Russia, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers

by Unknown

From the Established Church of the State, the Church of the few in the North, let us turn to the old faith, the Church of the many. The Old Believers, Raskolniks, or dissenters, are indeed a numerous, although officially an uncounted, body in the North; half the trade of Moscow, most of that which is Russian at all, in the Port of Archangel, all the Pomor shipping lies in their hands.

The word Raskolnik means, literally, one who splits asunder, and that is just what the Old Believer is—one who has split off from the Orthodox Church.

Two hundred and fifty years ago Nikon, a friar of Solovetsk, an island monastery in the White Sea, having quarrelled alike with equal and superior, was set adrift in an open boat; he reached the mainland at Ki, a small cape in Onega Bay, wandered southward to Olonets, where he got together a band of followers, proceeded to Moscow, obtained the notice of the throne, got preferment, was soon made Patriarch. He ruled with an iron hand, made many enemies, and when at last he obtained from Mount Santo, in Roumelia, authentic Greek Church-service books, and, having had them translated into Sclavonic, forced their use upon the Church, with the aid of the Tsar Alexis, in the place of those previously in use, the revolt began in earnest. In addition to the altered service book, Nikon introduced a cross with but two beams, a new stamp for the holy wafer, a different way of holding the fingers in pronouncing the blessing, and a new way of spelling the name Jesus, to which the Church was unaccustomed. In each of these changes Nikon and his party really wished to go back to older and purer forms of Greek ritual, but many resisted the alterations, believing them to be innovations.

Such was the beginning of Raskol; the end is not yet. Those who could not accept these reforms, or returns to older forms, took up the name of "Staro-obriadtsi," or Old Believers, holding that theirs was indeed the true old faith of their fathers. For them began, in very truth a hard time; a time which has left its mark most clearly upon their descendants to-day. Excommunicated and persecuted under Alexis and Peter I., they were driven in thousands from their village homes to seek refuge where they could, in forest, mountain or island; a party reaching in the year 1767, even to Kolgueff Island, where, as might be expected, they perished during the following year from scurvy. To these brave bands of Old Believers, setting forth under their banner of the "Eight-ended Cross," to find new homes beyond the reach of persecution, is, in large part, due the colonization of the huge province of Archangel and the northern portion of Siberia. That it was not always easy for the Raskolnik to get beyond the range of official persecutions is shown by many an old "ukas," and by many an old entry in the books of far-distant communes. Farther north and farther east, from forest to tundra and Steppe were they driven, spreading as they went their Russian nationality over regions Asiatic; as exiles they settled among Polish Romanists, Baltic Protestants, and Caucasian Mussulmans, and with the heathen Lapp and Samoyede, and Ostiac, on the Murman coast of Russian Lapland, in the bleak Northern tundra, on the Petchora, and away beyond the Ural Spur, they found at last the rest they sought.

Their most dangerous enemy was not, however, the persecution of the dominant Church; they had placed themselves geographically beyond the reach of that: far more dangerous was further Raskol—splitting—among themselves, and it was not long before this overtook them. Cut off by their own faith, as well by excommunication, from the Orthodox Church, the supply of consecrated priests soon gave out; they had lost their apostolic succession and could not renew it, for the one Bishop—Paul of Kalomna—who had joined them, had died in prison, without appointing a successor. Without an episcopate they were soon without a priesthood; and the vital question, "How shall we get priests and through them Sacraments?" was answered in two ways, and according to the answer, so were the Old Believers divided into two main sects. One sect declared that, as there were no longer faithful priests, they were cut off from all the Sacraments except Baptism, which could be administered by laymen. These "Bespopoftsi," or priestless people, were unable to marry; and to this—in a land where the economic unit, is not man, but man and wife, where the ties of family life are so strong—was due their further splitting.

In 1846, however, they persuaded an outcast bishop to join their ranks, and founded a See at Bielokrinitzkaga, in Austrian Bukovina, beyond the Russian Empire; from thence the succession was handed down, and now after long decades of waiting, they have bishops and priests of their own.

The practice of hiring a priest from the Orthodox Church, to conduct a service for the Old Believers, is still very common in the far North, where all villages have not the means to keep a "Pope" of their own; and many an Orthodox clergyman thus adds considerably to his precarious income by officiating for those whom his great-grandfathers excommunicated as heretics; indeed, the Government now encourages this practice, and has made some attempt to heal up the schism by allowing its priests to adopt, to a slight extent, the old customs in villages where all the inhabitants are Raskolniks. This can the more readily be understood when it is remembered that the Old Believers hold in all essential points the same creed as the Orthodox; they are—and their name implies—believers in the old faith of the Russian branch of the Greek Church, as expressed since the day of St. Vladimir until the Seventeenth Century, but not in the so-called innovations of Nikon. The points of difference are so small that it seems impossible a Church should by them have been cleft in twain. The Orthodox sign the Cross with three fingers extended, the dissenters with two, holding that the two raised fingers indicate the dual nature of Christ, while the three bent ones represent the Trinity. It does not seem to have occurred to either party that the reverse holds true as well. The Orthodox Cross has but two beams, while that of the Raskolnik has four, and is made of four woods—cypress, cedar, palm, and olive; the latter, too, repeats his Allelujah thrice, the Orthodox but twice. Such are the points to which in all probability, the peopling of the outlying portions of the Empire of the Tsars is due.

The Raskolniks have set a far higher value upon education than the Orthodox; the instruction given in their settlements often sheds a strong light upon the darkness of Orthodox ignorance around, and with the spread of education so does the sect extend and multiply. Their house can generally be distinguished by cleanliness, the presence of many Eicons, brass and silver crosses, and ancient books; its mistress by her greater thoughtfulness and capability. Old Believers are always glad to seize the opportunity, given so well by the long northern winter, with its almost endless night, of reading, and on their shelves are seen translations of our best authors, from whom, perhaps, it is that they have taken their advanced political views, and the outcome of whose perusal is that the hunter and fisherman will often propound to one questions which show a mind well trained in logical thought. The Raskolnik is generally fairly well to do, for, like the Quaker and the Puritan, he finds a turn for business not incompatible with religious exercise, and to this is in part due the superiority and comfort of their homes. Most of them in the far North are fishers and hunters, sealers and sailors, and in these and kindred trades they make use of better and more modern appliances than their neighbours, and so generally realize more for their commodities.

Far from civilization, in the impenetrable forests of the great lone land of Archangel, the fugitive Raskolniks were able to found retreats for themselves, untroubled and unobserved; these refuges still exist, and are called "Obitel" or cells. In the district of Mezen there are many such establishments, both for men and women; among the former the Anuphief Hermitage, or cells of Koida, stand in a splendid position, on the banks of both lake and river Koida, some 100 versts in summer by river, and 50 in winter, over ice, from the town of that name.

On Nonconformist, as on Orthodox, is laid the burden of severe fasting; as Master Chancellour tells us, in 1553, "This people hath four Lents,"—indeed, the eating working year is reduced to some 130 days. In the North, where vegetables and berries are few and fruit non-existent, the Mujik is left to fast on "treska," rotten codfish—and the condition of the man who begins Lent underfed is indeed pitiable when he ends it. The endurance of the Old Believer is marvellous; no offer of food will tempt him from what he considers his duty.