The Holy Orthodox Church has no room for racial or ethnic hatred, least of all against the Jews, to whom were first entrusted the oracles of God (Romans 3:2). It is therefore necessary to make a firm and public declaration—antisemitism, in any form, is wholly alien to the mind of the Church, and especially repugnant to the Old Believers, who are the last steadfast confessors of pre-Nikonian Orthodoxy. Those who speak with malice against the Jewish people, either from ignorance or from dark passions, have fallen away from Apostolic teaching and risk the judgement of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Articles
The Importance of Preserving Our Sacred Texts
We stand as the guardians of a sacred inheritance. Our Scriptures, our liturgical books, and the sacred manuscripts passed down from our holy forefathers are not curiosities to be stored away, nor museum pieces to be admired from afar. They are living witnesses. They are the written memory of the true Church, preserved without adulteration, bearing the breath of the Holy Spirit, and soaked in the tears and blood of those who refused to bow to innovation and apostasy.
When those under the leadership of Patriarch Nikon, supported by the iron fist of Tsarist absolutism, began to tamper with the very texts that had nourished the Russian Church for centuries, they did not undertake a scholarly correction—they committed treason against the Apostolic Tradition. Their revisions were not innocent clarifications, but mutilations of the sacred. They touched what no man has the right to touch—the prayers of the saints, the chants of the divine offices, and the Holy Scriptures themselves. “Remove not the old landmarks, which thy fathers placed” (Proverbs 22:28, Brenton LXX), the Word of God declares. But these innovators, filled not with zeal for truth but with ambition and impiety, set their hands against the landmarks that our fathers set with blood, fasting, and tears.
True Unity Is Not Possible Without Conversion
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” — 2 Corinthians 6:14
The world speaks much of “unity.” In the ecclesiastical sphere, that term has been stretched, distorted, and perverted to the point of losing all meaning. The heterodox speak of “visible unity” without doctrine, “reconciliation” without repentance, and “communion” without confession of truth. Protestants, in particular, have pushed forward an idea of Christianity unmoored from any hierarchy, sacrament, or Holy Tradition. The Roman Catholic Church is headed in the same direction. Yet they still desire to be called part of the one Church, even while denying what the Church has always confessed and practised.
The Seven Sacraments of the Old Believer Church
The Seven Sacraments (or Mysteries, as the ancient Church rightly terms them) are the lifeblood of the Holy Church of Christ. They are not symbols, nor are they optional. They are divine acts instituted by our Lord and preserved by the Apostles, the Fathers, and the unbroken Orthodox Tradition. The Old Believer Church, holding to the unaltered rites and teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church prior to the schism of the 17th century, safeguards these Mysteries with strict fidelity, without adulteration by modernist reinterpretation or Western theological rationalism.
The Church is not a human organisation. She is the Body of Christ, and through the Sacraments, that Body is nourished, cleansed, healed, united, and made fruitful.
Did the Greek Orthodox or Catholic Church Cause the Old Believer Schism?
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 Deadly Poison of Pornography
Brethren, it is with grave concern and a heavy heart that I write to you on the destructive and soul-corrupting vice of pornography. This plague, born of modern godlessness, is a direct assault on the purity of the human heart, created by God for holiness and righteousness. The Old Church, which we have inherited through blood and martyrdom, has no place for such filth.
Pornography is not simply a sin among many. It is a rebellion against the very order of creation itself, a blasphemy against the wisdom of God. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, crowned with glory and honour, called to communion with the Divine. The human body is not a vessel for lust and degradation; it is a sacred dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle testifies: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). To defile the body with lustful images, to abuse the sacred powers of sight and thought for wickedness, is to desecrate the temple of God Himself. This is not a private sin. It is an open insult to the Creator. The Bible is unwavering in its judgment. We read: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17). The penalty for this desecration is not a slap on the wrist. It is destruction. Eternal separation from God. Eternal torment. Those who indulge in such abominations and do not repent will not inherit the Kingdom of God. This is not a matter for debate. This is not a matter for nuance. The holy canons, the sacred tradition, and the Scriptures themselves declare it without hesitation.
Against the Godless Abuse of Forcing Children to Change Their Gender
In these wicked days, the spirit of antichrist is at work among the nations, as it was foretold by the Apostle: “Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18). Chief among the abominations of this era is the assault upon God’s sacred creation of male and female, and the perverse forcing of children to deny the gender that God has ordained for them. Such evil is not simply error; it is rebellion against the Creator, an attempt to undo His handiwork.
From the beginning, Scripture is clear. We read: “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). There is no ambiguity here. The division of humanity into male and female is not an accident, not a mistake, not a prison, but a holy decree of God Himself. Those who tamper with this decree are setting themselves against the Most High. They mimic the rebellion of Lucifer, who said, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:13).
What Role Does the Hieromonk Have among Old Believers?
The office of Hieromonk—a monk who is also an ordained priest—developed organically in the early centuries of the Church. It is not a later invention or an innovation, but a natural consequence of monastic and ecclesiastical life intersecting. The term itself derives from Greek: ἱερομόναχος (hieromónachos), from hieros (sacred) and monachos (monk). It refers to a monk who, having maintained the monastic discipline, is also elevated to the priesthood, often to serve the sacramental needs of his monastic brotherhood or surrounding laity.
The origins trace back to the Egyptian desert in the third and fourth centuries. The earliest monastics—such as St Anthony the Great and St Pachomius—were not priests. In fact, early monasticism was suspicious of clerical ambition. Yet as monastic communities grew, there was a practical need for priests within monasteries, especially in cenobitic communities.
Aerial Tollhouses
The doctrine of the aerial tollhouses (мытарства) is a traditional Orthodox teaching, especially preserved among the Old Believers, the Russian Orthodox Church, and also within Greek patristic sources. It concerns the soul’s journey after death, specifically its passage through a series of demonic “tollhouses” where the sins of the soul are tested and judged.
According to this teaching, immediately after death, the soul undergoes a forty-day journey. During this period, it encounters demonic spirits at various stations (the tollhouses), each one testing the soul regarding specific types of sins: slander, pride, greed, fornication, heresy, and so forth. If the soul has not repented of these sins and does not have the protection of its good deeds, prayers, and divine mercy, it risks being seized by demons and cast into Hades.
The Old Believers and the Christology of the Non-Chalcedonian Sects
The Old Believers, who have remained steadfast in the pre-Nikonian Orthodox tradition, uphold the full and unbroken confession of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Among these, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451 A.D., is a cornerstone in the Orthodox confession of the Person of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this paper is to present the position of the Old Believers regarding the Christology of the non-Chalcedonian sects, namely the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopian churches.
The Definition of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon issued a Christological definition that preserved the Apostolic faith—Jesus Christ is to be “acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” Each phrase was chosen with precision to counter the errors threatening the Church—”without confusion” opposed the blending of divine and human into a hybrid nature; “without change” affirmed the immutability of the divine nature; “without division” and “without separation” upheld the unity of Christ’s Person. This confession safeguarded the full divinity and full humanity of Christ. The Fathers of Chalcedon did not invent new doctrine but clarified what had always been believed in the Church from the beginning, especially in the face of the Eutychian heresy, which blurred the distinction between Christ’s two natures, creating a false composite nature.