I find myself in sympathy with the Russian Orthodox ''Old Believers'' - even if to Western eyes, the things they niggle about might seem rather trivial. I used to consider myself a kind of Western ''Old Believer,'' but I later rejected this comparison as inaccurate since I do not consider the Catholic Church (or for that matter, the modern Russian Orthodox Church) to be a church of brigands. In any case, I can understand some of their grievances, since Liturgy is the most important thing for the present life of Men, as it was to our Fathers and will be to our Sons, the Lord's greatest gift.
For those of you who don't know, the Old Believers go back to 17th century Russia, when the Patriarch Nikon revised the Russian liturgical books to bring them into line with the Greek ''originals'' (which later turned out to be older than the contemporary Greek liturgical books, which contained many innovations). This was met with considerable opposition, and many left the established Church, calling themselves Starovjerzi (Old Believers). There were several flash-points: the spelling of the Holy Name (Isus in the old practice, Iisus in the new), instead of saying of the Holy Ghost in the Creed ''true Lord and Lifegiver,'' the modern Slavonic Creed says simply ''Lord and Lifegiver,'' the Sign of the Cross was changed from two fingers (signifying the Two Natures in Christ) to three (signifying the Blessed Trinity), the number of Alleluias and prostrations were reduced etc, etc. As I say, these changes may seem trivial to Western minds, but since the Orthodox are notoriously and very rigidly conservative, to them (or some of them, the Russian Church was pretty autocratic under the Czars and so the vast majority of the Orthodox in Russia just complied out of fear) these changes represented a danger to ''the faith of the Fathers and the Seven General Councils'' (it is the doctrine of the True Church as well as the Orthodox schismatics that doctrinal and liturgical truth interpenetrate, so one can understand the Old Believers from this perspective at least). The Old Believers were cruelly persecuted by the establishment, which just made them wildly fanatical. Over the years, this dwindling group of traditionalists split into sect after sect over all sorts of grievances. Unfortunately, their whole history is too great and depressing to elaborate (even if I knew more than the rudiments of it anyway). A good book to consult on their history is Meyendorff's Russia, Ritual and Reform.
I am currently (among other commitments - I should be doing more Latin) reading Adrian Fortescue's The Orthodox Eastern Church. As with all his work, it's fascinating, but I rather disagree with his assessment of the Old Believers (as I disagreed with his views on the Council of Trent and the abolition of all those Sequences). He gives a list of their alarming sects (such as the Philipovzi, who preach suicide by fire to quicken Christ's Parousia, and the Beguni, who practice fornication rather than marriage), and one is astounded at the extent to which fanaticism and schism can run. He calls them all madmen and pedants (and in the latter cases, certainly they are), but I don't see that he is qualified to dismiss them outright. The Old Believers represent what can sometimes be the hard discrepancy between blind obedience and conscience. I have seen people do some very strange things for obedience's sake...but why? There is obedience and there is obedience. I think St Thomas Aquinas says something like ''obey one's superiors in all things that are not sinful'' (don't quote me on that!); if the Pope ordered you to jump off a bridge, would you do so out of obedience? No; so if the Pope asks you to accept the 1962, 1970/2002 liturgical books, then why do you accept them if you know in your heart that they are faulty?
Incidentally, a humorous footnote in Fortescue reads: ''One advantage of their existence is that they afford unequalled opportunities for the scientific study of lunacy. Russian doctors and psychologists are taking up the matter from this point of view, and they publish most deserving works on the psychology of mind-disease - they have plenty of material to study.'' (Adrian Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, Chapter X, p.302).
I am delighted to see a post about the Old Believers. I have long maintained the view that there are strong parallels between them and Latin Traditionalism. Of course, as far as I know, no Traditionalist has yet been put to death for their beliefs...
ReplyDeletePatriarch Nikon basically imposed the use of sixteenth century Greek praxis on the Russian Church genuinely believing that the Greek books were more authentic and ancient and that the Russian versions had somehow been 'corrupted'. The reality was quite different and the Greeks had made a not incosiderable number of changes whilst the Russians had been extremely conservative over the centuries.
Fortunately there is now much more tolerance towards Old Believers and the Russian Church, since its reconciliation with ROCOR now has one Old Believer bishop, Bishop Daniel.
Fortescue was a fascinating man but didn't always practice what he preached.
Change for the sake of change then Rubricarius? I expect that this is reminiscent of 20th century Catholic liturgical reform - the Pope and his ministers (that is, the guardians not the arbiters of Liturgy) changing things simply because they can. And on what grounds? Making the Liturgy accessable and more in keeping with the ancient Liturgy of the Fathers, blah, blah...Heaven and Earth! Just anachronistic and Protestant tosh the whole business.
ReplyDeleteFortescue was a genius in my opinion, although I disagree with him over many points. His assesment of Old Believer sects is fair enough (those very weird ones, apostates from the Faith), but his treatment of the Old Believers in general was rather harsh. Also, having read the whole chapter on it, I don't think he quite realises that the Greek texts were in fact the innovative ones.
Patricius,
ReplyDeleteThe 'accepted view' used to be that the Russian texts had departed from the 'pristine' editons of the Greeks. Fortescue almost certainly would have shared that view.
Only relatively recently has scholarship challenged and, subsequently overturned the received view. There is no doubt now at all on whose side the innovations were. Paul Meyendorff' book to which you refer is an excellent work for anyone interested in the subject.
A late colleague did some research on my behalf into a custom he had observed in his parish in the USA of casting lighted triple candles into the waters at the Epiphany Great Blessing. It turned out that this practice, preserved by the Ukranian Orthodox he was serving, was actually part of Old Believer praxis.