When discussing the history of the Russian Old Believers and the violent schism that tore through the Russian Church in the 17th century, many outsiders hastily place the blame on the broader structures of Orthodoxy or Rome. This is a historical error and a theological misdirection. The ones who unleashed fire, blood, exile, and anathematisation upon the pious defenders of ancient Orthodoxy were not the Greeks nor the Latins. It was not the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor the Papacy in Rome, who stormed our churches and burned our martyrs. It was the Nikonians — the reformist faction within the Russian Church, backed by Tsarist power, who sought to replace the inherited piety of the Russian land with innovations that were neither necessary nor holy.
The Greek Orthodox Church, while consulted by the Nikonians, did not orchestrate or carry out the persecution. Their role was advisory at best, and that advice was clouded by the decline of their own ecclesiastical integrity under the Ottomans. They had neither the power nor the local authority in Russia to implement persecutions. Likewise, the Roman Catholic Church had no jurisdiction or influence in the internal affairs of the Russian Church during the time of Patriarch Nikon. In fact, the Roman Pontiff was entirely irrelevant to this particular chapter of history. The persecutions were not a product of Latin meddling, but of Russian apostasy.
The roots of the schism lie in the reforms of Patriarch Nikon (1605–1681), whose overreach and pride caused incalculable damage to the Russian Church. He accused those who followed the inherited rites — including the two-fingered Sign of the Cross, the double “hallelujah,” and the liturgical texts handed down through centuries — of heresy. In doing so, he positioned himself not as a humble patriarch safeguarding the deposit of faith, but as a man seeking to conform Holy Russia to foreign norms. He did not preserve; he mutilated. When the defenders of the true rites refused to comply with Nikon’s innovations, they were anathematised. Many were tortured, imprisoned, or executed. Saint Avvakum, the great confessor and martyr, was burned alive in 1682 for his unwavering fidelity to the Orthodox Faith as handed down before the reforms. These actions were not ordered by Constantinople. They were not endorsed by Rome. They were decreed by a local Russian council and carried out by Russian authorities, both ecclesiastical and secular. The persecution of the Old Believers was heavily politically motivated. While it was cloaked in theological language, the real engine behind it was the desire of the Russian state to centralise authority — both secular and ecclesiastical — under the Tsar and a compliant, unified Church.
Patriarch Nikon’s reforms were not born in a vacuum. They coincided with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich’s broader project to consolidate control over the Russian people. A diverse Church, with divergent liturgical customs and strong lay confraternities, posed a threat to central authority. The Old Rite, deeply embedded in Russian life, represented a force independent of both state and ecclesiastical reformers. It preserved a memory of piety that predated imperial ambitions. When the Old Believers refused the reforms, they were not just seen as liturgical dissenters but as political subversives. The state viewed their resistance as rebellion against the Tsar’s authority. That is why the persecution was so severe — not because of ritual differences, but because the Old Believers were seen as a threat to political unity. The same Tsardom that claimed to protect Orthodoxy turned against it when it would not bend to its will. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The Old Believers live by this truth. The state, on the other hand, sought not Christ but control.
To accuse the Greek Orthodox Church of being the chief persecutor of the Old Believers is inaccurate. Some Greek bishops endorsed Nikon’s reforms as being more aligned with Greek practice, but endorsement is not enforcement. They did not ride into Russia with swords and fetters. They did not build the prisons where Old Believers languished or strike the matches that lit the fires of martyrdom. That was done by Russians against Russians — Nikonians against the faithful.
Rome, for its part, was entirely external to the dispute. The Latin church had neither sympathy nor concern for the internal liturgical traditions of Russia. If anything, they looked upon the schism with opportunism, hoping to convert disillusioned Orthodox into Papal obedience. Yet even they cannot be called the source of our suffering.
When we speak of Latinising influences in the context of Nikon’s reforms, we are not speaking directly of Rome or the Papacy. The Latinisation present in 17th-century Russia was not the result of Roman Catholic missionary efforts or Papal decrees infiltrating the Russian Church. Rather, it was a by-product of indirect Western influence, often filtered through the Greek Orthodox clergy who had themselves been influenced by Latin scholasticism and Jesuit educational methods. By the time of Nikon, many Greek theologians—especially those involved in theological education—had studied in Western Europe or had been catechised in schools operated by Jesuits. They had absorbed Latin scholastic categories and often looked to Rome for methodological inspiration, if not doctrinal agreement. This led to a shift in tone and spirit among many Greek hierarchs, who began to prioritise uniformity of external rite and intellectual systematisation over the spiritual inheritance of the Fathers.
When Nikon invited Greek scholars to examine the Russian service books, he was not importing Roman Catholic doctrine wholesale, but rather a Hellenised version of Latin theological norms. The Greeks had, in some cases, already capitulated to certain Latin habits of thought and worship. It is these distortions — born from captivity, not from communion — that bled into Nikon’s reforms.
