc. with the changes made by the Vatican II to the Roman rite which was rejected by those we call now Traditionalist?

Interesting... could you tell me more of the old practices in the russian church before Pat. Nikon. Like the crossing one's self with two finger, how to they do that? -which fingers and is it from the right shoulder to the left or vise versa?

To face the East,
eumir

Incognitus,

Our Lady of Tikhvin is an active Russian Orthodox Church, not sure which jurisdiction. It's in the community of Mt Angel, OR; it hasn't any connection to the Benedictine Abbey there though.

Many years,

Neil