Semeiskiye: How do Russian Old Believers live, who today observe church dogmas of pre-Petrine times

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Nikon's reform, begun in the 1650s, divided the Russian Orthodox world into Old Believers and Renovationists. In 1667, the Old Believers fled and settled on the western outskirts and outside the state, on the territory of the Commonwealth. In 1762, Catherine II issued a decree on the return of the Old Believers. With the help of troops forcibly, as well as promising certain benefits in the new lands, she resettled almost 100,000 schismatics to Altai and Transbaikalia. Far in Siberia, in the Trans-Baikal steppes of Buryatia, to this day there are large villages where Old Believers live compactly. Here they are called Semeyskie.

In 1764, after a grueling journey that lasted 12 months, several tens of thousands of Old Believer families arrived in Buryatia. They became exiles for the church and the state, but it was they who brought the original culture of pre-Petrine Russia to the 21st century. Tarbagatai, Kunalei, Bichura, Mukhorshibir and many other villages are still the places of residence of the Semeys, where they keep the characteristic features of the life, way of life, culture and faith of the first settlers.

The empress pinned great hopes on the schismatics for the development of the endless steppes of Buryatia. And the Semeiskys acquitted them with interest, in 2-3 years huts were grown on the places of settlements, fields, hills were plowed and vegetable gardens were cultivated.

Old Believers are very hardworking, practical, tight-fisted, and clean. Their rapid adaptation to the harsh Siberian conditions was facilitated by the fact that they are able to perceive and borrow the good and progressive that other peoples have.

Relations with the local population were difficult at first. The Buryats have long used the best lands for pastures for sheep and horses. According to church canons, the Old Believers were forbidden to have close contact with the Gentiles. At first, they went out to plow the land in whole detachments, but gradually they established close economic relations with the Buryats. The Old Believers rented land from the Buryats, they grazed the cattle of the Old Believers, the Semeiskie paid for everything with bread and vegetables.

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The Old Believers have preserved many of the dogmas of the Orthodox Church of pre-Petrine times. This is an eight-pointed cross, and the performance of bows to the ground, and the procession of the cross is done clockwise. The Old Believers' icons are wooden and are not restored, but kept with special care. The Semeyskie sign the sign of the Cross with two fingers. The big, nameless and little finger are connected, personifying the Holy Trinity. The other two fingers - the index and the slightly inclined middle, mean a person and gentlemen, who descended from heaven and became human. The Old Believers reflect the nature of Christ with a sign, and they write his name: "Jesus". Both large and infants are baptized in a full immersion font.

A unique feature is the style of Semeiski chants, which traces its history from ancient times from church hook singing. It was forbidden during the schism, but the Old Believers carefully preserved the traditions and transferred this manner of chanting to the secular vocal culture. On the territory of modern Buryatia, in almost every village where Old Believers live, there are folklore ensembles and choirs, there are about two dozen of them. Hook singing is classified by UNESCO as a masterpiece of spiritual and intangible heritage. Semeiski songs are ballads about love, about life. They include up to 150 verses, and one word, one syllable can be stratified into several. The unique polyphony of Semeiski is similar to their costumes, where brightness and a feast of colors spills over the satin, sways and flows from color to color. The song flows, breaking up into many variations and merging into a polyphonic chant. Behind the melodic repetition of phrases, breaks of words, the song expands and becomes more complex. Not a bitter lot and a complaint about fate, but a mighty will and a thirst for life helped to lay down and then preserve unique chants to this day.

Do not drink, do not fornicate, do not smoke, but work a lot - these are the rules the Old Believers adhered to in life. Among the Semeiski schismatics, there were two directions or two strains: clericalism and non-popovism. In the first direction, the so-called runaway priests celebrated all the sacraments of the Church. They were called fugitives because these clergymen were originally ordained in the New Rite Church and then returned to Old Orthodoxy. The Old Believers had no bishops left to ordain new ministers of the church.

Some of the schismatics, there were very few of them among the Semeiskiye, adhered to non-priesthood, that is, they performed the rituals on their own, since they believed that the true clergy had been exiled.

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During Soviet rule, many Old Believer priests were destroyed, and a large mass of Old Believer peasants were dispossessed, since their farms were always strong, but not through the use of hired laborers, but at the expense of numerous hard-working family members.

With the preservation of many rituals, household and family ways, in the second half of the last century, the secularization of the Old Believers gradually took place. Televisions, computers, the Internet have appeared in homes, people now use pharmacy medicines, despite the fact that paternal regulations on the prohibition of these benefits of civilization have not been canceled by anyone.

At present, the Old Believers have complete religious freedom, and the Russian Orthodox Church has also removed the oaths from the old rites, recognizing them. Today Semeiskie are the rarest original ethnographic cultural monument of pre-Petrine Russia.

And in continuation of the theme, a story about Old Believer monasteries of Altai from Nikon's reforms to the present day.