Penance and the Priestless Old Believers in Modern Russia, 1771–c.1850

Abstract

The epidemic of bubonic plague that spread in Russia between 1770 and 1772, claiming about 100,000 lives, was perceived as a divine punishment by many ordinary Russians. In 1771, Moscow witnessed popular riots, which were partly caused by the unwillingness of ecclesiastical authorities to allow Muscovites to venerate the icon of the Mother of God placed above the St Barbara Gates in the Kremlin and which was believed to have miraculous powers against epidemic. In order to stop the spread of the infection, the Moscow authorities established sanitary cordons around the city. In such an atmosphere of social crisis the Old Believers, a conservative current of Russian religious dissent, articulated popular fears and proposed a solution to these. The Old Believer merchants had received permission from the government to set up quarantine hospitals and cemeteries on the borders of the city. This led to the emergence of two Old Believer centres in Moscow in the suburb of Lefortovo: Rogozhskoe, that belonged to the priestly Old Believers, and Preobrazhenskoe, belonging to a branch of the priestless Old Believers, the Theodosians (fedoseevtsy).