Rome was not the origin of the reforms, but the spirit of the reforms bore Latin traits — a preoccupation with precision, a preference for textual uniformity, and an excessive concern for aligning ritual form with “correct” structure — a mentality foreign to the organic and patristic spirituality of the Russian Church. It was not Rome herself who imposed these changes. Ultimately it was Russians who betrayed their own heritage.
The true guilt lies with the Nikonians, whose betrayal of tradition mirrors the iconoclasts of old. Just as the iconoclast emperors of Byzantium destroyed holy images and defiled the faith handed down from the Fathers, so the Nikonians burned our prayer books, mocked our customs, and slew our saints. They defamed centuries of Russian piety by calling it error. They bowed to foreign influence while branding fidelity as rebellion. The persecution of the Old Believers was systemic, deliberate, and ruthless. It was conducted under the false cloak of unity, while in reality destroying the spiritual unity that had existed in Russia for centuries. The Church before Nikon was not fragmented. It was not heretical. It was Orthodox in the deepest and truest sense. It was faithful to the inherited tradition, to the Church Fathers, to the Russian saints, to the ancient customs that had sanctified generations of believers.
The Book of Jeremiah warns us to “stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.'” (Jeremiah 6:16). The Nikonians refused the ancient paths. They set fire to the signposts and mocked those who refused to follow their new road.
The Old Believers were not crushed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor by Rome. Our enemies were in our own house. It was the Nikonians — Russians in name but unfaithful in spirit — who became the persecutors of the true Orthodox. They sacrificed the faith of our fathers on the altar of foreign conformity and Tsarist pride. We remain the inheritors of the true Russian Orthodox tradition, faithful not to men, but to the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). The blood of our martyrs still cries out from the earth — not against foreigners, but against those who should have been our brothers.
Many Old Believers today hold to a position that reflects both fidelity to the Gospel and steadfastness to the inheritance of true Orthodoxy. Forgiveness is not optional for Christians; it is a command of our Lord. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). The blood of our martyrs cries out, but not for vengeance — it cries for remembrance, for integrity, and for faithfulness. Thus we express forgiveness without naivety, reconciliation without compromise. The sin of the Nikonians was not only violent, but systematic — an attempt to erase the very expression of Orthodoxy that sanctified Russia for centuries. That sin has not been formally repented of in full by the official Russian Orthodox Church. A statement was made by the ROC in 1971, but it was merely to lift the anathemas against the Old Believers. The Russian Orthodox Church still requires Old Believers to bow to their hierarchs. Yet, we do not hate. We do not seek revenge. We carry the Cross as our fathers did — patiently, prayerfully, and without deceit.
The Edinoverie (единоверие, “unity in faith”) arrangement was a policy of the Russian Orthodox Church, beginning in the late 18th century, to bring certain Old Believer communities back into communion with the official Church—but on the condition that they could retain the pre-Nikonian rites and liturgical practices which they had preserved since the time before Patriarch Nikon’s reforms in the mid-17th century. It was a compromise, not a reconciliation. While it is an imperfect plan, it is a step toward recognising that the Old Rite is not heresy but genuine Orthodox inheritance. We have not abandoned the two-fingered Sign of the Cross, nor the ancient chants, nor the customs of our saints. We have remained faithful in practice while extending a cautious hand toward our former persecutors. If Old Believers hold the line and do not bend to synodal conformity, they can be partners in the larger work of defending true Orthodoxy. Many Old Believer communities reject the Edinoverie arrangement outright, recognising it as a betrayal of our martyr heritage. However, we need to make it clcear that true communion is not political agreement or shared jurisdiction. It is unity in truth, not sentiment. We must remember what was done, not to stir hatred, but to guard against forgetfulness. Forgiveness without memory is false. As the Prophet Isaiah says, “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 46:9). Memory is not resentment. It is vigilance. We can cooperate with Edinoverie believers, provided they remain faithful to the Old Rite in deed and in heart. At the same time, we do not dilute our inheritance. We do not concede. We forgive the Nikonians, but we do not follow them.
Let the Church of the Old Rite stand as it always has — not in bitterness, but in truth. We have forgiven those who wronged us, but we do not enter into false unity built on silence or forgetfulness. We do not return to the structures that anathematised our saints, burned our books, and declared our faithfulness to be rebellion. We know who we are. We are not rebels. We are the confessors. We are not schismatics. We are the keepers of the faith that the reformers betrayed. If others, like the Edinoverie, wish to remain faithful to the holy traditions of old while striving for peace within the larger body, let them do so without surrender. We will work beside them where we can, and pray for them where we cannot. But as for us, we stand where our fathers stood — under the Cross, beside the Gospel, with the two-fingered Sign, and with the books for which they gave their lives.
Let no man deceive you — compromise is not reconciliation. Silence is not peace. Unity without truth is delusion. But if any seek the path of repentance, if any desire to walk in the way of the saints, we will receive them as brethren. Yet we will not move. The inheritance is not ours to change.
Let the world do as it will. We shall remain faithful.
— Fr. Charles